Loading the wood

Here we are loading wood onto Dave's trailer to be sold. This load got us around £300 towards the cost of restoring the Pavilion. It took us a while to load it though! 

The Main Hall is now ready for our Ski Film event this weekend. 

Gregor 

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Saturday Clean Up

Here is Les and some of the team who helped last Saturday. They are enjoying a cup of "real" coffee and a mince pie after a couple of hours hard labour.
We have now made enormous progress in the Grey Room and are starting to dismantle the bar there. In the under-stair area Eric had a good day pulling down partitions. Les and I had a day clearing the front entrance and outer office.
Gregor

More work at the Pavilion

Big work is going on at the Pavilion: clearing the Grey Room so we can use it more thoroughly, organising the stage and letting more light in at the front of the building. 

We are meeting at 10 am each Saturday morning. Join us! 

Gregor 

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Derbyshire Dales District Council Visits the Pavilion

Mike Galsworthy and Ben visited the Pavilion to discuss matters relating to parking, the illuminations, trees and construction issues. 

Charles, Dave , Andie and I took them round the building showing what we have done and what we are planning. 

We have given them a list of requests to take away for a decision.

Gregor   

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Great Evening at the Temple

John Gill is putting on a super evening at the Temple tonight. I aid of Sheffield Hospital's Neurocare Unit they hope to raise a lot of money! 

Gregor 

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Photos from the weekend

 

Derwent Valley Mills Discovery Days

We had the Pavilion open over the weekend for the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site Discovery Days. These were a great success with 38 people attending and having the tour of the building on Saturday and 30 on the Sunday.

Photographed is Charles giving the lecture. Lynn also worked hard with around 10 new members signed up over the weekend.

Gregor

The final balcony!

We have now managed to dismantle the last of the balconies that were left over from the nightclub days. This has been a major task one the last few months. Now we have a clear hall for events which allow us to let the hall without any space restriction. 

There it's still a lot of tidying up to do, but we should be able to move the rubble on time and before the next event. 

Gregor  

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A Great Weekend!

Overall we had a super weekend this weekend taking around £1,500, of which we should see an increase in Pavilion Funds of around £1,000.
In the Café we raised around £500 of this and thanks must go to Judy, Andie, Trina and Dave for their help.
We also signed up five new members, without really trying!
The view is of a customer just leaving the café having had an enjoyable drink!
Gregor

Successful Craft Market

We have had a successful Craft Market this weekend, helped in no small way by the Fireworks Night in Matlock Bath.
We had 17 stalls altogether, with a range of goods from weathervanes to Christmas decorations. Most did well and sold a good quantity of stock.
For the first time we used our "Street Team"; licenced young teenagers who deliver leaflets to passers-by, reminding them that the market is open. It was clear when they went out because within a few minutes we had a rush of people arriving at the Pavilion entrance! Thanks to Lily, Lily and Annabel who between them did the work.
Gregor

What an Amazing Evening!

Judy organised the Café stall last night and it was incredible!
From 6.30 to 9.15 it never really stopped. We were offering Hot Dogs, Baked Potatoes, Tea, Coffee, Hot Chocolate and a range of soft drinks and doughnuts. We pretty much ran out of everything!
Judy, Jane, Penny, plus Charles (GmacG), Becks and Felix all helped and together raised a turnover of £480, just from this stall! This will give us a good profit towards Pavilion Funds and be added towards the Café takings over the weekend (more later).
During the evening it started to rain and I gave a virtuoso performance of how to NOT put up a gazebo! I had to erect it OVER the tables and then get the roof on; whilst people were still serving our customers underneath! It paid a wonderful reward when the rain rally came. We were able to provide a dry area for our foods our servers and our customers.
A great evening was had by all!
Gregor

Cash Machine Usage

We are down again on usage of the cash machine in the Pavilion. The main summer months had 17,700 withdrawals down from 19,900. This reduces our income by 20%. Still well up on when the council used to gain the income, but not so good as before.
We still need to ensure that everyone who can use the machine goes as often as they can. Even small withdrawals each give us an income.
Gregor

Final Painting Tuesday

Here are Les and Mike painting the radiator at the top of the stairs. Over the late summer and early autumn Les and his team have worked their way up the stairs and started to paint the corridor at the top. A tremendous job has been done and it has made the Grand Pavilion a much more pleasant building to enter.
This was the last Tuesday morning workgroup and thanks should be recorded to Stella and Pam Roddis, Eric Fern, Tony Ball and of course Dave Mowle.
We will be starting the heavy work on Saturday the 9th of November when we start to dismantle the last platform, the one on the right of the Ballroom. This will be an event! Come at 10am to be part of this great project. Come each Saturday that you can, but we will also be working on Sundays from the 10th onwards.
Gregor

Pavilion Cafe Fireworks No 2!

