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.