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So, you want to buy the Hub? Plus, Lover Boy

Welcome to The Nugget, a 24k gold newsletter about Castlemaine's people and events

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The Nugget
April 25, 2025

★ So, you want to buy the Hub? ★

Paul van der Wal, Castlemaine Community Investment Co-Op board member

The owners of a big, beautiful old building in central Castlemaine are ready to sell.

The Hub on Barker St. has a stunning community garden and houses 19 small businesses that do environmental work and provide community services.

Imagine a developer with no connection to the community bought this building and developed something focused solely on profit generation.

Would that bother you?

It would 100% bother the people who started the Castlemaine Community Investment Co-Op.

"What concerned us is that the general development that we're seeing -- you see it all over the world -- but particularly in smaller towns, we're seeing really important infrastructure and assets are disappearing out of out of our towns (when big developers move in)."

The Hub is not on the open real estate market at the moment, but owners Heather and Neil Barret want to sell.

The Hub is profitable and sustainable, but circumstances have changed for Heather and Neil and it's time for them to focus on other things.

Paul is one of a handful of people on the board of the Castlemaine Community Investment Co-Op.

This small, committed group has been working for the past two years to figure out how the community might be able to purchase the Hub.

Their goals are pretty simple:

  • keep money in the community, and

  • ensure valuable community assets continue to support things we value, for example, locally owned services and action on the climate crisis.

After working with legal and financial experts for the past two years, and winning approval from Consumer Affairs Victoria, the Co-Op is about to start accepting investments from people who wants to join them.

The official capital raise will begin on 2 June and will close on 29 June - unless the target is met earlier.

The Co-Op needs to raise $2 million to buy the Hub. That includes stamp duty, plus reserves that will ensure the Coop can meet maintenance obligations from Day One.

"Not an insignificant amount," Paul says.

"We'll need a lot of members and hopefully a couple of members with deep packets that are willing to invest and participate."

To invest, you first have to become a Coop member, which costs $40.

That gives you a vote on the future of the Co-Op and allows you to become an investor.

The minimum investment is $500 and the maximum is $500,000.

The investment is not a gift. You get to decide when you want the Co-Op to pay you back: after five, ten or 15 years.

Investors can also choose how much interest they want the Coop to pay them on their investment each year: 0%, 1%, 2%, 3% or 4%.

"Markets are volatile, but this is a fixed return. So if you choose to lock away $10,000 for 15 years at four per cent, which is a really good guaranteed return, I think that will be appealing for a lot of people," Paul says.

"But the real return you're getting is the proud and community feel of having pulled this off and being an actual co-owner of the Co-Operative and it's assets.

"It's important to note that if you're only in this to get your maximum return on investment, let's be honest, there are probably other investment vehicles out there.

“But we are not in this for the money. We're in this because we, as a community, feel we want to control our real estate and then keep that within the democratic ownership of the Co-Operative."

Buying the Hub is just Step One for the Castlemaine Community Investment Co-Op.

"If the model works ... there could be other buildings that we as a Co-Operative may be interested in purchasing. That will be very much up for the for the members to decide, but that's absolutely a future vision for the cooperative."

Creative, grassroots action like this is pretty exciting.

As you kick the tires on this proposal, you might wonder, like I did, who the heck are these people on the board of the Coop?

Well. I can tell you Paul's story. He arrived in Castlemaine four years ago from Melbourne with his partner Inez and they fell hard for the town.

"We moved here because we fell in love with the town, the great community feel, the beauty of the town with its’ historic buildings, the amazing arts and music and food scene, the beautiful land that we are so privileged to live on and pay respect to our Aboriginal elders," says Paul, who is originally from The Netherlands.

"So when we came here, we were like, wow, we don't just want to live here, we want to be part of this community."

Paul was soon sponsored by the shire to do the Loddon Murray Community Leadership Program, LEAD. This is a special course that gives folks the tools and confidence to get involved in community initiatives.

"Right at that time, there was the first open session from the Co-Operative. They were saying, 'Hey, this is the idea. Does it connect to you? Are we onto something here?'

"And I immediately felt ‘Yeah, this fits like glove, this is for me, this is where I can use some of my past experience to actually contribute in in a meaningful way.’ So yeah, those things really connected quite nicely.”

Paul has a finance background and works for a bank.

"For the last 15 years, I've worked in management consulting for one of the big four accountancy firms. I've got a really solid understanding of modelling and building business cases."

Paul and rest of the Co-Op board has done a good job putting together accessible Q&A documents that spell everything out, including what happens if things go wrong.

For example, what happens if the Co-Op doesn't raise the $2M required to buy the Hub by 29 June? All deposits are returned.

What if something horrible and unforeseen happens and the business collapses? The Co-Op would need to sell the building and pay back the investors.

"That's always a risk, but we believe the risk, with all the modelling that we have done, is very well understood and is relatively low," Paul says.

Members of the Co-Op will be holding information sessions starting next week.

❀ Lover Boy ❀

Rachel King at Lover Boy, 12a Hargraves St, Castlemaine

Friends, there is a gorgeous new gift shop in town called Lover Boy.

Owner, Rachel King, stopped in to chat with Shelley and I at MainFM this week. I am so here for the concept.

Rachel had a very relatable moment when her son was tiny and she began to receive piles of plastic toys she had no space for. Well intentioned, but gross.

She says Lover Boy is the antithesis to maximalist gifting.

Rachel has stocked the store with items that are meant to be cherished and handed down, like jewelry, or used up, like perfume.

"I've tried really hard to curate the space so that it is very intentional. I do have a real soft spot for nice scents, so there are a lot of perfumes, candles and room sprays. People love incense in Castlemaine, so there's more incense on the way. Also, nice jewelry pieces from local designers."

Plus fresh flowers!

"Growing can be quite hard throughout winter so I will be travelling and buying flowers from other parts of Victoria across winter, but throughout the rest of the seasons, all the flowers will be from local farms."

Rachel says Lover Boy feels like the perfect next step for her.

"I studied graphic design and floristry. I have worked in both of those industries for 10 years," she says.

"I was working for a really amazing, big online florist, which I loved. It got to a point, once I had my son, that I couldn't keep up. I was on a mouse wheel and there was no speed I could run fast enough to keep on pace."

So she left that job in the city and brought her work home to Castlemaine.

I think we are lucky to have people like Rachel taking a chance on our main streets and opening businesses where we can buy things locally and connect with each other. Stop in and welcome her!

♡˖ EVENTS ˖♡

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