Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

That's such awesome progress Stuart. You've actually been in my mind the last few days wondering if you're making progress on your awesome project. So chuffed for you. Hope you're on the home stretch. Sometimes when things start to change it creates momentum that makes other things happen too.

I wouldn't say we are on the home stretch and with something like this a miss is as good as a mile.

Momentum does seem to be building though but we really need some more people to get on board with either their intention of joining us on the land or with their cash.

The rules for small cap investors are really lenient on the one hand (no need for a prospectus, product disclosure statement or financial securities licence) but really strict on the other (can't advertise, can't tell people about the investment details unless they formally ask you).

So we are trying to find people that support the project but we can't talk about the financial aspects only the benefits both social and environmental. That means we can't really attract regular investors and their cash we have to attract impact or social investors (who don't tend to have as much money). Of course once someone like that does actually express their interest formally they are really surprised. Words to the effect of "but that is a good return for a regular commercial investment let alone an impact investment" have been said more than once.
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So it could be in the bag and next week it will all come together. Alternatively it might not happen. At the moment we are planting seeds like mad and some of them are coming up quickly while others that we planted ages ago are only just bearing fruit now.

I hear you Stu, I'm not saying it's done. I think what I am trying to say is: Don't forget to celebrate the small victories, it's still something and it gives you the strength to carry on and not give up.

It has been a crazy couple of weeks.

I thought I had a speaking gig at the Sustainable Living Festival in Melbourne but turned out to be a stall. So with less than two weeks notice had to organise banners and promo stuff.

Since then I've done four more markets with stalls and I'm starting to get some traction.

Checkout the this page for our progress fund raising.

http://hedgerowfarm.com.au/progress/

Really starting to get some traction.

Nice Stu, rooting for you bud.

Martin.

Martin

That is so funny in so many ways.

That bit of slang doesn't translate well.

Lol. Fair enough, I'll take this one on the chin.

Another big win.

I think these guys are on board we just need a few more people to join us on the farm.

https://www.facebook.com/HedgerowFarmVictoria/?fref=nf

Give them a ring Stu their number is ....is the same as the Fishfarmers website ....whats going on there???...

If you go back to page 4 and read Joel's comments you will see that some of the best feed back we got was that having both Fish Farmers and the farm on the one website was confusing. Joel wasn't the only person to say this so Continuum offered to do another website just for the farm.

While I had been looking for land to lease I had met a bunch of other people that were also looking for land to lease. The original idea was that Fish Farmers could get a loan for our system and for the land. So we thought we could get started and bring the others along with us. The bank let us down which meant that we had to now find an alternative way to proceed.

We all were trying to find a farmer land lord that would give us a long term lease. None of us had had any luck. So I came up with the idea of making our own land lord. That coupled with the feed back that a separate website would make it easier to tell the story brought about Hedgerow Farm.

So Fish Farmers will be a tenant of Hedgerow Farm along side a stack of other enterprises doing lots of other cool stuff.

Well that is the plan anyway. It is all in the balance though. It looks like Hedgerow is now fully funded but still needs some more farmers to sign on. Also Fish Farmers is only 50% funded.

So close but no cigar as yet.

Yes Stuart I get all that but when you say it seems to me you're talking about yourself in the third person. Why?? Or is the casual observer supposed to go onto facebook and find out who "these guys" are. Seems a bit unnecessarily confusing .Why not state it as it is rather than an arms length "these guys"

I wish you and your investors well,

Hell No!

It looks like we (that's me and the other tenants of Hedgerow Farm) just picked up an investor to fund the rest of the deposit and purchase costs (stamp duty and stuff).

That means the land side of this whole deal is almost in the bag. That's 1.2mil raised to fund the business incubator for farmers of which Fish Farmers is just one.

On top of that I've got in-principal support for 50% (half of ~650k) of the funds for Fish Farmers so I just need another 325k to unlock the whole shebang and also get an additional estimated 1.1mil from the R&DTI.

Just a miscommunication there, Stuart and Matthew,

When Stuart says "These guys" he means the guy he mentions in the post, not the owners of the whole facebook page.

The Social Enterprise Fund of Australia is the people he is referring to, not Hedgerow farms.

You do need to read the facebook post, or you will not know what is going on.

Close but not quite Continuum.

SEFA is the lender. They are offering 900K for Hedgerow Farm to buy the land with the balance plus costs to be provided by investors. Prior to Thursday last week we had pledges equal to ~137k. What the Facebook post refers to is a new investor coming on to provide the balance of the 400k or in other words 263K. Not confirmed but looking very, very good.