Saving the Bell

Hello fellow Frugellers
 Over the last few days I have been pushing myself to do the myriad of jobs on my HUGE list. We are  less than a fortnight away from our big bash in our field, on Thursday we make a swift trip to Looe in Cornwall for a sea fishing trip, we get back Saturday afternoon and friends arrive on Saturday evening, we are out for a gig and then they will stay for a while. The gardens are calling, the goosgogs are ready for picking and so and so on....
I have also been very busy with the civic society. We have launched a sub-group with some independent folk (engineers, architect, Councillors, canal experts) to influence the development of a large brownfield site in the midst of our area.
We formed our society in 2009 in response to the proposed development, We have no issue with development, but did want to influence the type of houses built and the manner in which they are built. The line of a canal runs through the site. We campaigned for the line to be protected so that nothing was built on it , that way the canal could be reinstated when the funds were available. We succeeded, so far so good. Then earlier this year we were told by a respected engineer that the canal would never be put back in water as when the houses were built there would never be enough room for spoil and movement of plant and that infrastructure would have to be heavily disrupted to ensure that the appropriate drainage etc  could be put in place.  Mmmmm what to do? campaign for the developers to reinstate the canal at the same time as the development! Anyone who knows anything about planning, housing developments engineering, etc will tell you that this is no small order. In fact it is a HUGE ask. The sub-group we have set up is getting a lengthy and learned document together to demonstrate the feasibility of such a project.
This has taken up much of my time and I thought it manageable as we tend to reduce our meetings through the summer. Then we heard about THE BELL.............
 The old Mission in our village has been derelict for six or seven years now. Two years ago when we found that the war memorial ( WWI and WWII) was still in the building festering away and deteriorating.We set up a campaign to save it and re-site it in our little village hall. This we did and have had two wonderful Remembrance Day events since. Outside the church hung a bell and we have hoped that the folk at the mother church a  mile away would do something about it before it was stolen. They now have and they have put it up for auction!! This bell was bought by public subscription by the residents of the area years and years ago. So here we go again another campaign!!
We have set up a fund to buy the bell back for the village.  Over the weekend I cobbled together and printed a letter and over a couple of days with three other committee members posted nearly 400 letters to residents of the area explaining what had happened and asking for pledges. I am pleased to say that I have had several phone calls today already. So fingers crossed !
 Yet again my post has nothing to do with Self Sufficiency or Frugality ! I will try harder next time.
Off to get ready for our fishing trip before our shared lives guys arrive. We have a couple of tip runs to do (a favourite job) and when we take stuff to the tip is really is rubbish!
Back Soon
Gillx