Robert Plemings's Vulcan Update

It’s now a week since we launched XH558’s 50th Birthday Appeal on our website, and we’ve had some pretty positive feedback, which is most heartening.


Annoyingly, the Postal Strike has interfered with our planned mailing to all of our supporters, so today only a few appear to have received the Appeal leaflets and supporting information. Hopefully, if you have ever given us your name and address, these should be arriving over the next few days.

It’s worth pointing out that if it wasn’t for the additional work we need to do this winter, our identified funding sources would nearly pay for the whole year’s costs, avoiding the need for a full-scale appeal. Even so, we have reduced our dependence on an Appeal from 50% of our funds to 33%, which I think is good progress in one year.

As mentioned in a previous update, we have to pay for most technical, engineering and support costs upfront, rather than when they have been completed. This really does put urgency behind our fund-raising – we must make the £400,000 target before Christmas if we to meet the deadlines for engineering work completion for the 2010 season.

Shortly, we will be targeting fresh audiences and databases with the aim of widening our reach with this 50th Birthday Appeal to all those who saw XH558 this year.

In the meantime, you can assist at very little cost, simply by considering who out of your relatives, friends and colleagues might be interested in themselves helping us. Below is a a suggested “script” for you to send; please “cut & paste” into an email or short letter and tailor it as necessary. I suggest it would be most effective if you only send it to people you know rather than as an untargeted missive.


Dear Friend / Relative / Name


I am a keen supporter of XH558, the restored Avro Vulcan that has become the star attraction at air shows around the UK during this summer, appearing in front of many millions of people. You may remember me talking about it!


With the continuing poor economic climate, the Charity that operates the aircraft has just launched an Appeal for public funding which can be seen here: www.vulcantothesky.org


The project has two aims: Honouring the Past – including those who stood guard during the Cold War years of which the Vulcan is such an enduring symbol, and Inspiring The Future, enthusing the children of today in Aeronautics, Science, Design and Technology.


You only have to visit the Guest Book to see how much this icon of British design & engineering affects people:


www.site.vulcantothesky.org/guestbook.asp

Around 50,000 people donated last year to keep the project going. With your help, we can take our message out to many, many more.


We need to raise £400,000 before Christmas and the same again before Easter. Please do whatever you can to help. A one-off donation of any amount or a small monthly standing order will be hugely appreciated.


If money is tight, then just talking about our project or passing on this email to others in your address book will be of great help!


With many thanks,


Yours etc


If there are businesses that you think might be interested in supporting XH558, then please let us know: we have suitable packages from £500 upwards especially for businesses.

Some of you will also have noticed we have already made improvements to the Appeal Home Page, now including a direct link to our promotional video.

My next update will aim to give you the current total received to date, whilst it is our intention soon to give regular updates by way of the Results page.

Once again, I must stress how important it is we get a significant amount of our target in within the next few weeks. The future of XH558 depends on it!

With best wishes,


Robert Pleming
Chief Executive VTS Trust