Tag: crowdfunder

Edinburgh attraction offers first overnight stay in centuries

For the first time in over 100 years, the Real Mary King’s Close is offering members of the public the extraordinary chance to spend a night within its walls.

The overnight stay forms the centrepiece of a new campaign at The Real Mary King’s Close, offering visitors the rare opportunity to experience the historic streets after dark. The initiative also supports work to stabilise and protect the site, helping historians, conservators and visitors better understand how people in Edinburgh centuries ago lived and uncover stories that would otherwise remain hidden.

One winner will enjoy the chance to stay beyond visiting hours and experience Mary King’s Close as no modern visitors ever have – after dark, without crowds and immersed in the atmosphere of the streets where people once lived, worked and survived.

The experience includes an overnight stay for two with exclusive after-hours access to the site, a private after-dark tour led by an experienced costumed character revealing stories and details rarely shared during public visits, an immersive one-on-one experience with characters including the Plague Doctor and Dr Arnott, and dinner and breakfast served within The Close.

On top of getting to spend a night on the Close, the winner will also receive guest access for two to all of The Real Mary King’s Close special tours running throughout 2026, including Contagion & Carnage: The Plague Tour, A Dram of History, Pride History Tour, Dr Arnott’s Sampling Sensation, Myths and Legends Tour, Lantern Led Tour, and Victorian Christmas Experience. In addition, 10 runners-up will also receive two standard entry tickets to The Real Mary King’s Close.

Paul Nixon, General Manager at The Real Mary King’s Close said: “This is a truly unique chance to experience The Real Mary King’s Close like no visitor ever has before. To spend the night here after dark, when the crowds have gone and the streets fall silent, is something very few people could ever imagine.

“It’s an unforgettable way to step back in time and immerse yourself in the stories of the people who once lived and worked within these historic streets.”

Supporters can enter the draw to win a night’s stay at The Real Mary King’s Close by contributing to the crowdfunding campaign at www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/win-real-mary-kings-close?utm_source=press&utm_medium=pr&utm_campaign=rmkc-draw-mar26

Entries are open from now until Monday 30 March at 9pm. Entries cost £5 and can be made as many times as you like. The winner and runner-ups will be selected at random and contacted shortly after the draw closes.

The overnight stay will be arranged directly with the winner at a mutually agreed date, subject to availability and site constraints. 

For more information about The Real Mary King’s Close, visit:

www.realmarykingsclose.com

The original Elephant House Café set to reopen four years after devastating fire

  • £150,000 ‘Restore the magic’ fundraising campaign launched
  • Appeal for ‘fandals’ to support restoration

The original world-famous Elephant House Café, renowned as the birthplace of Harry Potter, is set to reopen following a devastating fire that forced its closure four years ago.

Today, the owners have announced an ambitious restoration plan, including the launch of the ‘Restore the magic’ fundraising campaign to help bring the beloved literary landmark back to life.

A must-visit destination for Harry Potter fans worldwide, The Elephant House Café became famous for being one of J.K. Rowling’s favourite writing spots in the early days of the series.

Fans from across the globe flocked to the café to soak up its magical atmosphere and, in true Potterhead tradition, scrawled messages of admiration, quotes, and artwork in the toilets – a spontaneous tribute that became an iconic feature of the café’s history and a symbol of the love people had for the café and the stories born within its walls.

As part of the fundraising efforts, the café owners are now appealing for the graffiti ‘fandals’ to support the crowdfunder for the opportunity to come back and leave their mark again.

“The Elephant House has always been a home for writers, dreamers, and fans of literature,” said David Taylor, owner of The Elephant House Café. “The fire was a heartbreaking loss, but the passion and enthusiasm from fans have been overwhelming.

“The scale of the devastation caused by the fire in such an historic building in the heart of a world heritage site means restoration is complex. We are determined to bring back this special place, and with the ‘Restore the magic’ campaign, we hope to unite the community and fans worldwide to help us rebuild.”

The restoration project aims to preserve the charm and legacy of The Elephant House while modernising it to create an even more welcoming space for writers, readers, and coffee lovers.

The fundraising campaign will offer multiple ways for supporters to contribute, including exclusive merchandise, sponsorship opportunities, and donation tiers that allow fans to leave their mark in creative ways within the rebuilt café.

The crowdfunder is now live at Restore The Magic: Rebuild The Elephant House | Indiegogo

Light Up Our Home!

