Benefits to benefit us

The boys dove early into their schoolwork this morning, starting Maths directly after breakfast, as we had a meeting at Knollcombes to get to at 10 am. This was the first official meeting of the Fundraising Committee. Present were Nick and me, Steve and Maureen, Jean, Vincent, and Nick Williams. It was very cold in the chapel and I was shivering by the end, but that’s beside the point. We had a good meeting, and have come up with a few initiatives to raise money to repair the damaged buildings. It has become clear that the St Helena government definitely has no money to give us, and although the Governor is still trying to raise overseas support, he’s not optimistic. So, it therefore falls to us to raise the funds. I think I’ve mentioned that between people on Ascension and the Falklands, ₤1500 has been donated, and another private donation of ₤3000 was given. We are presently looking at an estimate of ₤300,000 for our buildings, but that’s still drawing on the government estimate. We haven’t yet heard back from the contractor who saw the buildings last week, so we really need to get a private quotation to know what we’re aiming at. Anyway, back to the meeting…the first thing on the calendar is a sponsored bible-reading day, where for 24 hours there will be scripture portions being read aloud. Nick and I will take some awkward early-morning (middle of the night) slot! That is scheduled to happen 2 weeks from now. Other ideas were a music evening, a quiz or cultural sort of evening at Plantation, sponsored walks, and setting up a blog to advertise the event of the rockfall, damage to the buildings, the way forward, and the church’s bank account details and charity number. We are officially registered as a charity now. It was obvious to us that we can’t raise the funds we need on the island, so we have to look elsewhere, and it’s difficult to hold fundraisers elsewhere in the world – we simply have to get out there with our hat in our hands! While we hate asking for donations, we’re just going to have to do it. I’ll post a link for the new blog when it’s up and running.