Early one morning at the Pier Head . . .

FoHP at St Leonards Festival, Saturday 30th June

FoHP has been offered a space at The St Leonards Festival

Look out for the Red and Yellow lifebelt logo.

Volunteers will be around all day, 11 am (12 noon?) to 6 pm, to talk to you all and will endeavour to answer your questions.

We will be giving away Hastings Pier Badges so pop along and pick one up.

Buggy ride - £1 a time

Lovely day to be on the Pier - if only! But....

....FOHP Trust is now incorporated as a company limited by guarantee. Company number 11383651
The current directors are: James Chang, Lesley Davis, Jess Steele, Adam Wide.
We plan to hold an election for new directors within the next 3-6 months. All FOHP members will be eligible to stand for election and to vote for directors.
The role of the FOHP Trust as a limited company is to be in position to hold assets, sign contracts, etc which the wider unincorporated association could not do. The job of the directors is to uphold the principles developed at the first meeting on 3rd Feb and voted on by 500 people at the Public Meeting on 23rd April. There is plenty of scope for other kinds of volunteer support, as shown throughout the campaign so far.

If you Crowdfunded, you should have received notification by now of the impending refund.

Photos from the Volunteer Emeritus, from HPWRT days to Friday, 15th June 2018

 

I was there for the gates opening!

                       
I was there for the yarn bombing       I was there for Pirate Day

                                                                  I was there for the concert

I was there for the barnacle scraping

                                                                    And I was there for the Protest March       

I was officially first on the Carousel!

Sorry all - apparently now closed until Monday.

and The Hub will be no more after the weekend!

The Hub, our temporary visitor centre in the old White Rocks Baths entrance building, has been busy with visitors and events over the first part of the summer. We have had several visits from pupils from Christ Church Primary School in St. Leonards who have been piloting some schools sessions for us. If you are a teacher look out in the autumn for more details of these and how you can get involved.

The Hub also played host last month to a repeat talk about the musical history of the pier. Lots of you have also been contributing your memories of music on the pier by adding to our display of old singles. If you have an ephemera from concerts on the pier, such as tickets or posters, our archive group would love to see them. They meet every Wednesday in the Hub from  11.30am - 12.30pm. If you can't make Wednesday mornings leave your items with one of our Hub Interpretation team and we can return the items to you.

Friends of Hastings Pier....

..... are formally requesting a meeting with Mr Gulzar to raise their concerns and to explore ways of working together to achieve objectives that are mutually beneficial - a Pier whose future is safeguarded and that works for the community that rebuilt it.

If you are want to be kept in the loop, and are not already on the mailing list, please send your details to FriendsofHastingsPier@gmail.com

The new owner of Hastings Pier Mr. Abid Gulzar said the popular landmark will reopen on Friday – a week after he completed his purchase.

So you can watch the Bottle Alley lights then!
Read more at: https://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/news/business/video-new-owner-discusses-plans-for-hastings-pier-1-8539297

ALSO

The new owner of Hastings Pier, Mr. Abid Gulzar, told the town’s MP he would ‘never charge’ for entrance and is ‘eager to engage with the community’ in a meeting on Monday (June 18).

Read more at: https://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/news/new-pier-owner-says-he-will-never-charge-for-entrance-says-mp-1-8539222

The question of dogs still seems a bit fuddled

Bottle Alley Light show - later time!

Seen from the "People's" Pier

The lights are on every evening at dusk, with a 10 minute light 'show' at 10pm Saturday - Thursday and an extended 30 minute 'show' at 10pm on Friday. 

*Please note the times of the 'shows' alter throughout the year, according to when it is dark.

And what now?

It’s crucial to remember that the pier project was always phased. 

Phase 1 (mainly HLF-funded) aimed for stable ownership, a stable platform, and an interim business plan that would tick over while investment was found for Phase 2 which would fully revitalise the pier.

Phase 1 has created a beautifully renovated, Stirling prize-winning pier. 

