Appeal Update: December 2018

A reminder of the plan and money needed

In the November Update, I outlined our plans over the next 12-15 months. Firstly, we intend to proceed with the Doom Painting restoration, the clerestory repair, and cleaning two of the ceiling bays in the second half of 2019 – not before 1 July. We anticipate that this will take three months, during which time there will be scaffolding erected in the eastern end of the nave. And then we plan to implement Stage 1 of the redevelopment project starting in January 2020. This will involve the cleaning and repair of the wooden floor blocks, the removal of the pews, and their replacement with benches and chairs. We hope to complete this work by the middle of March 2020.

The first part of this work will cost £149,000 and the redevelopment work will cost £247,000.

 

Our bank balance has increased during November from £31,000 to £41,000 thanks to the generosity of members of the congregation.

The 2019 calendars, featuring drawings by Cliff Topping, have sold out. Cliff very generously donated the prints for us to use, and we are very grateful to him and to Shirley Ledingham, who masterminded this project.

Most of you will have bought a copy of the St Thomas’s cookbook. But if you haven’t, you will be pleased to hear we still have some copies left! This was a venture spearheaded by John Cox and his team, and we thank them for making such a success of this.

We have formed a small sponsorship team and they will be seeking to gain the support of local businesses for the Appeal.

And we have started to put together a number of applications to grant making bodies (GMBs). Meryl Browning is in charge of this aspect of the Appeal. Those of you who have done this sort of work before will know what a painstaking process this is, gathering cost estimates for the work involved, checking the requirements of each GMB to ensure that we comply in every detail, and making our applications as appealing as possible.. We hope to increase the number of applications that we make during next year. From January 1 2019, we will have the services of a professional fund-raiser in helping us prepare these grant applications.

The Guild Appeal Committee members

The membership of the Committee has changed quite a bit over the last year. So it now looks like this:
John Bruce-Ball        Chairman
Nick Beard        Fabric Committee
Meryl Browning        Committee member i/c grant applications
Netia Coupe        Committee member
Peter Horwood        Marketing and Promotion
Kelvin Inglis        Rector
Martin Marriott        Committee member
Rosie Norman        Secretary
Jonathan Plows        Committee member
Tony Rea        Treasurer
Fiona Green        Churchwarden
Michael Humphreys    Churchwarden

John Bruce-Ball. Chairman, Guild Appeal Committee
13 December 2018

 

Previous Appeal updates:

 

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