It took three years to bring the vision for The Well to fruition: three long years of planning, dreaming, hard work, divine inspiration, intense stress and immense joy. Rachel and Jeremy Hicks tell the story of an amazing journey.
The vision which gave birth to The Well arose from the Lent 1997 course Called to be One. As in many other places, every year the Christians in Fareham organise an ecumenical study course during Lent, often following one of the courses promoted nationally by Churches Together in England. Called to be One was one such course.
Coming at a time when there was a widespread feeling that the great progress in ecumenism that had happened over the previous decade needed to be taken a stage further, Called to be One focused on three main questions: what did it mean to be church; what did it mean to be united; and what did it mean to be visibly united? As source material for our reflections, we were presented with a book of in-depth statements that had been formulated by the theologians of the different denominations.
These gave rise to some deep sharing and interesting discussion; but there was a strong feeling that the next step would need to be earthed not in theological or doctrinal agreement, but in practical action. We needed to stop talking about unity, and start working together on something practical.
In fact, there were already several practical expressions of united Christian action in Fareham, most of which traced their roots back to Lent 1991, when the churches had undertaken a joint mission to the town as part of our response to the Decade of Evangelism. This mission had not been particularly successful in bringing hordes of new converts through the doors of our churches, but it had been highly effective in bringing the members of the different churches closer together. Lasting bonds of friendship and fellowship had been forged, and some activities that had originated in Lent 1991 had continued - and still continue - to operate.
These include Fareham Christians in Music, an ecumenical choir which leads worship at ecumenical events and organises various outreach events of its own, and a group which runs regular services at retirement homes throughout Fareham. There is ecumenical social action, too, in the form of Friends of the Homeless in Fareham, who have been highly effective in reaching out to homeless people in the town, and in alerting the churches to the fact that there is a homelessness problem here. And there is a strong ecumenical prayer ministry: co-ordinating prayer groups in the individual churches and bringing people of different traditions together to pray with one another.
But there was a feeling that the next step for unity was something new: something that would reach out more generally to the whole community. A place that was recognisably Christian, but not a church; somewhere where anyone could go and encounter Christians in united action, without feeling threatened or under pressure to convert. A coffee shop seemed a good place to start; there were plenty of examples of Christian coffee bars that had had a significant effect in promoting outreach into the community.
At the same time, many people felt the need for a Christian bookshop in Fareham. People were used to having to travel if they wanted Christian books, to Gosport, Portsmouth, even Chichester or Winchester; it would be great to be able to have them available closer to home.
And for some, there was the dream of a permanent fair trade outlet in Fareham. Traidcraft voluntary reps already operated in several churches, mostly running stalls at church in conjunction with Sunday services; but these rarely reached beyond the circles of those who regularly went to church. To bring fair trade into the mainstream, it needed an outlet in the main street, open to all during normal trading hours.
All these strands were drawn together in the vision that emerged from the Called to be One groups: a Christian coffee shop, bookshop and Traidcraft shop, bringing a Christian welcome, Christian resources and Christian concern for the poor into the heart of Fareham's busy shopping area.
Shortly after Easter 1997, a letter went out to all the people who had participated in Called to be One in Fareham, inviting them to an open meeting at which the vision which we believed God had given us would be explored further. About twenty-five people attended, and nearly as many sent apologies; we prayed about the idea, discussed it in small groups, and brainstormed ways in which it could be taken forward. It was a hugely positive and encouraging meeting, a real affirmation of the vision.
The next step was to convene a working group who could take up all the ideas that had come out of the open meeting, and mould them into a practical project. The first meeting of this group took place at the end of May 1997, and involved people from four of the nine member churches of Churches Together in Fareham (CTF), with at least three others expressing an interest in being involved.
The most important outcome of this first meeting was the adoption of the name The Well - expressing the vision of the centre as a place of physical and spiritual refreshment. Although its importance is not quite so readily apparent to us who have access to hot and cold running water, the well is a significant meeting-place in many cultures. It was so in Biblical times, and there are several stories in the Bible where significant encounters happen at a well (see, for example, Genesis 21:25-35, Genesis 24:10-27, Genesis 29:1-12, Exodus 2:15-21, John 4:5-30). The well is a safe, neutral place, and it is not just Christians who could feel comfortable about arranging to meet at The Well.
