Urgent Appeal - We have launched a desperate appeal to save our new £million community hub
UPDATE 23/06/2022 - Pledged £47,000 - WOW incredible kind donations including crowdfunding
Donate today https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/jessopp-road-community-centre-urgent-build-appeal
UPDATE 23/06/2024 : Pledged £41,000 - Incredibly kind grant of £10,000 from the Geoffrey Watling Trust - Thank you!
UPDATE 19/06/2024: Pledged £27,500 - Huge £25,000 kind pledge - thank you!
We have launched a desperate appeal for donors to help save our new community building. We secured a grant of £915,609.00, from the Youth Investment fund for a sustainable Scout and Community Hub last August. But due to rising costs the project will have to be scrapped unless £133,000 can be found before July 1st.
Lead Volunteer Andrew Parle says,
“This news has moved me to tears. We have worked so hard to make this happen. But unless we can find this money now we have no choice but to hand the grant back. In these difficult times our young people need us more than ever, and our waiting list is growing all the time. We just want to be able to give them the facilities they deserve.”
A 20% contingency that was included in the bid has been eaten up by rising inflation and now the grant funders have advised the project cannot go ahead without a further £90,000 of contingency funding. All in all the shortfall totals £133,000.
The group has already scaled down the project as much as possible to bring costs down. But no further alterations are possible without lengthy planning procedures and time has run out due to conditions of the grant. It stipulates that work must be complete by March 2025. Building contractors have given a deadline of July 1st for the project to begin in order for it to be completed within the deadline.
Andrew Parle adds;
“I am incredibly grateful to all those professionals and volunteers that have worked so hard to help us try and get this back on track. We have further applications in but we will not have the result of these until after the July 1st deadline which will be too late. We thought we had reduced the build cost to a reasonable level, so this is just devastating news. We will not give up until we are told to stop. We need a small miracle”
As Scouts, we believe in preparing young people with skills for life. We encourage our young people to do more, learn more and be more. Each week, we give over 460,000 young people the opportunity to enjoy fun and adventure while developing the skills they need to succeed. #SkillsForLife.
We are a growing Scout group in Norwich with over 145 young people. But we are in need of more volunteers, as we sadly have a waiting list on average a year long. If you would like to help or find out more get in touch today by dropping us an email 33rdnorwichgsl@gmail.com