Floral Hall Hornsea

I have just received a call from Keith Twig from the campaign to save The Floral Hall in Hornsea. They are a group set up to save the hall only six weeks ago. The Floral Hall was going to be demolished under council plans and turned into a car park at a cost of £1.2m. But following objections, the plans were rejected and residents were given time to come up with a plan for turning it into a community-led trust. Does that sound familiar?

I was able to give them some ideas from our campaign and wish them well. I hope to meet them in the summer. They are fortunate in that the hall, currently in a poor condition, is still open.

I wish them well with their campaign.

Gregor

N.Gregor Macgregor
Chairman, The Grand Pavilion Ltd

See our Progress: www.savethepavilion.co.uk &

Support out vision: www.thegrandpavilion.co.uk

 

35 help with Pavilion Clean-up

A total of 35 people have helped with the clean-up of the Grand Pavilion. Together we have put in over 220 hours of work towards our objective.

We are getting the building ready for the Derbyshire Open Arts Festival in June at the moment.

This is only the start, as our objective is to get the building back to where it was before the discothèque added all the balconies and stage changes.

This open space will be much easier to develop as no preliminary work will be needed.

Well done everyone, it is a great job that you are doing.

Gregor

N.Gregor Macgregor
Chairman, The Grand Pavilion Ltd

See our Progress: www.savethepavilion.co.uk &

Support out vision: www.thegrandpavilion.co.uk

 

Farenheit Rises

This will be on Saturday, 21st April Temple Hotel, Matlock Bath. Please be seated by 7.30pm.

Matlock Bath would like to claim Farenheit as our own. They are a fun female quartet who sing a diverse range of acappella songs.

All four women are proud members of DaleDiva, the award winning Derbyshire chorus who were winners of the Channel 5 show Don’t Stop Believing. And they are no strangers to high achievements themselves, winning 1st place at the Derby Music Festival and a 4th place medal at their regional Sweet Adelines competition.

We are now up to 23 reservations for Farenheit so this is a good support so far. Each day is bringing in another dozen or so, since I sent the flyer to the members.

There is no charge to members for the event though donations for the raffle would be greatly appreciated. Guests will be welcomed, subject to availability, at £5 per person.

Gregor

N.Gregor Macgregor
Chairman, The Grand Pavilion Ltd

See our Progress: www.savethepavilion.co.uk &

Support out vision: www.thegrandpavilion.co.uk

 

Front Page of the Matlock Mercury Again!

It’s not often we hit the Front Page, but when we do it is a cause to celebrate.

Last week we put in our application for our first Heritage Lottery Grand and, unbeknown to us, so did Masson Mill!

This made a good front page story for a press release that I had feared would disappear without trace. I had a hint that something may have been published, when Christina phoned me to confirm that Charles Beresford was indeed the Vice Chairman, but I had no idea that she was writing a local scoop.

Well done again Charles for your hard work and the front page article is well deserved.

Gregor

N.Gregor Macgregor
Chairman, The Grand Pavilion Ltd

See our Progress: www.savethepavilion.co.uk &

Support out vision: www.thegrandpavilion.co.uk

 

Pavilion Clean-up is Progressing Well

We are making good progress with the Pavilion Clear-up.

Today we went a long way to clearing up the old Tourist Information Centre. This is going to be used for two exhibitions in June and July /August. The attached photo is of those helping with today’s work.

We met each Saturday and Sunday at 10am, if you would like to join us please let me know and I will tell you what to bring.

Gregor

N.Gregor Macgregor
Chairman, The Grand Pavilion Ltd

See our Progress: www.savethepavilion.co.uk &

Support out vision: www.thegrandpavilion.co.uk

 

Cash Machine boost

The number of transactions in March was 5,423, narrowly missing the 5,500 threshold; when the rate goes up.

This is an increase of 28.9% on the transactions last year!

April will be more of a challenge…..because of the good weather then the number of transactions was 6,055; so we will have to use the machine much more to get the number above that.

Friends Group membership now stands at 1,022.

Gregor

N.Gregor Macgregor
Chairman, The Grand Pavilion Ltd

See our Progress: www.savethepavilion.co.uk &

Support out vision: www.thegrandpavilion.co.uk

 

Stripping Windows in the Pavilion

With the help of Fred, we have just done the ground floor windows in the Pavilion. They may not look much better but Fred has dug out all the rotten wood and painted them with wood hardener to help preserve them. We must then do something to preserve the wood revealed a bit better. The next final stage will be to strip the rest of the old paint and repaint the whole window.

One of the little jobs that need doing! Thanks Fred.

Gregor

N.Gregor Macgregor
Chairman, The Grand Pavilion Ltd

See our Progress: www.savethepavilion.co.uk &

Support out vision: www.thegrandpavilion.co.uk

 

Our 1st Lottery Fund Bid is Issued

We have just submitted our first Lottery Find bid. This is for the Heritage Centre that we propose to have in the old Tourist Information Centre.

This will allow us to build a relationship with the Fund and help us with the main application, which I expect us to make early next year.

Most of Matlock Bath parish is a Conservation Area. There are 33 Grade II listed buildings and 3 registered Historic Parks and Gardens of Grade II status within this area. The Conservation Area also falls within the buffer zone of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site. The area is therefore formally recognised for its historic importance.

Our project is to develop a Matlock Bath Heritage Centre, in a currently unused area of the Grand Pavilion. This will provide both local communities and visitors from further a field with an accessible way to discover more about the rich and unique history of Matlock Bath. An extension of this will be a project to collect and preserve oral histories from the area.

Congratulations for organising the bid must go to Charles Beresford and his little team, without whom this bid would never have seen the light of day.

