The contribution made by Vicky Tommy and the Sun Inn over the last 20 years.
Why Eryrys and the wider community needs a great asset like the Sun Inn.​
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Vicky Tommy has been the landlady at the helm of the Sun Inn for 20 years. To mark her anticipated retirement, it’s fitting that we should celebrate what Vicky and the Sun Inn have contributed to our community.
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When Vicky took over the Sun Inn it was in urgent need of major structural building work. This was completed and the Sun is now a warm and welcoming place in which to eat and drink
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The pub has provided employment to many locals, giving young people in the area not only a job, but providing valuable training in hospitality skills often preparing them to go onto university or careers.
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Vicky has always been supportive of community activities donating raffle prizes to local shows, events at village halls and local charities.
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Over the years the Sun Inn has hosted many charity events, supporting and assisting the community to raise over £30k for Macmillan, Prostate Cancer, Amy and Friends and other charities.
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Vicky has injected humour into the fundraising with the production of much sought after calendars featuring local people!
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Vicky has ensured that significant dates are celebrated in the village including a very popular Christmas Quiz night, Jingle Bell Singers and Santa in the Sun Afternoon where all the children were given snack boxes and a Christmas present.
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There have also been regular special events including Gin Nights, Whiskey tastings, Hallowe’en Cocktails, Cheese and Wine evenings and darts nights.
Q and A
You can find out about our proposals to run the Sun Inn as a community pub in our Q and A.
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Over the coming weeks we will regularly update this Q and A. If you have any questions that are not covered in this section please get in touch.
Q1 Why are we being offered the option to rent the Sun Inn now?
​The personal circumstances of landlady Vicky Tommy have changed and she wants to move on so she has more time to provide support to her family. In addition VT has run a very successful pub in Eryrys for 20 years and she wants to ensure the village has continuity of a valued service.
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Q2 Will the Sun close if we don’t want to rent the property?
That is a real possibility. Just over 400 pubs closed in England and
Wales in 2024. There are several reasons for this. Covid lockdowns
had a massive impact on the way the population lived their lives and the
hospitality industry hasn’t recovered from this. People have changed
their eating and drinking habits and this combined with higher cost of
living and business costs have made running a pub very challenging.
However there are many examples of successful Community run pubs
because local communities can reduce some of the running costs by
volunteering to do work in the pub.
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Q3 Why can’t we buy the Sun now?
The Sun Inn is not on the market now.
Q4 Who will run and staff the pub?
The Sun Inn has a small, experienced group of staff now and we will seek to retain them and look for other people to help. We will also need members of the community to volunteer across a range of activities in the short to medium term including cooking, serving tables, behind the bar and cleaning. Vicky Tommy has offered to help us out in the first instance in terms of advice and troubleshooting to help us get started.
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Q5 Is there enough business to pay the rent?
We are fully aware of what it takes to run the Sun Inn on a monthly basis in terms of overheads, fixed costs and staff etc. We believe that the Sun Inn has the potential to generate sufficient turnover to cover these costs.
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Q6 Will the opening hours change and will there still be food?
We believe there are many opportunities and we would like your thoughts on this. So far we are thinking about a regular breakfast club with bacon butties, cake and coffee mornings, early evening bar opening times to attract those coming home from work, warm work stations with WiFi for those working from home, bingo evenings, opportunities to support activities in the Canolfan Dewi Sant and visiting food vans with different cuisines, We will also be looking for local entrepreneurs who might like to sublet a section of the pub to provide their own services.
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Q7 Are there costs to start running the Community Pub and if so how do you intend to raise any money required?
Vicky Tommy has made several goodwill offers as she really wants to make our community pub work. These include not asking for a deposit, sorting the rental/lease contract for us to consider, including all the equipment in the contract, offering a 2 month holiday before we start to pay back the stock costs estimated at £8000 and suggesting that we can pay the rent one month in arrears. Consequently the set up costs are minimal but we will need to establish a reserve to cover any unforeseen events, especially in the first three months of business. We are thinking of establishing a Community Share Scheme whereby members of the community can purchase shares enabling us to set up the reserve. Although we can’t guarantee a return on investment, the principle would be that as we increase our business we would seek to maintain a reserve and then repay shareholders. This is a challenge for all of us, but if we can make a success of this by working together, we stand a good chance of keeping the Sun Inn at the heart of our Community.
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Get in touch...
We need everyone's to make our community pub project a success.
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If you want to get involved or you have any questions, please get in touch by filling out this form opposite, by email or you can send us a DM on our Facebook page.