In the weeks that followed, a vision statement was formulated and adopted, and we contacted other, similar projects in various parts of the country, receiving much good advice and encouragement.
We were further encouraged by the spread of prayer and support for the project among Christians in all the churches. There was some scepticism too - some people worried that there seemed to be 'too much faith and not enough business', and maybe they were right! - but whether it was gung-ho optimism or well-founded hope, there was a growing feeling of excitement about the possibilities.
One of the main activities of the first few months was the establishment of legal bodies to run The Well. As a group of lay people with little or no experience of running a business, we needed to find a solicitor and an accountant to advise us, and were fortunate enough to encounter John Guest and Kim Beazley, Christians both, to fill those respective roles. It was clear from their advice that we needed to set up two bodies: a charity, with the aim of 'promoting the Christian religion' and benefiting from the tax advantages of charitable status, and a limited company to carry out the trading activities that the charity could not legally undertake. (Selling Christian books was considered legitimate, since it was related to the charity's purpose, but running a coffee shop was not, and selling Traidcraft was too 'political'.)
Constituting the charity took a long time, for the simple reason that we wanted to give the churches of Fareham a formal role in its operation. The CTF Executive had already expressed its full support for The Well, and there was considerable and growing support among both the leadership and the membership of most of the churches; but we wanted to express our desire to be owned by, and answerable to, the churches, by giving each the right to nominate a trustee. This meant asking each church's decision-making body (church council or church meeting) to consent to being named in the constitution of the charity.
Given the speed at which ecclesiastical decision-making progresses, this took the best part of six months. Some churches assented willingly; others had reservations, which mainly related to how much money they might be asked to contribute, but eventually seven of the nine churches signed up, and our carefully-drafted constitution was approved by the Charity Commission.
As we ploughed through the legal quagmire, we were buoyed up by the continuing support and encouragement of many people, in Fareham and beyond. People prayed for us; they told us how much they were looking forward to the fulfilment of the vision; and some began to give us money. At one meeting, we received the news that the legal costs related to setting up would be in the region of two thousand pounds. The same evening, a couple who knew about the project decided to make a donation - of two thousand pounds.
Another time, we had a really difficult meeting which left us feeling very discouraged, questioning whether this vision could really be of God if it was such hard going. The next day, somebody phoned up. "Would you like fifty thousand pounds for The Well?" they said.
Having got ourselves organised, and legally constituted, we now started to look in earnest for premises. A number of promising places came onto the market. Some looked perfect for what we wanted to do; some were too big, most were too small, all were frighteningly expensive to rent. The going annual rent for a shop on West Street, the main shopping street in Fareham, was £25,000 or more. We told ourselves that it was God's vision, that God would provide, but it was worrying: could we really afford that sort of money every year?
We pursued several premises; we looked them over, negotiated, made offers. In every case, our offers were turned down; each avenue we explored turned out to be a dead end. None of the landlords we approached was prepared to do business with such a raw bunch of inexperienced and untried people.
It was probably a good thing, too; because as it turned out, we would almost certainly have struggled to meet the massive rents that we would have been committing ourselves to. And as we explored the possibilities of each site in turn, it became clear that there was a serious flaw in all the setting up we had done.
Taking on a lease would expose us as a body to very large liabilities; to protect ourselves against something going wrong, we needed to take it on as a limited company. However, in order to benefit from rate relief (which is worth about eight thousand pounds a year), we needed to take on the lease as a charity. But our charity wasn't a limited company, and our limited company wasn't a charity.
The answer to the dilemma was to re-constitute our charity as a limited company with charitable status; or rather, to set up an entirely new charitable company, and wind up the previous charity. So we plunged back into the legal stuff, back into the process of writing complicated documents and getting them accepted by both the Charity Commission and Companies' House. Not to mention the considerable additional legal fees.
