The Ultimate Picture Palace launches its shares offer

THE Ultimate Picture Palace (UPP) is a colourful independent cinema in Oxford that was built in 1911 by local actor and businessman, Frank Stuart. It was one of the UK’s first purpose-built cinemas and its remarkable journey is shown in the great documentary, “The Ultimate Survivor” (https://vimeo.com/20882173). Now, the historic cinema is up for sale, and the owners want to give the community the chance to own it before selling it on the open market to give it the very best chance to stay open as an independent cinema that will thrive for many years to come.

The cinema as it is today was bought and restored by local resident Becky Hallsmith in 2011, making muchneeded improvements to the building and projector room. But Hallsmith understood that the UPP had a reputation for being unique and worked hard to retain the cinema’s ethos of adventurous film programming and community values. Hallsmith sadly passed away in September 2018 and since then the staff and volunteers have continued to run

the cinema in her spirit and navigate the business through the pandemic.

And like many small, single screen independent cinemas the UPP is a real community gem, but it’s always in need of more funding. But it was always Hallsmith’s dream to one day turn the UPP into a community-owned cinema and so a new Community Benefit Society (CBS) called the UPP Community Cinema was formed. Launched on 29th April and running to 1st July, the local community has the opportunity to invest by purchasing community shares so the cinema can become community-owned. £313,000 (£312,575 to be exact) in shares needs to be raised so that the cinema can be purchased, its progressive film programming maintained, the current staff retained, and its vital role in the community continued. The scheme has been designed to allow as many members of the community to buy shares as possible, with each share being set at £1 with a minimum of 50 shares. (If you’re 16-29 years of age and live in an OX1, OX3 or OX4 postcode, the minimum is set at 30 shares.)

The cinema has been supported by the Co-operative Futures, which is part of a workers’ co-op - The People Coop - a network of ethical, sustainable businesses in the UK with a focus on B2B service companies.

The Co-operative Futures team helped the UPP with various legal options and to ultimately form the CBS. By buying community shares, investors will become members of the CBS, and can then take part in the democratic control of the business, on a one-member-one-vote basis.

For further information on the share scheme visit: https://uppcinema.com/OWNTHEUPP/