The Mingary Castle restoration blog was written by Jon Haylett, who lives in the local village of Kilchoan. Now that restoration is almost complete Holly and Chris Bull will take over to report on bringing the Castle back to life.

Sunday 15 December 2013

Fundraising

This graphic has recently been added to the home page of the Mingary Castle website to give everyone an idea of how we are faring in raising money for the work at the castle.  As can be seen, we've raised just over 10% of the total estimated cost.  While this leaves us with a very long way to go, in the present squeeze on charitable donations in the UK, it isn't too bad a start.

The left hand bar shows the estimated expenditure under each heading.  Professional fees are a significant cost, and are high because, as well as having to pay for survey, design and engineering, we have incurred huge costs for the archaeological work.  This was something which we were required to do by Historic Scotland, yet it attracts no funding from the lottery or other big national funds!

Consolidation, which continues but included the spectacular pinning of the granophyre base of the castle, was also a massive cost; and, as might be expected, the building works will cost upward of a million pounds.

So the Trust can report that it has made a sound start to raising the £2.3 million this restoration needs, but this still leaves us with a huge mountain to climb before we can complete the work.  While some generous donations have come in through the BT mydonate link at top right of the website page, we're considering running a number of activities which will help to boost funds.  However, before we proceed, we'd like to appeal for any ideas which readers may have - the sort of thing which you, as a supporter of the Mingary project, would feel comfortable sponsoring.

We'd also like to make another appeal to you.  We've applied to as many charity support funds as we can, with mixed success, but if you know any fund that might consider supporting the Mingary project, please let us know using the Contact Us link at top right of this page.

2 comments:

  1. Has the Trust considered contacting Lex Brown about forming a partnership to fund the restoration of Mingary Castle that could be used as a model for Castle Tioram? I think that having Lex Brown involved with Mingary Castle could pave the way for a partnership with Castle Tioram. Imagine Castle Tioram and Mingary Castle under Lex Brown's financial guidance.

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  2. Jon,
    It might just be me, but I'd never even noticed the BT mydonate link on the RH side of the page.

    Because so many websites these days have adverts scattered all over them, I've 'learnt' to tune out from anything other than the main item. I'm not implying that this site has adverts scattered all over - it doesn't - but non the less I have obviously been subconciously blanking out the BT my donate link. I'm probably not the only person doing this.

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