Fundraising

Rowntree Walks are run by the Rowntree Society – a registered charity (no. 1105936). We’re not the same as the Rowntree Trusts; they’re wealthy, and we’re not! And they have been very helpful to us – they and others gave us some money to commission a study to examine the most effective and sustainable ways to bring the heritage of the Rowntree family to life.

The study recommended that the best option was to create a series of linked trails round York, with information being provided at particular points via solar powered panels and direct to mobile phones and personal digital assistants. This adds an exciting technology aspect to the project. In addition, an attractive book would be sold. Extremely cautious forecasts of usage suggested that these methods would generate sufficient ongoing income to ensure the maintenance and sustainability of the trails. We were presented with a range of options (high, medium and low impact) relating to the number of panels etc, and of course the cost of these varied in proportion to the impact.

Crucially, all this would be linked to a state of the art website enabling users to prepare for a visit to York, to follow up a visit (for example, as part of a visiting class of schoolchildren), or simply to do the walk ‘virtually’.

So – now we are preparing a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund to enable us to create the first trail. Whatever money we raise from HLF will have to be matched by funding from other sources. If you’d like to help, please send a cheque, or a CAF Cheque, payable to ‘The Rowntree Society’, to our Treasurer as follows:

Brian Jardine
Treasurer,
The Rowntree Society
Tanners Yard,
Huntington Road
Huntington
York
YO32 9PX

We aren’t yet set up for Gift Aid etc, but will announce it here when that day comes.

Many thanks for reading this!

Steven Burkeman
Chair, the Rowntree Society.