76 replies to this topic

[crystal palace fireworks]

Thanks for your kind words Phil,

Just for the record to other forum members, Ive not been in a position of late to be able to attend Amberley meetings etc due to personal financial constraints, Im hoping this will change in the not to distant future, but Im still enthusiastic & supportive about trying to see this project through to the end by way of continued researching of funding avenues, finding other ways for outsiders to donate & history research etc from home.

Just a few questions & suggestions/comments;-

1, Have Amberley`s trustees given us a definate date to raise the funding by?

2, Did the trustees go into any detail on where or how there shortfall of funding came to be? To be honest, Im a little bit concerned that they (the trustess) are too rigid in stipulating the white chalk area for the museum buildings, if they say they are supportive of our project, why have they not offered us our prefered first choice site? = meaning the ground work would be easier to work with (more cost effect), and no rockfall netting etc, and in-keeping with the original Well`s setting of the sheds!

Suggestion;- Depending on what further funding can be raised by sponsorship etc, I think we should consider building one good shed for the time being out of what we have saved at Amberley, but I would also be inclined to consider building a strong museum building by using used `high cube shipping containers`.

Possible plus points;-

They would last the distance.

They are strong & secure.

Other containers could be added in any configuration/direction to house further future collections.

Groundwork costs would be cheaper and possibly easier to work with.

They can be dismantled & moved anywhere = they could be classed as a temporary structure??????

We might be able to get funding for green energy/recycling projects.

They could act as temporary storage of our dismantled sheds.

There would be less physical manual work in lugging panels, lifting frames, working at heights, falling off roofs etc.

[phildunford]

Thanks for your kind words Phil,

Just for the record to other forum members, Ive not been in a position of late to be able to attend Amberley meetings etc due to personal financial constraints, Im hoping this will change in the not to distant future, but Im still enthusiastic & supportive about trying to see this project through to the end by way of continued researching of funding avenues, finding other ways for outsiders to donate & history research etc from home.

Just a few questions & suggestions/comments;-

1, Have Amberley`s trustees given us a definate date to raise the funding by?

No, but frankly if we are not in a position to do the groundwork by this winter, I'm not really sure that waiting any longer will help us

2, Did the trustees go into any detail on where or how there shortfall of funding came to be? To be honest, Im a little bit concerned that they (the trustess) are too rigid in stipulating the white chalk area for the museum buildings, if they say they are supportive of our project, why have they not offered us our prefered first choice site? = meaning the ground work would be easier to work with (more cost effect), and no rockfall netting etc, and in-keeping with the original Well`s setting of the sheds!

White pits is the only realistic place to put the exhibit. All other sites are too small. It's also in keeping with the 'isolation' of a firework factory.
Amberley are not going to show us their books, but withdrawal of grants because of the financial crisis is the main reason. They have laid off three (I think) staff and not replaced one who retired, who was unfortunately also their digger driver . They are now on a sound financial footing and are doing better than their projections for the start of this year.

Suggestion;- Depending on what further funding can be raised by sponsorship etc, I think we should consider building one good shed for the time being out of what we have saved at Amberley, but I would also be inclined to consider building a strong museum building by using used `high cube shipping containers`.

Amberley do not want the project built in bits and in many ways I agree with them. They have been caught too many times by protracted or incomplete projects. One of their current themes is to upgrade all exhibits to the highest quality & make sure new ones meet this standard. Shipping containers would not be acceptable. The point of custom building the museum in the same style as the Wells sheds is to make it look a complete exhibit - like a firework factory in fact. They are looking for this exhibit to have a 40 year life at least.

I think this part of the exercise has concentrated our minds on the fact that this must be a professional looking project and we must think big. Paul was a very nice guy, but I don't think he had a full understanding of the musems problems, ethos and aspirations.

I realise that this involves a major change in how we think, but the end result will be better for it.

My next job is to draw up reasonably accurate financial projections. We need then to get a generous donor or sponsors or both. Until we get that, it's not really worth agonising about finer detail.

[Arthur Brown]

When we (forum) find it hard to get 50 people to put up £20 for society membership, will we find people to put up £30K between them.