Friends of the Grand Pavilion Membership now stands at 1018!

Gregor

N.Gregor Macgregor
Chairman, The Grand Pavilion Ltd

See our Progress: www.savethepavilion.co.uk &

Support out vision: www.thegrandpavilion.co.uk

 

Leafleting Matlock Bath

I have just been down the front with our leaflets telling people about the lease. I have had a great response from shopkeepers and particularly about the Cash Machine. We will be monitoring the progress of the cash machine and telling “Note Machine” when it has run out of money.

I also spoke to Robin Hall about a proposed event, that we hope will take place in July and August. Watch this space!

Membership now up to 982!

Gregor

Meeting with DDDC

After a successful meeting with Mike Galsworthy of Derbyshire Dales District Council, the route is now clear with our operation of the lease for the Grand Pavilion.

We agreed the handling of the leases and the money from those leases. The money will be entered in a Maintenance Fund, in our accounts, and used to catch up with the backlog of maintenance work. Anything that we sell from within the building will similarly be put into the Maintenance Fund. Mike was pleased with our maintenance programme.

As to the inside of the building, within the terms of the lease we can do whatever we want, so long as it is legal and within the regulations.

The only shock was that we have a few more bills to pay than we thought.

Membership today now stands at 980!

Gregor

N.Gregor Macgregor
Chairman, The Grand Pavilion Ltd

See our Progress: www.savethepavilion.co.uk &

Support out vision: www.thegrandpavilion.co.uk

 

Derby Telegraph Visits the Pavilion

Matlock area’s new reporter Kelly Tyler visited the Grand Pavilion and I gave her a tour of the building.

She asked some interesting questions and got fully briefed. She stayed for two hours and this gave her a lot of time to understand the Pavilion and Matlock Bath’s problems. I think she will be running a number of articles on the village in the next few weeks.

She has asked me to produce a personal piece on the campaign from my perspective, 600-1,200 words. This will be an interesting project for me over the next couple of  weeks.

Above is her first article on the Pavilion; which appeared a week ago.

Gregor

N.Gregor Macgregor
Accounting & Controls Specialist; CCS (working from home)
Masson Cottage, Upperwood Road, Matlock Bath, Derbyshire, UK DE4 3PD
(Home) +44 1629 55088
(Mobile) +44 777 1717 086
P Help save paper - do you need to print this email?

 

Note Machine / Cash Machine

I met Steve Bryant of Note Machine and had a super discussion. He is vary happy with what we are doing; to try to increase the use of the machine.

He has also given us a number to ring when the machine runs out of money (it is 01873 811634, Option 1).

He has promised to review the cash levels in the machine to ensure that it does not run out during busy weekends. Filling with more cash and ensuring that there is a Friday fill are two options he will investigate.

Steve also promised to give us the monthly figures of usage immediately after the month-end, so we can monitor how we have done. He gave the figures for the last year and they make sorry reading.

There are five tiers of usage, the lowest gives us nothing and the highest gives us the full percentage (60%). The Cash Machine failed to get out of the lowest tier in four months, and only got above the second lowest tier in two months last. Tiers four and five were never reached!

Finally there was a bit of bad news, the maximum payment is only 15.4p not 20p, as Note Machine are currently getting less from the banks, due to lower interest rates.

Gregor

N.Gregor Macgregor
Chairman, The Grand Pavilion Ltd

See our Progress: www.savethepavilion.co.uk &

Support out vision: www.thegrandpavilion.co.uk

 

DDDC Partnership and Regeneration Committee

I spoke briefly to the P & R committee of Derbyshire Dales Council last night.

I thanked them for agreeing to the lease and reported that it had now been signed. I said that we would be providing 6-monthly reports, as agreed prior to the lease being signed, but warned them that the first report would be a bit thin!

It will take time now before we have any really concrete news. The real work now starts as applications are completed and funding bodies are approached. It is unlikely, however, that we will get immediate commitments to fund the Grand Pavilion’s re-development.

We have made two applications to the Regional Growth Fund, neither of which have been successful. We have approached the Heritage Lottery Fund and will be making our first application shortly. This will be a small “get-to-know-you” application, so that when we put in the main application, later in the year, we will have built up a working relationship together.

I also mentioned that the Arts Council have now created a funding stream for Capital Expenditure, which we can apply to. The Heritage Lottery Fund is critical though. Without some money from the HLF our scheme will be difficult to implement.

Gregor

N.Gregor Macgregor
Chairman, The Grand Pavilion Ltd

See our Progress: www.savethepavilion.co.uk &

Support out vision: www.thegrandpavilion.co.uk

 

12 Members Today!

I have just opened the post and there were no less that seven envelopes with membership forms in! There were also the first members, from our deliveries in Swanwick, Carsington and South-of-the-Derwent in Matlock.

With the four that we have already received this week, this takes us to 16 for the week and 969 in total.

It won’t be long until we get to that MAGICAL THOUSAND !

Gregor

N.Gregor Macgregor
Chairman, The Grand Pavilion Ltd

See our Progress: www.savethepavilion.co.uk &

Support out vision: www.thegrandpavilion.co.uk

 

Meeting with Lynn Allison

I have just had a meeting with Lynn and showed her around the Grand Pavilion.

She has stressed the need to have a Marketing Strategy and constant communication with the public about our plans and how they are developing.

Although I think that we have done really well so far, we can always find ways to do this better. What was amazing; whilst we were talking no less than two people came up to us. Both congratulated The Group about what we were doing, but neither was clear about where we were with the funding!

Gregor

N.Gregor Macgregor
Chairman, The Grand Pavilion Ltd

See our Progress: www.savethepavilion.co.uk &

Support out vision: www.thegrandpavilion.co.uk