Our Appeal
We urgently need to raise £48,000 for the repair of the gable ends of our church.
In this section of our web site we will be giving an update of our fund raising activities and the success we are obtaining.
We also show you photographs of the offending sections of the structure.
The Background:
A few weeks ago some coping stones slipped from the gable end of the roof of the church porch. This alerted us to the potential of further problems with coping stones on the main roof gable ends. Our Church Architect undertook a comprehensive survey and, yes, we do have further problems.
We have obtained estimates for the work – it is a staggering £48,000.
The church of S James the Great was built in 1876. As with all old buildings, maintenance and upkeep are a drain on financial resources. Over the past ten years we have invested more than £60,000 on maintenance and refurbishment of the building; additional work has just been completed on renewing rainwater gutters and down comers at a cost of £20,000.
So, in ten years we have spent £80,000. We are grateful for grants from various trusts, but the bulk of the money has been raised by our own people, in the parish.
Our challenge today is this: we have to find the equivalent of more than half of what we have spent over the last ten years, NOW. The necessary work cannot be delayed.
Our parish is relatively small with a population of around 2,000. Albert Hill is the community we serve. It is not affluent as are some parts of Darlington. Indeed, we are within an Urban Priority Area.
That is why we are extending our appeal to a wider constituency.
You can help us in a number of ways:
 | a direct cash donation |
| a donation of articles etc which can be used in other fund raising activities e.g. auctions, sale of work, tombola prizes, social nights etc.. |
| sponsorship of other fund raising activities |
And what can we give back? The WIIFY (What’s in it for you) factor!
We publish a parish magazine bi-monthly. The print run is 400 and it is widely distributed throughout the region — and further afield! — as well as within the parish.
In return for your donation of whatever description we will give you advertising space in the next six editions of our magazine.
We can design the advert for you where necessary, or if you have some art work of existing advertisements, then we can use that.
And that’s not all!
We also have a web site - you know that already, of course! - which has a section devoted to this particular fund raising effort. If you have a web site yourself we will provide a ‘pointer’ to it as well as acknowledgement of your donation on our own specific page which details donations.
We sincerely hope you will find it possible to support us at this critical time.
We thank you in anticipation of whatever assistance you are able to give us. You may rest assured it will be greatly appreciated.