Heritage Lottery Fund
Lifeboat launched again thanks to Heritage Lottery Fund

Newsletter Dated 23 August 2000

Heritage Lottery Fund Grant Result

So! The news is out at last. The Heritage Lottery Fund has come up trumps and awarded us the full £75,000 for the restoration of James Stevens No.14 that we asked for. Although we had always believed that we had a very good chance of getting some money, the size of the award has come as a very pleasant shock and makes worthwhile all those hours (and there really were an awful lot of them) that Rachel and John put into the application. For those of you who have read all of our newsletters and fund-raising leaflets, you may be wondering why we applied to the HLF for £75,000 when we had estimated in 1998 that the restoration of the boat would total £75,000 and we have reportedly raised over £25,000 since then. The answer is that the HLF required us to add voluntary labour, gifts in kind, inflation, contingency etc. in to the calculations together with proper provision in Walton Maritime Museum for `intellectual access` to the project. This pushes the total costs of the restoration project over £100,000 and does not include provision for the running costs when the boat is finished and afloat.

James Stevens No14 on trials in 1906 Now a Designated Historic Vessel on the National Register of 150 most Historic Vessels of the UK

We have always known that we would have to continue fund-raising even if we received a Lottery grant, and we also need to build up a reserve for the boat`s maintenance and running costs in the future.

We will also pursue more gifts in kind. We have already received enough abrasive materials from Norton Abrasives for the life of the project and the Trust is very grateful for their support.

The Centenary Barbecue raised some £900. Thankfully the weather cleared to enable our 150 or so guests to enjoy the evening and the conducted tours of the boat.

The Sponsor-a-Plank initiative continues to attract support with a total of over £3000 raised so far. We have recently received a cheque from some expatriate Waltonions home from Australia and another from Lt.Col.Peder Klepsvik in Norway who rowed across the North Sea during the War to Escape German Occupied Norway and to join the Free Norwegian Forces. The campaign will continue until all 334 planks are sponsored.

It has been proved much more difficult than we originally thought to print the names of plank sponsors on each plank.As linseed oil is being applied to the planks to prevent them from drying out. Printed labels were attached to the planks for the Barbecue evening, but we have yet to make the final decision about more permanent markers.

Geoff Ivory`s Limited Edition Prints of the Boating Lake are selling steadily and we have covered the production costs already. They are available from Ashleys at the Frinton Triangle Shopping Centre at £40 for the framed pair or £25 each.

The Newsletter Editor is just starting another fund-raising project which is to write a book covering the history of our boat in great detail and the other nineteen James Stevens lifeboats less so. This is a medium-term project and the money raised will go towards the running costs of the boat.

Our thanks to David Baines, the boatbuilder, for completing the Stabilisation plan to budget. The quality of his work has been praised by many people and bodes well for the future. The balance for the grant for the Stabilisation Plan from the PRISM Fund at the Science Museum is being claimed. We are not yet sure when work on the boat will start again, but it will be sometime this autumn. A formal contract between HLF and the Trust has to be drawn up first, together with a management plan which will cover the life of the project.