Pilgrim Project update – May 2020

Dear friends,

We hope that you are keeping well at this time. As we live through the Covid-19 pandemic, we all find ourselves working our way through new experiences. We hope and pray that you and your loved ones are staying safe.

First and foremost, we want to thank you for your ongoing giving to the Pilgrim Project. We are very grateful for this and our fundraising has so far raised the absolutely amazing sum of £167,000! Well done everyone! We cannot emphasise too much just how grateful we are for this.

Covid-19 has of course had a major impact on the whole world. The Pilgrim Project is just the same, but not in ways that you might expect!

Our church has been closely involved with the Farnham COVID-19 Coordination Group. This is led by Farnham Town Council and we are one of only a handful of churches to be involved. We have already been recognised by the community as a community church working in the town centre. However, the current state of our buildings limited ways in which we could respond in practice. Had we had the improved facilities that the Pilgrim Project is developing, we could have been much more involved by hosting activities that have had to take place elsewhere.

Lockdown has not meant the Project has stopped. Far from it: a small team has been working as hard as ever to prepare for when professionals can come back on site to undertake what is known as the ‘detailed design’, and in preparing our fundraising.

As we thank you for all that you have done, we take this opportunity to say that we have three particular needs at the moment:

1. If you still have your income, please continue your regular giving. This is a vital part of our fundraising strategy.
2. If you can help us with the completion of grant applications using information we can supply, we would be delighted to hear from you. (This is more a case of filling in a form with information already prepared by us than it is in creating answers to questions.) Obviously we won’t be sending in applications until it becomes appropriate to do so, but we need to be ready when the time comes.
3. If you have a skill that would help the project, we would be delighted to hear from you – for example Publicity (PR skills), helping at events, writing, administration, fundraising…

Thank you again for all your support. As we move into the next phase, Covid-19 has confirmed very starkly the urgent need in the town for what we are trying to provide. Thank you for helping us thus far – please can you continue to help as we move forwards.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Hopkins (Minister)
Nick Savill (Project Manager)
Philip Simpkins (Minister)