HAVARDS - QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS FOR THE AGM

V0.0 Aug 2026

I write as an investor and a member of the original team, and advisory committee. I was forced to leave the advisory committee by the failure of the Directors to follow their own processes, and by the forced removal of my ability to update the website.

I am prompted to raise these concerns by the publication of the minutes of the last AGM, and the latest financial report. Havards has just made a loss of over £36,000; more than twice the loss in the previous year. At this rate, Havards is burning through its liquid assets at a rate which means that it could be out of business in little more than 3 years.

MINUTES OF LAST AGM: There are a number of mis-representations recorded in the minutes. I want to raise two of these.

Advisory Committee. You say the advisory committee members "drifted away". That is not correct. Some members left because their advice was neither sought nor followed, or they were bypassed when decisions were taken.
Custody of Domains. The statement that was made that it was necessary to "recover custody" of the Havards Domains was incorrect and, frankly, malicious. The domains were always in the full control of Havards, they were registered with a Domain Registrar in the name of the Havards Manager and with the shop address. Full details were documented in the IT Reference Document in which I shared the details of every IT Resource for which I was responsible, to protect Havards in the event anything happened to me. The Directors were told many times of the existence of this document and the Domain setup, but failed to absorb this knowledge, it seems. Instead I was ordered to "give control of the domains away" to Modern - the new website host and developer. But this is very bad practice as I explained in this note to Clive. The Directors did not understand how the Domain Name System worked, and persisted in instructing me to transfer control of the Domains. Here's more information about the risk: When your web designer steals your domain. I was fighting to protect Havards "crown jewels" but this was used as a pretext for locking me out from the website that I had managed for almost three years.

FINANCIAL REPORT

I have serious concerns about the loss, as already expressed. I would like to ask:

Cost of sales: Why has the cost of sales increased by more than £13,000 (17%) at a time when sales have decreased by £6,000? This is the biggest single contribution to the increased loss.

Cost of website and "Click/Collect" Project. How much has been spent on these seemingly never-ending projects, which you announced would soon arrive at the last AGM? I am aware of quotations which would imply the cost is many thousands of pounds. Where does this cost feature in the accounts?
You moved the website from a server costing just £50 per year to one costing roughly £1000 per year. In addtion you agreed to pay hundreds of pounds to make a crude copy of the original website much of which did not work. Where does this cost feature in the accounts?

Investor Management System: How much has been spent on a replacement Investor Management system? You chose not to continue to use the free software provided by my business and team.
I did ask for an apology for the insults and bullying to which I had been subject. Here are a string of emails relating to the bullying to which I was subjected. The Investment Management software used was highly functional, is used widely elsewhere and handled all the responses and communications with all the Investors for several years. The software was also used to distribute the various Certificates (including SITR), handled our distribution lists, sent out the newsletters and ensured we complied with the General Data Protection Legislation (GDPR). I want it to be placed on record that following the rejection of this software that there was a major GDPR breach in September 2025, which resulted in the emails of all investors being widely shared on at least three separate occasions.

Control of Costs: The accounts also appear to me to show a failure to control costs. Why was more than £2,800 spent on "Subscriptions" - what are these? Why did the cost of payroll processing increase by so much? I will leave the other shareholders to ask, if they wish, about other costs, including the very large amount spent on Accountancy and Financial support.

OTHER QUESTIONS

Unchanging website: The Havards website was originally developed to generate investments, but once Havards started trading, it evolved into a site designed to support the business. It carried news, product details, special offers, events and much other information, and was updated on at least a weekly basis. It is incorrect to refer to it as the "Investor Site". It had a very high Search Engine ranking, and appeared on the first page of Google's results for searches for hardware in Pembrokeshire. You can still see the newsletters from 2023 and 2024 here

The website, now on a new server, and only partly functional, has now gone mostly unchanged for two full seasons.

There used to be about 1000 unique visits to the website each month, so the lack of an active website for two seasons will have damaged the business and almost certainly contributed to the loss.
Many visitors new to Pembrokeshire will have searched for shops and services. For 2026 some old information has been stripped out, but otherwise, apart from a changed header image, the website is not promoting the shop. This also means the search engine ranking has dropped and searches no longer put Havards on the first page of results. This will have hit Havards footfall. Why did the Directors allow this to happen? Click this link to see a screen shot of the website taken in peak season (27th August 2025).

The replacement website: Why did the Directors place an order for a new website without due dilligence at a cost of thousands?
The order was placed without following agreed processes, including proper consultation with the advisory committee or the team set up to plan the new website. When I questioned this, I was told that I had withdrawn from the "New website" project, which was untrue.

Welsh Language: The Directors decided to change the domain from Welsh to English. (The change of domain will further damage what little remains of the Search Engine Ranking). Why have the Directors stopped following the agreed policy of supporting the Welsh Language? Why are newsletters no longer sent in Welsh as well as English?

Why are newsletters now sent so infrequently? You can see the newsletters from 2023 and 2024 here. There were 8 newsletters sent out in 2023 (the first year of trading) and 5 in 2024. These were not only sent to investors but many supporters who had not invested. These supporters no longer seem to be receiving the newsletters. The website used to have a page where you could sign up to receive newsletters but that no longer functions. This all reduces the overall awareness of Havards.

Social Media. Finally there is a little action on the Facebook channel - but why has it taken so long?. An active social media campaign might help turn Havards around.

Finally, let me just say that I am delighted to see there are a number of new Directors and wish them very well. No-one could have been more committed to the Havards Project than I was - so I hope they can turn the business round.

Yours sincerely

Dr W B J Blake

This list of questions and concerns is posted at https://havards.store to make it easy to share them with other concerned parties.

LIST OF SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION

View List of supporting documentation

I have listed here additional documentation which supports and backs up the points made in this document, for those with the time and interest to read more.