A Step Closer To Home

The last two week have seen some significant developments at the club, not least the change of ownership and the arrival of new co-owners Oliver Ash and Terry Casey. They have set out their commitment to Bring The Stones Home and stated they aim this to happen by the end of 2011. They are now in the process of putting together the business plan for this as well as starting the process of attracting the much needed investment that will be needed to achieve that ambition.

So where does our campaign fit in? What it certainly DOES NOT mean is that we ned to stop our fundraising efforts. We need to be showing to any potential investor that our supporters are willing to back the club and are willing to do their bit in the raising of monies for the new ground. We will no doubt get more details from the club when they have completed their business plan, but on thing is for sure, the more we can raise as supporters the more we can make sure this dream happens.

Meanwhile, fundraising efforts continue and we had the successful race night last month that raised a superb total of £391. You will also see on the front page that you can now raise funds from just your day to day online purchases. A simple scheme whereby the campaign will raise money based the commission raised on sales through the internet, be it through Ebay or Amazon, or by renewing your insurance policies or changing energy supplier. So please take a moment to register then next time you buy online, make sure you use this page to ensure the campaign gets this valuable commission. So far it's raised £19, but if you think that the campaign will receive £45 in commission if a supporter uses it to switch car insurance, you can see the potential of 200 fans all changed their policy through this site, and who knows you may even save yourself a few quid too!

Finally, don't forget to keep pushing the Virtual Stadium, we recently sold our 300th seat and attracted a new sponsor, so in total we are nearing £4000 from just this scheme alone.

Totaliser Passes £20K

Whilst times may be tough on the pitch for the club as they try to move out of the relegation zone, things are going very nicely indeed with the Bring The Stones Home campaign as today we were able to announce the totaliser had hit £20,000. This years sponsored walk has been a big contributor to this recent push with £1600 already collected with still more to come in, so well done to everyone who did the walk, hpefully those blisters will have disappeared now! There was also the highly successful Hobo Jones night where Stones fans were treated to a great evening of entertainment which added nearly £1000 to the totaliser. So a big thankyou to the organisers and Hobo Jones themselves for donating their time.

Added to that we had the success of another Fan Cake Day where another £242 was added to the totaliser so it's thanks once again to Jo, Lyn and Ros for all their efforts and especially those delicious cakes.

The fundraising efforts still continue and in May we have our next quiz night so make sure you register to take part in what promises to be another un evening.


Obviously there is still a long way to go so keep those ideas coming and spread the word about the virtual stadium as well. And on that note, we hope to run a series of roadshows over the summer to promote the campaign and the virtual stadium so drop us a line if you'd like to help out with these as well as ideas on where we can hold them.

Another Landmark Reached

Having finally caught up with the accounting, today saw the fund hit the £16000 barrier as another £30 donation tipped us into the next milestone. It's small donations like these that will make all the difference, so thank you to those who have sent in cheques to the fund.

That small change also makes a difference with nearly £600 now raised through of matchday bucket collections, and with other contributions coming from Trolley (thanks to winning the Salisbury Coach sweepstake) and donation of 400 Club winnings (thank you to Paul Collyer), that totaliser keeps ticking over.

Don't forget we will be holding the AGM of the committee on 8th March and this will be your opportunity to put questions to the fundraising committee, details are on the main page. As we keep trying to emphasise to fans, this is a fundraising effort by fans and we aim to be transparent in all that we do, so this is another opportunity for you to find out what is going on and also put your views and questions to the committee so please make every effort to attend.

Virtually There!

What a great start to the launch of the Maidstone United Virtual Stadium with over £1200 raised in the first 24 hours of launch! There's been a lot of work going on developing the idea but it finally launched yesterday and has already attracted over 1000 hits. This is the ideal opportunity to get the people of Maidstone involved in building the new ground, so get referring people to the site and we hope to follow this up by doing one or two roadshows in the town to further increase the profile of this campaign.