We had another good night at the Matlock Bath Illuminations Fireworks. The weather was awful, but five of us appeared and sold teas, coffees and some food to people wishing to get out of the drizzle.
Here are Penny and Yvonne with a couple of customers, thanks also to Les and Annabel. For most of the evening I was busy persuading people to come and visit our stall.
Gregor

Doug Smith and Roxy Music

Doug Smith gave a wonderful talk to the Friends of the Grand Pavilion. He described his experiences with Island Music, making videos of groups in the early years of this medium. He showed a number of the clips that had not been seen before.
He finished with a video he made as a student, part of which showed Teddy Boys visiting the Grand Pavilion.
Gregor

Canon Ball Run

This is Mike Wild's bike, on which he crossed the USA in the Canon Ball Run. 4000 miles for bikes built before 1924.  

He showed how he modified his motorbike to enable it to perform this task in less than two weeks. 

His modified bike came third, which was quite a feat!

Gregor   

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Pavilion Cafe at the Illuminations

The cafe was open tonight for the Illuminations and we had a good evening! We to £363 which was twenty times what we to last Saturday. 

Here are Judy, Penny and Jane who worked until 9.30pm to get the result that we did. Well done all. 

Gregor 

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Illuminations Heritage Exhibition

Here is Laura with the Illuminations Heritage Exhibition in the Briddon Room. It is funded by our lottery money and was put together a part of our project. We had over 100 visitors this evening. 

Gregor 

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Monster Raving Looney Party Conference

Here is the Monster Raving Looney Party Conference in session. Howling Lawd Hope in the chair. They had just completed their Cabidet Reshuffle, the cabinet broke so it became a 'cabinet split'! 

We are now into the music. 

Gregor  

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Steampunk and Andie

The Steampunk weekend is upon us and Friday night had four bands to coincide with Matlock Bath's village viewing of the Illuminated Boats.
The evening went well with dedicated Steampunkers turning out and enjoying the music. Quite a few Matlock Bathers also turned out but were more tempted by free burgers at the Temple Hotel!
Andie, who was going to be in Mongolia by now, is still here. He has had difficulty in getting a visa and may be with us for some time to come. That is why he is here in the photograph, refining the sound quality, with a Steampunk hat on!
Gregor

Dave Brooks's Funeral

I attended this very sad event yesterday, having just got off a ferry from Holland. I wanted to be there because he was the council officer who guided the "Save the Pavilion Group" to the place where we now are. In 2010 he helped us to ensure that our Feasibility Study was robust enough to persuade councillors that the plan was worth backing.
Without his pressure and influence over us, we would probably not have succeeded. He retired soon after we agreed the lease on the building in 2011.
Sadly he only had two years of retirement before he died of a heart attack; at 62 years old, really far too young.
The service was therefore a very sad occasion, with many of us still in shock that this could have happened so soon into his early retirement.
Gregor

Pavilion Illuminations Cafe Team

Here are Judy and Annabel with their stall outside the Pavilion. They serve coffee, tea and sweet and savoury snacks each Saturday that the Illuminations are on. 

Gregor 

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Grand Pavilion Heritage Tour

For the I first time we have had a heritage tour open to all. Twelve people attended and four joined as members of the friends group. 

This is Charles giving the talk. The next talk is on the 19th of October. 

Gregor 

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Tony Holmes Evening

Tony has a vast collection of Matlock Bath postcards. He gave us a new and fascinating talk called MATLOCK BATH NEW AND OLD with over 150 photographs. He compared present and past views of Matlock Bath to show how it had changed, such as the fate of the "Rutland Arms" and that changes to the building that now houses "Talisman".
Afterwards there was a lively discussion about the burgeoning tree population, which has made it difficult, in some cases, for him to re-create the same view now.
We had around 70 people listening and the Café was open. This meant that a good time was had by all.
Gregor

David Erskine visits the Pavilion

David, here seen with our Cafe Manager Judy Chappell, came to a the possibility of moving a RSJ to accommodate a lift to get disabled people up and into the building. 

The conclusion is that this will be possible with some extra cost. We will review this as we develop the project. 

Gregor 

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Mark Askey Visits the Pavilion

Mark Askey the Assistant Design & Conservation Officer of Derbyshire Dales District Council visited the Grand Pavilion and had a good to Charles and I.

He was impressed by the progress that we have made since we started the lease.

He will also help us with the Heritage and conservation issues that we will face, once we get into detailed discussions with the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Gregor  

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Lucie Oakley Architectural Heritage Fund

I have just had another meeting with Lucie Oakley (@OakleyLucie) of the Architectural Heritage Fund. We are in the process of making a bid for funds from the AHF to provide “Matched Funds” for the Heritage Lottery Fund Bid that we issued on the 8^th of August.