[chrismdunford]

To fulfil the aims of the society I think we should be building firework factories as well as a museum. I don’t think it needs to be either/or. Different people within the society should be working on different projects.



I love the idea of a fireworks display to raise money for the museum. I don’t know much about this side of things but a paying display with profits to the museum fund would be great publicity and great fun! Any other fund-raising ideas?



30K sounds daunting but it’s not really as bad as that. This is a ball-park figure (we are working on a more accurate costing) which includes us paying for everything; materials, labour etc.



If our band of volunteers is still up for it we should be able to reduce the amount needed substantially and if we can find a couple of generous business sponsors as well as individual sponsors I think we could make it work.

[RFD]

Is the UKPS obliged for the upkeep of the potential buildings,if i was given a business proposition whereby i was asked to spend a potential 30k plus time and effort and upkeep afterwards to build a display for a company that charges admission and i saw zero return,they would see the wrong side of the door pretty quick smart,surely a better way would be to have a small percentage of admission fee returnable to the UKPS,at least until costs are covered,i have to agree with Arthur trying raise a possible 30k in these cash strapped times could be a very long drawn out affair,to get people to sponser you need a bit more than buildings that a limited number of people are going to see,if publicity is what the UKPS wants 30k buys a lot of adverts in magazines and papers. I appreciate this sounds like victor mildrew and maybe it is, but sounds like Amberley want it all their way and basically giving us a bit of waste land to improve there finances for what appears to be little effort on there behalf,if the UKPS had a vast membership then its a realistic proposition but even with sterling efforts from the committee this has got financial meltdown written all over it,think on the lines of how difficult it was to find finances to remove the buildings in the first place,if it hadnt been for the hard work of volunteers it all would be rotting away still,i cant help thinking Amberley are asking far to much,ok rant over gonna start building the barricades now.

[phildunford]

I feel I need to make a few comments here.

This is not a business proposition & the UKPS is not a business. It's an opportunity to establish a unique facility.

The wider firework community has been asking for something like this for many years and we are in the position to supply it.

It won't be 'a limited number' of people that see it. Amberley currently attracts over 60,000 visitors a year and most of them would see an exhibit with UKPS over the door. They will be encouraged to see fireworks in a good light & may even go out and buy some. We may well be able to arrange displays & other events at Amberley. It will be fantastic publicity for an organisation that is at best virtually unknown and at worst seen as a group of dangerous lunatics!

It pains me to say this, but the history of the UKPS has been one of missed opportunities and failed projects - this one is not going to fail.

The UKPS committee is behind the project, however, I will publicly state here that should this ever cease to be the case, Christina and myself will pursue the project outside UKPS.

Although we have had generous donations from UKPS members most of the £4500 we already have has been raised externally. No UKPS funds have yet gone to this project. The expenditure on recovery has been virtually zero - it's all been done by the time and talent of volunteers.

I would remind members of the remit of the UKPS "to represent the heritage, science, history and art of pyrotechnics in the United Kingdom".

Many members have given up many hours of their time for this project, and clearly they think it's worthwhile. Myself, Christina and Keith have devoted hundreds of hours of time over the last year and attended dozens of meetings.

Anyone who has actually visited Amberley, will know that the proposed site is a picturesque area, not a 'bit of waste land'. Any undeveloped area will have its particular construction issues and this one to my mind is no worse than most.

Now, I appreciate that heritage and history are not interesting to everyone. However to many members, they are important and I would ask that everyone considers the impact that negative comments have on the morale of a group of people who are actually doing something practical for the UKPS and the industrial heritage of Great Britain.

Edited by chrismdunford, 05 March 2011 - 09:58 PM.

[RFD]

Phil,if my comments came across as being negative,this was not my intention and it certainly wasn't intended as a dig at the fine efforts of members and volunteers,if it caused offense then apologies all round.
I certainly haven't considered the project not to be worthwhile or i wouldn't have donated to the fund for removal the buildings in the first place,as for industrial heritage of the UK,if i was unconcerned about our firework past i wouldn't have bothered to try and keep the forum updated on the sad demise of Astra's at sandwich,as a small society trying to do something quite extraordinary on limited budget i think is outstanding,but judging by previous posts about Amberley it appears the museum likes to move the goalposts on occasions,if Amberley set out what they want/by when with some sort of guarantee i would put my "money where my mouth is" and be a sponsor

[phildunford]

I'm delighted to announce that Jim (Helix) has joined Christina & myself on the Amberley project team.