The idea is pretty unique and we hope that it will not only attract the attention of the population of Maidstone, but also further afield and fans of other teams. So please do all you can to spread the word and the idea could teally take off.

Coupled with the success of the Christmas draw which raised a further £1600 for the campaign, the totaliser has been ticking over very nicely and we now find ourselves reaching £15,000 as we get to the end of 2009. So thank you to everyone for their efforts so far, lets push on from here and really get the fundraising ball rolling.

Filling Up On Smarties?

One of the first fundraising intiatives set up by the fundraising committee was the 'Smarties Challenge'. A simple concept which allows you to firstly enjoy a tube of smarties then fill it back up with £1 coins. The scheme has been a great success and this month hit the £1000 mark. If you want to take up the challenge then just register with Lyn Brockway and start collecting.

Another very successful fundraiser has been those knitted scarves and teddies. They have been a big hit with fans and have raised over £200 for the campaign. So next time you are in the club shop, have a look at what's on offer, those scarves could come in very useful for those cold winter games!

Finally, don't forget the bucket collections at home games all go into the ground fund, so remember to bring any spare change along to games. This intiative has already raised over £300 so next time you see that bucket, drop in a few pennies, it all counts.

Campaign Gathers Pace

Over the last couple of weeks we've seen the launch of three new events as we aim to reach out to the people of Maidstone and get them involved in fundraising.

The first is the return of the Maidstone United Quiz Night which raised £1000 last time round and we're looking to beat that this year. Entry is just £7.50/person and that includes nibbles plus a chance to win some great prizes in the raffle. Tables are already being snapped up so either email us at the usual address or download and send off the booking form.

The next event organised is a great evening of music with Hobo Jones and The Junkyard Dogs which is taking place on Saturday 27th February at Riano's on Tonbridge Road, Maidstone.  What promises to be a great evening kicks off at 7pm and tickets are prices at just £10 which includes a fish supper. Why not download a poster today and advertise the event at work, local pub etc. and get as many people along as possible.

Finally, most people will remember the fantastic cakes which were on offer at the last 'Fan Cake Day'. Well, the aprons are going back on and it's back on the 28th November for our home game with Convey Island. Once again, we're hoping to go one better than last time out where we raised £231. The match coincides with the comminity day where all of the clubs affiliated team will be coming along.

Finally it's a big thank you to Trudi McLeod our local Avon Rep. Being a Stones fan too, she is combining the two and come up with the idea of all orders received from Stones fans/players/families and The Fox, she will donate 10% of all sales to BTSH. Trudi distributes the catalogues at home games and then returns with the goodies at the next home game!! Easy money maybe a little but often!! Trudi's mobile number is 07718 316026 ander e-mail address is trudley@live.co.uk or on the smtwtgh messagebaord she is 'stone of destiny'.

So things are really taking off with our fundraising efforts and these coupled with our Xams draw (tickets still on sale!) should make a significant impact on our totaliser which passed the £11,000 mark last week. Dn't forget, our first target is £36,000 to get the sub-station installed on the ground, so who knows, we could start the year halfway to that total.

Keep the faith and keep going with those fundraising ideas!

Ticket Sales Going Well

We hope that you all now have at least one book of tickets to sell amongst your family and friends for the Stones Xmas draw. John Robins is your man if you have still to get a book or you can email us directly and we'll send one out straight away. We have also been receiving emails from one or two local businesses who are actively selling tickets, so that's encouraging and hopefully the proceeds from the ticket sales will make another significant contribution to the totaliser. £500 is a great prize and is certainly helping boost ticket sales and we'll be able to announce other prizes on offer very soon.

It was great news last week to see the totaliser tip over the £10,000 mark with it currently standing just below £11,000 and that is of course a great effort in just over 6 months. Remember the last ground appeal campaign which successfully funded our planning application? Well that took a year to reach £10,000 so it just goes to show that we have a bit more momentum now and hopefully we can sustain that. It does also mean that we are almost a third of the way to the cost of a substation, our first target for this campaign so keep selling those tickets!