Lucie gave me some very helpful guidance as to what we will need to put into our bid, which we hope to issue next month.

Thank you Lucie for coming again and being so helpful.

Gregor

 

Tour of the Grand Pavilion

I took Dan Hobson around the Grand Pavilion a few days ago and he took some video footage. He has now put it up as a link from the Matlock Mercury. You can find it here:

http://www.matlockmercury.co.uk/news/local-news/video-tour-of-the-grand-pavilion-1-5961744

 

Gregor

Pavilion

 

Bonsall Well Dressing

I have just received a cheque for £33.95 from Robin Charlton on behalf of the Nether Green Well Dressing. They decided to donate the contributions to their well dressing to the Grand Pavilion Ltd to help us on our way!
Thank you to Robin and his team and to all who gave money for this lovely well dressing.
Gregor

Video of the 1910 Bus

This is the link to a video of our 1910 bus which took us to Nottingham to deliver our bid:

http://m.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/story.html?aid=19638049&category=news

Gregor 

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The Monster Raving Looney Party will be visiting Matlock Bath on 28th -  29th September for their annual conference in the Grand Pavilion. See the attached link:

http://m.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/story.html?aid=19642293&category=news

Gregor 

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Rest time!

After all the work of preparing the Lottery Bid, I am enjoying tea in the Dolomites and following the test score of day two of the fourth test. 

Lots of walking has been done in peaks like these. 

Gregor 

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Briefing our Patrons

We have finished Briefing our two patrons;  Simon Groom & Pollyanna Pickering. 

They will not be on the bus to deliver our Heritage Lottery Fund bid on Thursday. They were both enormously impressed with the enormous amount of work that we have put into getting the detail on this bid correct. 

Gregor 

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Work Carries on in the Pavilion

In spite of our Heritage Lottery Fund bid taking so much time, volunteers are still working in the Pavilion. Getting it to look better for the visitors for our events in September and beyond.
Here is Eric painting a window-frame on the stairs. Eric has come on the bus time and time again to help. He is very much appreciated by everyone for his cheery demeanour and conscientious approach to what has to be done.
He can almost set his hand to anything that needs to be done. Whatever it is he just gets on with it!
Gregor

Final Heritage Lottery Fund Meeting

Here we all are in the Pavilion Café putting the finishing touches to the bid before it goes to the printer. There are just a few bits and pieces to gather on Monday morning, that Nick (on the phone in this picture) has to slot in.
There has been an enormous amount of work put in by everyone but, as usual, the people doing the final touches to the document, Nick and Glynn, bear the greatest load at this time.
I'm so grateful that we have such a great team working on this bid. There is not just commitment but real skills, that everyone has displayed, in getting this fantastic bid together.
Gregor

Brassington Carnival in the Wind

It was a windy day in Brassington but not a rainy day. Wind is bad as it can blow down the stall. Rain can be better but it drives away the visitors to the carnival. 

Anyway we had a good day with 15 new members, which was much more than I was hoping for. 

Rob Walker came for the first time and did a great job. Without his help we would not have done so well. 

Gregor 

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Getting that Lottery Bid Right.

We had a four hour meeting to start to smooth out the minor issues with the bid and make sure that it is completely right. 

It represents hours of work almost measurable in weeks! 

Here do see Lynn, Charles, Ian & Glynn. They have all played key role in preparing this bid. Missing here are Dave and Nick, both of who have done a lot to get us to this position. 

Gregor 

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Daniel Hobson Visits the Pavilion

Dan Hobson, the new Matlock Mercury reporter, visited the Pavilion today and was impressed by the progress we have made on using the building now. 

The Matlock Mercury will be covering our delivery of the Heritage Lottery Fund bid on Thursday at 8.30am. 

Come and see us off on our 1910 to deliver the bid. 

Gregor 

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Stella & Tony Painting the Pavilion

Here are some of the painting team getting the Pavilion to look a bit smarter. 

Every Tuesday half a dozen of our Friends asked at 10am and complete part of our plan to turn the entrance into an attractive area to enter. 

They have now started on the top level of the stairs. 

Gregor 

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Bonsall Carnival

The weather forecast was not too good but it remained dry until we left at 5.30. 

Alan David & David Barker helped and we signed up four members and may get three more in the post. 

Don't forget that we will be submitting our bid on Thursday the 8th at 8.30am. Be at the Pavilion to see us off in our 1910 bus. 

Gregor 

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Another Successful Carnival

This time we were in Sheldon for the third year and still signing up members! This time We signed up ten. 