Phase 2 appeared to have been forgotten, but under FoHP's plans and the help of dRMM was back on the agenda.

FoHP Proposal in brief.

While all our plans have been available online as they developed, the final proposal that we put to the Administrators is not, because it contains genuinely confidential commercial information. In brief, it was a co-investing shared venture between FOHP Trust and a commercial operator, backed with £750k of guaranteed finance, alongside current funding bids or approaches from funders totalling £450k, with dRMM contributing £60-90k of design work, plus a comprehensive funding search by an Institute of Fundraisers expert showing we could ‘absolutely’ raise £1.6M capital to achieve and open a permanent building within 3 years. We could start straight away – dRMM had pulled an all-nighter for us and designed a beautiful but simple and cheap temporary structure.

In terms of operational capacity not only were we committed to working with the current team of staff and volunteers who have done so much to make this season a success so far, but our operator partner would bring in additional expertise and experienced staff to fill gaps and cope with a step-change in visitor numbers. The first thing we promised to do was actually count footfall – there is literally no data about how many people have been on the pier, let alone intelligence about who they were or what they thought.

Our approach, of course, made a full and undoubted commitment to prioritise maintenance and to sustain the in-house engineering team which holds the crucial ‘corporate memory’ of the pier.

To top all that.......we offered to pay a purchase price of £55k.  Without seeing the plans of others none of us can be categorically sure that it was the best option but it set a pretty high bar…

We want to know........

"Why have the Heritage Lottery Fund sold Hastings Pier?" 
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/why-have-the-heritage-lottery-fund-sold-hastings-pier

An award winning pier rebuilt with £12m of public money is flogged off to a private owner for peanuts

FOHP responded to the sale:

This decision was made despite our final bid being better in every way – a higher purchase price, a co-investing partnership between the community and an experienced and committed commercial operator, clear and transparent plans for immediate, transition and long term redevelopment, and an absolute commitment to good maintenance forever. We are devastated but we are also furious. Why would the administrators mess us about leading us to believe we have time and the chance to buy the pier if we haven’t? Everyone is very upset. We now have a lot of questions about how this was handled.

https://www.thecanary.co/uk/2018/06/17/an-award-winning-pier-rebuilt-with-12m-of-public-money-is-flogged-off-to-a-private-owner-for-peanuts/

They didn't turn up -

 but the sale of the People's Pier to Mr. Abid Gulzar has now been announced.

Good night, and thank you for reading.

Administrators on Pier this afternoon, 4.30 - 5.30

Plan to sell Hastings pier to entrepreneur angers locals

Group has raised majority of £500,000 target to keep pier in community ownership.............................

...............

The Hastings campaigners have raised through crowdfunding more than £440,000 [£463,266 at 12.48 today] of a £500,000 target and had understood they would be given enough time to find the rest, but they were told Gulzar had an “agreement in principle” for the purchase.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jun/14/plan-to-sell-hastings-pier-to-entrepreneur-angers-locals

Message from Jess Steele

Unsung Heroes of the Pier–21st May 2016

Oh what a night!  My heart burst this evening to be on the pier with lots of people, including Hastings best musicians, out at short notice, all there because they feel they have to be with the pier in times of crisis.  Thx to Dan Matthews for being bold and doing what his conscience told him to do.
There were memories (shared with Lesley Davis and Archie Lauchlan) of the days after the fire... But that's not where we are. I've said it before: we have a beautiful renovated pier, an iconic, totemic, symbolic People's Pier. 
It needs to take the next steps. That will be best done (I believe) through a partnership between commercial acumen and community roots. And that's what we will put on the Administrator's table by 12 noon tomorrow. 
We are in process of agreeing terms with a commercial operator partner/investor and that will include part or full freehold ownership by Friends of Hastings Pier. 
Now we've got to get on with writing it up, ready for the lawyers (the wonderful Anthony Collins Solicitors who are giving their time pro bono) first thing in the morning. 
It's really important that we hit the Crowdfunder target not by noon tomorrow but asap. Please share it. Tell your friends how much you donated and why - they are likely to match you. STAY HOPEFUL, STAY WITH THE PIER.

