PORTLAND WORKS NEWSLETTER No 2 - DECEMBER 2011
Welcome to our second Newsletter. As promised, another update on the Portland Works project.
Fundraising - We've continued to be busy taking share contributions - after a dip in September/ October there's been a steady flow of contributions and we're now up to 170 shareholders and over £125,000 in the bank and still more pledged. Several shareholders have asked about ‘top-ups’ – there’s no need for another application, just email us with the details and we’ll process the payment – shares@portlandworks.co.uk.
Following our first round of negotiations with the owners, we have modified our target for share sales and donations to £250,000 - taking us exactly halfway there.
Model of the Works by
Live Project students
We’re launching our “Portland Patrons’ scheme in December, targetting Sheffield businesses for donations to the purchase and renovation fund.
A welcome ‘stop-press’ item is a grant of £2670 from the Sheffield Town Trust to help with the campaign. Our thanks go to this, the oldest funding organisation in the City, with a history going back some 500 years!
We've now done five presentations to various City groups, and had stalls at local street markets, the Peace and Craft Fair at the Town Hall in November, and the Kelham Island Christmas market in December, a chilling experience on a bitter weekend. Many thanks for Emma, Alan, Fiona and others for turning out there.
The grinding shop - our 'atmospheric' base in the Works - has had some good use over the autumn, we have many of our meetings there and four 'arts events' have also been hosted. And of course a third highly successful open day in October. Slightly less ambitious than before, we kept numbers down to a mere 100, ensuring tenants weren't worn out…
‘Live Project’ - during October we had a very active group of 12 Sheffield University Architecture Masters students, working on an open ended 'live project' at the Works, producing a splendid scale model of the works (see right) and much useful pictorial and planning material, which will be of great use in the future – their summary ‘Vision’ document is well worth a read and can be downloaded from the website (Live project page).
Our volunteers have been working in several groups. The
Building group have now planned much of the early
repair and renovation work for the future, and also costed a
'makeover' for the portico and archway which will happen as soon as
we can raise the funds. 
Chisels in
Andy Cole's workshop
The Marketing group have decided on two new thrusts - to make a major push at national press coverage in the New Year, and to launch the Portland Patrons corporate donor scheme.
The Business development group have interviewed several tenants and drawn up a ‘wishlist’ of priorities and aims for ‘after purchase’.
Our thanks go to the band of volunteers who’ve contributed unstintingly to these groups, backed up with a huge amount of work at home, to get us ‘where we are’.
Derek Morton - Chair
Portland Works Committee
Randall Street
Sheffield
S2 4SJ
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October newsletter print
version can be downloaded here 1.98 MB