Here are some notes that I took during the Community Investment seminar at Voice09 last week. They're a bit jumbled.

Community investment is investment into our own resources; total investment is £265m with a membership of 5.4m. Median investment is £135k.

Activities - pre-1990 was dominated by consumer co-ops 16, transport 11, but only 1 community finance project; post-1990 has a wider spread incl renew energy, fairtrade, community retail

Legal forms - IPS growth, some early plcs, minor CICs and charities; charities use bonds - they can't issue shares.

Next speaker was Charlotte Hollins, from Fordhall Farm - a story of generations of tenant farmers - 1929: father takeover at 14, organic since postWW2, Muller Dairy is a neighbour, landlord wanted to sell for development; 2003: eviction notice, the children takeover on an 18 month tenancy, the farm is run-down, got a low-interest loan from the Princes trust, opened farm shop, created a vision for sustainability. The farm needs the support of the local community to be sustainable, farm is most successful when people are involved. Held community work weekends, still no idea how to secure long-term future, created IPS in part from a community meeting. Had 6mos to raise 800k, benecom IPS, then 2mos to raise 723k, national press coverage, opened farm gate, allowed people to get involved, press driven by word-of-mouth, 300 non-uk shareholders; now: 8253 holders, leased back to Hollins family on century lease who run farm and shop, lease includes community concessions, shares still available at Fordhall Farm website.

Next speaker was from Wessex Reinvestment Trust - projects included ex-St Werberghs Community Farm, 45k towards 100k from community investors, made pioneer mistakes;
WessexRT likes toolkits, started 2002, 50-250k for ventures, due diligence on things like interest forecasts and projections, costs about 3k to do a legally-sound share issue, did action research over 4 issues.
One was ecos fund ltd (Langport?) includes a historic warehouse, trialed IPS new model rules from WRT, was successful in raising investment, also seen as good property investment by outsiders;
Torrs hydro new mills ltd, one of first post-research model rule users, 100k to match grants;
Some pilots unsuccessful like onward investment into community land trusts, seen as too abstract and not a focused enough story;
What works? Need some track record, a clarity of offer, with a blend of value, financial return (including tax relief - HMRC inconsistency has been a problem), considering target investor groups, effective marketing; Conclusions: IPS shares good for medium-size issue up to 250k, need for complementary comm investm mechs like bonds, 3rd point... the slide went away too quick.

CommunityShares research project - funded by OTS, led by DCLG and DTA in partnership with CUK and SROINet, 2 year action research to March 2011 working with 10 community investment projs.
Objective : improve evidence base, increase community empowerment, grow social enterprises and test potential for seed funding. 3 seminars late April: Ldn, Birm, Manc.
General ambition - changing public attitudes, which is currently more comfortable with donating than investing; need to shift from philanthropic to community investment proposition; how many social enterprises will be using community investment by 2012, which trade acts offer the greatest scope, can community investment work with disadvantaged communities?

Panel Q+As:

1. What's the right level of investment and is there a list of soc inv'ers? Low for mass model, higher to get buy-in; communication costs and admin, 500 for enterprise investment scheme but can be multiples.

2. Pre-existing easier; Is the max 20k IPS limit being worked on? IPSes can invest in other IPSes without limit as a workaround.

3. Non-geographically-local shareholder building, for international investment? Probably would need to be web-based in some way like kivva.org, cafedirect and sharedinterest.

Thanks to all involved for an interesting session. If you have comments or questions, I'll see if I can remember or find the answer, so please ask away here!