On tenderhooks! (Or is it tenterhooks!)

Crowdfunder going up steadily+ + +

Bless you all

Hang in there, living in hope.

YOU CAN HELP!
Please donate NOW
at https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/fohp2018/

NOT the end of the Pier Show - we have until 12 noon tomorrow!

YOU CAN HELP!
Please donate NOW
at https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/fohp2018/

And thank you so very much

Rumour of Hastings Pier sale sparks protest gig Hastings and St. Leonards Observer Employees of Hastings Pier will be holding a protest against rumours Hasting Pier will be sold to Sheikh Abid Gulzar from Eastbourne Pier.
	Protest planned over pier rumours Eastbourne Herald Rumours that Eastbourne Pier owner Abid Gulzar has bought neighbouring Hastings Pier has sparked a protest due to take place tonight ...

To be or not to be/ The end of the Pier Show! 6PM tonight

It has come to our attention that Hastings Pier is likely to be sold to Sheikh Gulzar from Eastbourne Pier either tomorrow or Friday. 

As employees of Hastings Pier, we have remained neutral over the past eight months, as we've trusted that the Heritage Lottery Fund and Administrators will do the right thing for the Pier's future. But faced with the reality that an asset which was saved with £15.2 million of public money will be sold to a private entrepreneur with no public consultation, we have no choice but to speak up. 

So we will be holding a protest gig on the Pier from 6.00PM TONIGHT - we invite everyone who cares about this issue to come and make your voice heard - GIVE THE FRIENDS OF HASTINGS PIER MORE TIME!

The Friends of Hastings Pier are currently in conversations with world class operators, with the proposition of making a collaborative bid. We know the Pier hasn't been working. We know that things need to change and improve - we need a building, we need a budget, but we have a plan and if we're given time and investment we believe we can turn Hastings Pier into the icon the town deserves. They need somewhere between a few days and a couple of weeks - surely this is worth waiting for. 

MUSIC CONFIRMED SO FAR
Los Twangueros
KING SIZE SLIM
MightySounds

Hastings pier is a beautiful reincarnation of a Victorian extravaganza,........

 ...........a 21st century reimagining of one of the most familiar playthings of the seaside culture of a century ago.

This ambitious project in heritage regeneration and civic engagement ran out of money and went into administration.

The outlook is tough, but it is not beyond hope.

And its revival should be a matter of national concern not only for the pier itself, but for what it stands for: a model of what can be achieved through the efforts of civil society.

Hastings pier ran into cashflow trouble when faced with unexpectedly high insurance and maintenance costs.

The pier would not have won the grant [HLF] had it not shown that it was competent to manage it. Risk assessments and business plans come as prerequisites. It had to fulfil undertakings about community engagement and local fundraising.

The HLF has no mandate to support the project’s running costs or to help it to grow into a resilient and sustainable organisation over the long term .
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/10/the-guardian-view-on-hastings-pier-in-need-of-support

And therein lies one of the problems, grants seldom, if ever, come with sustainable funding.

YOU CAN HELP!
Please donate at https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/fohp2018/

Postcards 0n the Pier - Visit the display - Beach hut, left hand side, flags flying!

The Friends of Hastings Pier have made a bold request ........

..........to the administrators to be allowed to run the pier during the second half of the year. 

It has become clear that the Friends are competing not only against the owner of Eastbourne pier, Abid Gulzar, as had recently been thought, but other bidders too.

If the administrators agree to the FoHP proposal, it will give the Friends a chance to show that they can do the job and allow them more time both to bring in alternative funds and to persuade the council to look seriously at their proposal that the Foreshore Trust should acquire the freehold of the pier as a means of securing community ownership in perpetuity. The charity committee which runs the Foreshore Trust is due to meet on Monday 25 June.

See more at http://hastingsonlinetimes.co.uk/hot-topics/campaigns/friends-make-bold-request-to-run-the-pier

Professor Mull Of Brighton University's School of Architecture & Design said..........

