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Here's our updates this week:

Ceilidh a stomping success

Our Ceilidh on Friday was a great success - we packed out the Bradford & Bingley Rugby Club and Northern Comfort kept us dancing all night! It seemed like everyone had a great time!

Between ticket sales and a very successful raffle, we raised an amazing £950. We'd like to thank everyone who came and supported us, along with the Bradford & Bingley Rugby Club for letting us use their venue free of charge, and Northern Comfort for performing for free too.

Darley Street Market

After a late night on Friday, we were up early on Saturday to attend the second monthly craft/food market pop-up organised by Real Markets at the new Darley Street Market in Bradford. This was a good opportunity to talk to some new people about our project and collect some donations.

Saltaire Festival

The next event on our calendar is the Saltaire Festival - we'll be joining other local charities at the charity event outside Saltaire United Reformed Church, on Saturday 20 September from 10:00-16:00. We'll have our make-your-own badge activity and a nature trail quiz for kids (and big kids!) to enjoy. The Festival is a great day out, so why not pay it a visit?

The impending deadline - what's next?

Over the summer we've obviously been very busy with fundraising. While we have managed to raise a fantastic amount so far (somewhere around £30,000), we're a long way off the £195,000 target. The deadline of 12 September we set ourselves was chosen as it is a couple of weeks before the moratorium period expires under the Asset of Community Value process (under which only a community group can bid to buy the wood). It was always an ambitious target (the government have acknowledged that the 6 month moratorium period isn't really long enough, and there is new legislation in progress which would extend this to 1 year, though sadly too late for us.)

Our Trustees will be meeting this week to discuss and agree what our next steps are - we have a few options which could give us more time to continue fundraising, and in particular to apply for grant funding, which can take a while and is often restricted to certain times of year. 

We will update you once we've decided on the best way forward. In the meantime, donations, crowdfunding and sponsor a square donations are still very welcome - the more we can raise at this stage, the more options we have open to us.

If you have any thoughts you'd like us to consider as part of this discussion, please email contact@goitstock.org.uk. We would also be keen to hear from anyone who might be willing to help us - for example by joining our trustee board, or just helping out regularly in some other way - if we are able to continue fundraising for a longer period.

Thank you again for your support!