Jim will be spearheading our fund raising effort (an area where he has previous experience) and as his day job involves the design of building electrical & mechanical services this promises to be an excellent appointment.

Thanks Jim & welcome on board!

[Vic]

OK Phil after sitting on the fence since the project was first mentioned and with much deliberating I have decided to volunteer to help in any way I can.
I have a good all round building knowledge from ground work and upwards and I can dedicate some weeks to the on site work.
I will try to get to talk to you over the SFX weekend.

[crystal palace fireworks]

Thanks Vic and Jim Helix (whoever you are) for volunteering your services for this project,....its really appreciated by everyone involved.

Just a quick plea to everyone else;-

I know if we had a show of hands and voted tomorrow to choose between a dedicated UKPS firework club/venue to physically practise our art, and a museum, then quite rightly most of us would choose the former every day of the week.

But for us to get that dream UKPS firework clubs/venues of our own, we must attempt to recruit new members to the UKPS. The museum will do this by partly becoming a giant advertising board for us to realize that dream. Apart from the UKPS name above the sheds, we will probably have UKPS leaflets that the public can take with them from a `Point of sale` box, and/or maybe even a computer/information point for the public to access our website and for education/history reasons etc etc.

As Phil said, 60.000 visitors a year come to Amberley, but remember thats 60.000 in ONE YEAR, next year there will be another 60.000 (most of which have not visited before) and so on, and thats without increasing visitor numbers for the following years.

Now out of that 60.000, we may even come across the odd eccentric millionaire, businessman, planning officer who is sympathetic to our cause, and dare I say with money to burn who can see our dream to set up a firework club, and who knows where that could lead us futher down the line (firework school perhaps with professional courses/qualifications), in essence is about networking = win win win situation for us all.

On the subject of £30k for the museum;-

Phil is not asking the average working/middle class UKPS members or non members to stump up this amount of money (although any contribution no matter how small is most welcome), he wouldn`t be stupid or crass enough to ask, but we are at the beginning of a 2nd crucial stage where we need to work quickly & professionally by seeking sponsorship/partnerships.

What we also need is more volunteers to cover different aspects of the museum developement, and to take the pressure off of Phil & Chris a little.

The museum is very much on course, so please come forward and volunteer if you can, the more volunteers we get, the sooner our firework clubs will be built, in fact you may even find it rewarding!

[phildunford]

Vic - brilliant! Will chat to you on the SFX day, but do get in touch anyway if you want - I'll pm you contact details.

I think the whole 'firework factory' thing is a red herring. It's not either/or. Frankly the UKPS building a firework factory at the moment is a non-starter. There are not enough of us in any one place to make it practical. When we have 1000 members maybe, 100? I don't think so. If we do want to argue the merits of this I think a new thread would be appropriate, as I’d like to keep this one on topic if possible...

[phildunford]

Now no laughing! I've been honing my Blue Peter skills & building a scale model of the current proposed layout. It will help visualise things & particularly help the artist doing our artists impression. I will probably bring it along to the AGM.

Not quite finished, but take a look anyway:

[crystal palace fireworks]

Vic - brilliant! Will chat to you on the SFX day, but do get in touch anyway if you want - I'll pm you contact details.

I think the whole 'firework factory' thing is a red herring. It's not either/or. Frankly the UKPS building a firework factory at the moment is a non-starter. There are not enough of us in any one place to make it practical. When we have 1000 members maybe, 100? I don't think so. If we do want to argue the merits of this I think a new thread would be appropriate, as I’d like to keep this one on topic if possible...

Phil, with humility & respect, my comments and intentions were innocently (perhaps naively) but mainly geared to encourage support for you Chris and the team and the project as a whole, and of course in part to show forum viewers the possibilities & POTENTIAL for future projects BEYOND the completion of the museum by getting others involved, nothing more nothing less.

I apologize if this has distracted things away from the original topic in question.

[phildunford]

I apologize if this has distracted things away from the original topic in question.

NP mate - no wrist slapping was intended!