........... that part of the reason for holding the School's End of Yer show on Hastings Pier was the Pier's own extraordinary design, which saw it win the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2017.

“It’s sort of a recognition - between us, our students and the pier - of how the pier operates."

"We all admire it and we admire its ambitions and ethos."
  
"It’s beautifully designed, carefully made, it has a clear social purpose and these are things we value and try to do within the work of the school ."

"We were delighted to take up the challenge of occupying it and, I imagine, occupying it in a way its architects really wanted it to be occupied."

“We’ve also had incredible support from what we affectionately call the ‘Pier People’, who is everyone who is running the pier. They’ve helped us with everything right from how you fix things to the pier structure and they’ve been amazing.”

Read more at: https://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/news/hastings-pier-hosts-prestigious-architecture-festival-1-8527367

Do YOU want to support FoHP?

• Donate at www.crowdfunder.co.uk/fohp2018
• or send a cheque to Hastings Voluntary Action, Jackson Hall, Portland Place, Hastings, East Sussex TN34 1QN, marked “Hastings Pier” on the back
• Email friendsofhastingspier@gmail.com for the newsletter
• Join FoHP’s Facebook page
• Want to help? Join us at strategy meetings, every Friday, White Rock Hotel, 5.30pm

Where can you find out more?

General

www.crowdfunder.co.uk/fohp2018

Documents and plans: http://www.hastingsvoluntaryaction.org.uk/FOHP

Are you a shareholder in the Pier?

Many shareholders are unaware of the effort of FOHP and the crowdfunding effort (currently 84% raised).  If you know any shareholders, please pass the information on. (Relevant links in the bar on the righthand side.

But you don't have to be a shareholder or rich) to invest - if you love the principle of community ownership, and breaking boundaries, and want to be part of it - please donate at https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/fohp2018/

You needn't accept the default amounts, just delete and input your own figure, from £1 to ........£££,£££,£££  (We can dream!  How many people in Hastings are hoping to win the lottery for the sake of the Pier?  I know several.)

Warm the cockles of your heart (written in December 2017)

"Stepping on to Hastings Pier provides a sublime immersion in that liminal world between land, sea and sky. Under a canopy of sulking cloud, the eau de nil, blue, and grey palettes of the English Channel can feel like being enveloped within a sea view painting. The sense of vast stretching space evokes a sense of reverence, awe and respect, not only of the sea, but lifts imagination to the world beyond our own shores."
Well worth reading the whole article - from:

The view from Hastings Pier: On the difficulty of regenerating Britain’s seaside towns

By Joel Mills

Why the council should step in to secure Hastings Pier’s future

Paul Finch, Architects' Journal

If I were Hastings Council, I would think seriously about ensuring the operational stability of the most famous structure in the town. 

It is not that the pier has put Hastings on the map, that task having been achieved in 1066, but it is the most prominent example of contemporary architecture in that part of the world, and should not be allowed to wither on the proverbial vine.

Hanging in there (shades of Andrew Motion again!)

Brighton University End-of-the-Year Pier Show – Hastings Pier (9-10 Jun)

A great idea is now a reality, the amazing RIBA Stirling Prize winner Hastings Pier is to be venue for our 2018 End of Year Show. As well as being a masterpiece in regeneration and inspiration the flexibility Hastings Pier provides makes it a fantastic venue, large enough to showcase work from our whole school.

Unlike Brighton Pier that is cluttered with the traditional seaside amusements Hastings is all about, community, free space and no buildings; an enormous platform over the sea making it perfect for temporary installations and events.

Hastings Pier

Tuesday 5 June - Sunday 10 June 2018

• Tuesday 5 June 10am – 7pm

• Wednesday 6 June 10am – 7pm

• Thursday 7 June 10am – 7pm

• Friday 8 June 10am – 7pm

• Saturday 9 June (times to be confirmed)

• Sunday 10 June (times to be confirmed)

Free entry