Saturday 31 October 2009

Robert Plemings' Vulcan Update - Oct 31st

It is now two weeks since we launched our Appeal. Unfortunately, due to the current postal strikes, it appears that only a fraction of our list of supporters have received XH558’s 50th Birthday Appeal mailing, and so are not fully aware of the current situation. Hopefully, given another week or so, everyone on the database will have received the information pack.


As it will be a few more days before we have active income figures available on the Appeal website, I can tell you that so far we have received slightly less than £20,000 in direct donations, together with increases in monthly Standing Order commitments of £400.

Given our target is to raise a minimum of £400,000 before Christmas, we now need to average £50,000 per week; I’m sure you agree that we have some catching up to do over the next few weeks. We need to have these funds in place to ensure we can commit to the engineering work that needs to be done by outside companies in time to meet our Engineering Timetable for 2010. This is why it is so important we ask everyone to do whatever they can NOW.

Having said all that, we all realise that we can not keep asking the same staunch and loyal supporters to keep putting in more than they can afford. So it is vital that we reach out to new supporters and other audiences. I’ve previously mentioned that just a fraction of those touched by XH558 this year helped to finance her – it is exactly those people we must aim to bring on board.

For those who have received their Appeal mailing, especially those who live in the vicinity of one of the airshows visited by XH558 this year, why don’t you do what I did last week, and visit your local newsagent. My newsagent was more than happy to agree to my request to place the poster from the Appeal in his window for all to see – he is after all a Vulcan supporter!

Just this morning there was a good five minute feature on Vulcan and Vulcan Ventures on Radio Northamptonshire. This free yet wide coverage is exactly what will help us.

Next week, we have regional adverts in selected papers and magazines, while campaign leaflets will be distributed for us by other organisations friendly towards XH558, to reach their own audiences. If you are confident that you know an organisation who would be happy to distribute our campaign leaflets, please contact Ian Homer on 07791 617776.

We are also mounting a significant presence at the “MPH Top Gear Live” show at Earls Court next week 5th – 8th November. Please come and find us if you are in the area between Thursday and Sunday on Stand TS49. We are planning to capture a key member of the Top Gear Team to come over and talk to us!

If you are reading this on our website, let me remind you that you can subscribe to our email updates, which means that you will automatically receive these messages when they are published. Please visit: http://www.site.vulcantothesky.org/newsletter.asp

Finally, please continue to do whatever you can to help promote our cause, and hopefully, we will see a marked improvement in income next week.


Kind Regards,

Robert Pleming

Chief Executive

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