Also and Robin Hall (pictured) helped and also had a small Mining Museum stand. The weather was not as good as previous days but the Carnival went really well. We felt that there were more visitors this year than I the other two years that we appeared. 

Gregor 

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Peter Piper at The Temple

A good time was had by all at The Temple Hotel when Peter Piper played 50s / 60s songs from Buddy Holly, Billy Fury & The Beatles. 

It was a lovely evening. Peter played outside in the garden and (some of us) danced! 

The raffle took £48 and overall we took £83 including one new member and two renewals. 

Gregor 

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Delivering our Grand Pavilion Lottery Bid

We have now got only nine places left on the bus, which will deliver our Lottery Bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund on Thursday the 8^th of August.

Those still wanting tickets will have to let me know and are asked to make a voluntary contribution towards the costs of £15.

The bus will leave from outside the Grand Pavilion at 8.30am on the 8^th.

Gregor

Pavilion Membership Doubles in Belper

Claire, Lynda and I attend the Belper Food Festival and double our Belper membership.

Belper became the latest town to flock to Matlock Bath’s Grand Pavilion campaign. At the Food Festival we took a stall and were inundated by interest. In total 45 people joined the Friends Group on the day. This doubled the Friends Group membership in the town. Overall membership has topped 1,500.

We will be submitting our £3.5m lottery fund bid in August. This will completely restore the building in Matlock Bath and to turn it back into a 400 seat theatre. After this work has been completed, it will be Belper’s local theatre.              

By the end of the day we were completely exhausted! We had been on since 9am in the searing heat. We spent seven hours talking to people interested in the project. This resulted in large numbers of them joining as supporters.

We will be putting our bid in to the Heritage Lottery Fund on the 8^th of August. All this local support proves to the HLF that there is a demand for theatre, music and arts events in the area.

Gregor

Abergavenny Carnival

We had a good day at Ambergate, and boy was it hot! 

There was a nice parade and there was lots to do. 

Here are two supporters of our plans. 

We signed up one member during most of the event, but at the end five new members signed up, giving a respectable six for the day.

Tomorrow is the Belper Food Festival. 

Gregor 

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Lucie Oakley Architectural Heritage Fund

Charles and I have just shown Lucie Oakley (@OakleyLucie) of the Architectural Heritage Fund around the Grand Pavilion. She was impressed with what we have done and fascinated by the architectural features that we are aiming to restore.

She was a pleasure to meet and offered really helpful advice as to how we can proceed.

There is a Project Development Grant that the Architectural Heritage Fund offers and we will hope to put in a bid for this in September.

Gregor

 

Amanda Wilde + Wendy Rouse Visit the Pavilion

Amanda Wilde + Wendy Rouse of Red Earth Theatre visited the Pavilion today. They are interested in renting some space for rehearsals in August + early September. 

This would be a great opportunity for us to make a strong link with a theatre group and show what the Pavilion can do for theatre. 

Gregor 

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eMails up to Date!

At last I have managed to catch up with all the people whose emails we have incorrectly noted in our membership lists. I took a trip up to the top of Matlock and found the last one. Also a Macgregor I’m pleased to say.

If you do change your email please let me know!

Gregor

 

Winster Again

We actually signed up 25 members in Winster, making it one of our best days ever! 

Here is a photo of the carnival procession to go with the photo of Claire with the empty beer glass! 

Gregor 

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Winster Wales

Fantastic day! A lovely carnival with lots going on, music, dance, stalls, and lots more. 

Claire helped me and signed up a good number of the 20 new members we signed up on the day! 

David was in Bakewell and I will have news about his success soon. 

Gregor 

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The end of Steampunk

Here is the last photo of people leaving the Pavilion at the end of the weekend. 

A good time was had by all! 

Gregor 

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Simon Groom Has A Party

Our Pavilion patron Simon Groom and his lovely wife Gilly organised a super party in the Round House in Derby. Friends of the Grand Pavilion will remember the fantastic film that he produced with Doug Smith about the  Round House and showed around a year ago. 

He gave a speech which was  just as entertaining as his comments to the group. 

With music and good food it was a late night! 

Gregor 

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Day two of the Steampunk Fair

A great day with lots of visitors and great music. Sunny weather and lots of colour. 

Heat is a view of the main hall full of visitors. 

Gregor 

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Day two of the Steampunk Fair

A great day with lots of visitors and great music. Sunny weather and lots of colour. 

Heat is a view of the main hall full of visitors. 

Gregor 

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Parwich Wakes Carnival

Great day! Lots of men in suits holding little fingers and holding white sticks. 

Claire and I Were there with half the stand, the other half was in Lea for their carnival. We signed up 5 members, which was good as there was not a big audience. Parwich is also on the boundary of where it is worth going to Buxton. But there was still interest in the Pavilion! 

Gregor 

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