@Andyp1966 the caterers that manage to weather this storm will have an increased market share moving forward … in Cornwall where I’m established 40% of places may never open again… people still want to eat & next year U.K. holidays will do well

make all this your motivation not to throw in the towel like many others will !!

It’s undoubtedly a f’in sh*t position we’ve been forced into. I really do see us coming right & even going on to thrive provided we make it through till we get working again.

I’m based in Cheshire. I do very private dining for clients after that Michelin star experience in the home. Think Cheshire housewives.

Me and the wife saved extremely hard to buy this house outright so the thought of taking out a mortgage on it when c19 could possibly hit us again is not something I would ever think of asking her to do to be brutally honest.

As I said I have bookings all year and the £49,000 I’m due to gain is profit but not a single bank will touch me on bookings alone for the simple reason the bookings may disappear if a 2nd wave hits.

Come dine with me style eh sounds pretty cool. I have to admit as much as the catering industry is bloody hard work and can be very stressful (had a restaurant for a few years) I have certainly realised through Covid 19 we are in a pretty safe market place in that people will always want to eat.

Fortunately for us both we arnt tied in to stupid rents in a restaurant, What we’re doing is actually quite versatile & in your case savvy & good £ for the service, but I honestly do hear you mate, you need the money to get set up again as with me & now need a work veichle too lol

If it was possible I would get out contracting But the whole market is fooked

Come dine with me, mobile food & outdoor catering will absolutely cream it - restaurants & pubs are fooked although contracting may pick up again in summer as places would have laid off full time staff.

Check out how many punch taverns are available to take on in Cornwall 20+

That is a seriously increased market share for anyone who lasts out.

Hi all,

I completely understand you are eager for us to share an update about BBL as this is of paramount importance to you and your business.

I’ve read some of your comments about our communications lacking clarity, I’m really sorry to hear you feel this way. Since we got accredited for the Bounce Back Loan Scheme, we created a landing page for the scheme, 52 FAQs, 8 blog articles and sent 15 BBL emails to our waitlist as well as updating our social community. We’ll continue communicating regularly with you but as I have explained on the community before - we want to update you when we have significant news. As of our last update from our CEO, we are very close to securing more funding.

We have been busy working on building out our waitlist into a self-service tool for our members that will allow you to see your position against our lending. Apart from the funding, variables which may specifically effect your waitlist position include eligibility status, other members decision on withdrawing the loan ahead of you and other members choosing not to opt in to a BBL with Tide.

If you are still confused about the above or think you have been given an incorrect waitlist position, please send me a DM so I can look into it and understand what happened. I’ll do my best to get back to you shortly.

In regards to timeline for the launch of our automated tracker, I’m afraid that I can’t give you a firm date but a dedicated team is working hard to launch this soon - we will update you as soon as it’s live. As always, we will beta-test this first to make sure it is working as it should for our members.

We will continue to keep you updated and, as we have said in our previous communications, we encourage members to consider all other options as well as a Bounce Back Loan from Tide.

Thank you for your patience,
Valentine

I hate to be a pain Valentine but you and other members of the Tide team said last Thursday that the automated tracker would be ready “Very soon”. Now your saying soon once the beta test has been done.

I’m sure you will agree that it’s now 5 days later and that’s not what anyone would call “Very soon”.

Anyone who is still angry on this platform, on Trust Pilot and on Twitter will only realise: Tide do not have the same BOE privileges to print cash. Sadly they are no different to you and me trying to borrow some liquid for you Business.
Imagine what it’s like to borrow £300m Bounce Back Loan, if 50k is driving you mad, you would be put away in a secure box for 300m.

Perhaps it’s all that trust pilot gunfire delaying the Loans Tide are meant to be receiving.

What I mean “no offense” is our anger us misplaced, let it RIP on Rishi Sunak, BOE and BBB for not providing an adequate scheme. Get all up on the petition (get all your friends and family to sign) and and also let it RIP Big Time on the Treasury thing on a word document.

The scheme is riddled with problems, we need a new stimulus package. The Treasury need to explore other options aswel such as a Bad Bank incase it goes North. Perhaps this BBL should be some sort of Grant. Why is the government giving this to private companies to use their money, they must give it to us directly

I’m not vouching for Tide with this Number Position thing it just adds to confusion and Oliver just needs to scrap that for now to be honest.
I believe they have already started trimming the fat so it’s a good sign he has high hopes of actually delivering some BBLs at some point.

My question is why have you not started screening applications - surely not everyone in your office is working on this waitlist tracker? - so where are the people sifting through those on the waitlist manually, assessing their initial eligibility and contacting them instead of wasting time on a system that really means nothing?

I mean just look at the negativity strewn across your community forums the past month or so, your customers are not happy and it just seems the Tide team do not know what they are doing which is a shame.

Hi @cannafoods2019, we have been screening applications and we’ve begun contacting those who are ineligible, which is reducing the number registered on our wait list.

We’ve been letting people know their place on the list, however this is a manual short-term solution and many members have been asking for daily updates. This is causing delays in our response times and leaving members frustrated that we’re not going as fast as they’d like. This is why we’re dedicating resource to our tracker, which will automatically show members’ their eligibility status, their wait list position, and what position we have reached in our lending.

Thanks,
Ali

We have offered to assist and build this for Tide, reply came there none.

The tracker itself would be a fairly easy build. The spike in customer outrage, complaints and thus further tumble in service levels less so.

The above coming from the fact you will see that your position remains entirely static, as they have by their own admission, no funds at the moment for lending. “Soon” they might.

I think the self congratulatory nature of lending £50m shows the scale of their thinking and ambitions…around the turnover of a medium sized business of 500ish enployees.

We really appreciate all offers of assistance. We do build all of our tech developments in house, so aren’t taking on any external resources, and we have a dedicated team working on this tracker. As soon as this is ready to launch we will let our members know.
Thanks, Ali

Hi Ali,

It doesn’t give us much faith if the “soon” timescale for this team is running into its second month.