It seemed as if every time we took a couple of steps forward, there was something that made us take a step back. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that if we had charged ahead at the speed we wanted to, we wouldn't have got to where we are any more quickly. It wasn't until after all this re-organisation was complete that the breakthrough with premises came. The delays helped to slow us down until the right time.
Back in the days when we were looking for somewhere to lease, we had noticed that there were two empty and rather derelict shops next to each other in West Street. One had been a lingerie shop called Kays; the other a 'greasy spoon' café called Frank's. Both had lain empty and neglected for several years. We made enquiries to see if they might be available to rent; but no information was forthcoming on who owned them, and what they might be planning to do with them.
Early in 1999, one of our trustees noticed a "For Sale" sign above these two shops. By this point, we had exhausted all the possibilities with regard to leasing, and in any case we were aware that our expectation of being able to pay rent at Fareham levels had almost certainly been hopelessly optimistic. The idea of buying our own premises seemed to make a lot of sense: it meant raising a lot more money up front, but once we had paid that then the place would be ours, with no rent to pay; and all that we would invest in fitting it out would be for our benefit, and not for some landlord.
There was also the fact that the premises had two floors. We didn't need two floors, and someone suggested that the upstairs could be converted to provide social housing. We got into contact with a local housing association, who showed a lot of interest. If we were to make the first floor available to them, not only would it represent excellent stewardship of that space, but it would have a considerable financial benefit to us, as they would pay for the whole of refurbishment from the ground floor ceiling up - including the roof, which was in very poor repair.
After much prayer and careful discussion of the pros and cons, we decided to proceed with the purchase. It meant committing ourselves to a total expenditure of about £200,000 just to acquire the premises and make them habitable; it meant that we would have to borrow a lot more money than we had ever intended. But it seemed like the best chance we would ever have; and experience suggested that God would provide the money required.
And he did. A fresh appeal for funds yielded extraordinary results; tens of thousands of pounds were given, or lent on a low-interest or interest-free basis. The gap between what we had and what we would need narrowed dramatically. It was still a big one, but it started to come within the range of what we could realistically expect a commercial lender to be prepared to make available.
The word began to spread through the churches that things were beginning to move. There was a real sense of excitement, and also of ownership; if most people had previously looked on The Well as a far-fetched dream of a few, it was now a realistic possibility for us all.
On 21st June 1999, the purchase was completed. 116-120 West Street now belonged to The Fareham Well Ltd. Now all we had to do was make these neglected, tumbledown buildings into The Well.
The link with Southlands Housing Association began to pay dividends almost immediately; for with that partnership came a wealth of expertise in managing building projects. We didn't have to shop around for architects; we didn't have to worry about which of the many local builders should be invited to tender for the work. We didn't have to find a clerk of works who would manage the whole thing, since SHA provided one.
Within a few weeks of completion, he had prepared the application for planning permission and the work specification, had invited a number of builders to tender, and SH Building of Rowlands Castle had been selected to do the work. A work schedule was prepared which envisaged that the refurbishment work would be completed just before Christmas. Meanwhile, our solicitor and SHA's legal team went to work on a whole heap of contracts.
We held a 'stripping out day', at which anyone who was willing and able was invited to come and help remove all the old fixtures and fittings from the two derelict shops. It was a foul and back-breaking job; yet it was all done in a day, with much camaraderie and laughter, by a diverse team of volunteers drawn from most of the churches. Lunch was provided by someone who couldn't help with the manual labour, but wanted to do what she could to help the job along. It was a fantastic experience, a real demonstration of unity in action - one fulfilment of the vision of Called to be One. A week later, all the stuff that had been stripped out was transported to the tip by K.P. Hoare Ltd, who donated their services free of charge.
At the end of September, the builders moved in, and the transformation began, Before long, the place was unrecognisable from what it had been before - although what it would become was scarcely any more conceivable.
While the builders got on with the building, we got on with preparing for what would happen once the refurbishment was complete. A large part of this was finding people to staff the shop - volunteers, and our one paid employee, the General Manager. Six people applied for the post; three were interviewed, and June Haye was appointed.
Meanwhile, as the excitement grew, so did the stress levels for those most closely involved. Progress on all the contracts that needed to be signed was unimaginably slow, as the number of solicitors involved burgeoned; the building work fell behind schedule for a variety of complex and not-so-complex reasons. The anticipated completion date slipped from December into January, and then into February; opening day seemed to be moving further away!
By the middle of February, however, most of the building work was complete. We set an opening date - and publicised it, to stop it slipping any more! 13th March was to be the day.
Before then, there was a major job of equipping and fitting out to do. We had always envisaged that this would be a do-it-yourself job, but while we were able to do quite a lot of the decorating on a volunteer basis, much of the rest needed to be done by the professionals.
Co-ordinating all these activities was a serious headache. Things came to a head when the decorating (which was still incomplete) had to stop for three days while the floor was laid; then there was a weekend, then the shelving was due to go in on the Monday. Cue a special decorating day, on the Saturday, when anyone who could wield a paintbrush was urged to come and do so. A huge amount of catching up ensured that the job was finished on time - just! It was another fantastic response by ordinary people, giving their time and talents to help the vision to fruition.
On the staff side, we had a very successful appeal for volunteers, over fifty people aged from 15 to 86 coming forward to offer their services. We became increasingly aware, though, of a gap in our expertise. We had a General Manager with extensive experience in the catering trade. We had an experienced Traidcraft rep to run the Traidcraft side of things. But we had nobody with any significant experience in running a bookshop.
It was then that we heard that the bookshop at Park Place was to close down. Park Place is in Wickham, three miles from Fareham, and is the pastoral centre for the Catholic diocese of Portsmouth. We had already had considerable contact with Meg Reynolds, the manager of the bookshop there, who had been very helpful in answering our queries even though The Well, once open, could be expected to take quite a few of her customers away. Now, we heard, the bookshop was to close, and Meg was to be made redundant.
To some of us, this seemed quite literally to be a heaven-sent opportunity. Here we were, with a desperate need for someone to run our bookshop, and someone with over eight years' experience of running a Christian bookshop was looking for a job. We hadn't intended to have two paid employees, but a review of the figures indicated that we could afford it, and from a skills point of view we couldn't really afford not to do it. So we offered Meg a job, and two weeks before opening she became our second employee.
In the week before opening, all the volunteers came in for some basic training. Meg and June and a handful of dedicated volunteers were working extremely hard, unpacking deliveries, finishing off bits of decorating, buying last-minute items like telephones and high chairs, and dealing with technical difficulties with tills and computers.
With a sigh of relief and a degree of trepidation, we reached 13th March in pretty good shape. We had planned to open on a weekday so that it wouldn't be too busy to start with; but of course everyone wanted to come and see the fulfilment of the vision. The place was heaving that day; people were queueing for tables.
The following Saturday, we held an official opening ceremony. The Mayor of Fareham attended; so did the Anglican Bishop, the URC Moderator and the Roman Catholic Dean, along with representatives from all the local churches. It was a time of great satisfaction and thanksgiving. We had arrived at the day of which we had dreamed, and for which we had worked, for three years.
It's been a wonderful journey. It didn't always feel wonderful, at the times when the stress got so great that we were pushed right to the limits of endurance and faith. But it's been a journey on which God has always been close to us, guiding and sustaining us. He has surrounded us with the prayers and support, the common sense and generosity, of countless people. He has drawn us closer together, from our different denominations and traditions, and enabled us to find richness in our diversity and common purpose even in our disagreements.
The opening was merely the end of one phase, and the beginning of the next. It's now that the real ministry of The Well is under way: reaching out to the whole community of Fareham, sharing faith through a genuine welcome and a friendly smile, and drawing the Christians of Fareham together in shared service and united witness.
You can see how our journey progresses through this, our website, and by coming to visit us in the shop where you will receive a warm welcome.