Fundraiser brightens future for Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home

Edinburgh Dog & Cat Home has successfully installed 21 solar panels at its seaside cattery, marking a major milestone in its journey towards cutting costs, ensuring for a more sustainable future and even higher animal welfare standards.

The community backed crowdfunder was supported by 329 generous donors who helped raise £14,687 as part of the “Light up Our Home” campaign.

The newly installed solar panels, powering electricity for the cattery and clinic, are already helping to reduce the shelter’s environmental impact and are expected to save the Home over £2,600 each year on electricity bills.

These savings will go directly back into caring for the hundreds of animals and families supported by the Home each year.

In addition to generating clean, green energy, the panels also serve a unique welfare purpose offering the cats a safer and more comfortable play area with protection from falling bird droppings, which can carry giardia, a highly infectious parasite.

Lynsey McGreavey, Facilities Manager at Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home said; “Rising energy prices have been one of the Home’s most pressing challenges in recent years. This milestone simply wouldn’t have been possible without the incredible generosity of the public, from Edinburgh and beyond.

“In these difficult times, every single donation, whether big or small, helps turn our vision into reality. This fundraiser has not only helped us take a big step towards becoming more ego conscious but has made a direct impact on the safety and wellbeing of the animals in our care.”

Learn more about the Light Up Our Home campaign, visit edch.org.uk/articles/light-up-our-home

Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home launches cattery crowdfunder

Crippling energy price rises has seen costs at the Home soar and funds are desperately needed to enable the cattery roof to be replaced

The Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home has today launched a crowdfunder to raise vital funds to replace their cattery roof which is in great need of repair.  Rising energy prices has seen costs at the Home rocket and so they hope to install solar panels on their new roof which will make a saving of over £2,600 in energy costs every year.

The cattery roof is in urgent need of repair and the team at the Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home hope to raise nearly £13,000 to fund a new one and install solar panels.  Currently the outdoor section of the cat pen has a mesh area through which bird poo can fall, which is incredibly dangerous to the cats, putting them at risk of giardia infection. 

The new roof will be solid to keep the cats safe, preventing bird droppings from falling through, which previously required a great deal of time to clean. The improvement means the cats will now have year-round access to the outdoor cattery.

Solar Panels on the new roof would effectively cover the electricity to the Home’s entire cattery and clinic, creating a more sustainable future for the Home and for the environment. With solar panels installed, over five years the Home would save £13,070 – enough to vaccinate 1,378 cats.

Many of the Home’s resident cats, like Mickey who had spent about 6 months with them, enjoyed spending time outside whatever the weather. Mickey loved to sit in his outdoor area, hoping that passing team members would stop to say hi to him (of course, they always would!) The outdoor pens provide important stimulation and enrichment for cats like Mickey, but at the moment they can’t be used year-round due to infection concerns.

Lindsay Fyffe Jardine, CEO of Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home, said: “Repairing the roof and installing the solar panels above this section of the cattery will provide much needed shelter and create a safer play area for the cats in our care.

“Not only will we benefit from much needed energy savings, we’ll also improve our carbon footprint. Installing these solar panels means that two tons of CO2 emissions will be avoided every year. Over the panels’ lifetime, this is the equivalent of 69,690 car kms avoided, 50 long haul flights avoided, or planting 448 trees.

“Installing solar panels will not only give essential cover to our cattery, but will generate enough green energy for all the electricity in our cattery and our clinic.

“The welfare of the animals in our care is always at the forefront of our operations. Operating sustainably is essential in our ability to continue to deliver on our mission.”

To make a donation to the Cattery Crowdfunder please visit: 

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/light-up-our-home

Millennium Centre Funding Crisis: Public Meeting Tonight

COUNCILLORS MISSING BUT LIFT COMMUNITY MEETING GOES AHEAD

It is looking like NO councillors will attend but Peter, Brenda, Stacey and hopefully our chair will be on the panel to take and answer your questions the best they can, we will take a list of your questions and make sure they are sent to the relevant department within the council or to the councillors

We will have a petition to request the centre receives at least one years funding to help us to stay open.

We have been told that the budget is already set in stone but we are asking for any monies left from the 24/25 budget as we already know we wouldn’t be even a thought in the new 25/26 budget

We have been told this isn’t possible but two years ago funding was found for us so we don’t see why they can’t do this again

If you can come along to the meeting please do – and sign our petition!

Thank you

Please share this post

Help Craigroyston kids play in Craig Tara football tournament

Craigroyston YFC 2013 year group are trying to raise funds to attend a big football tournament in Craig Tara.

It’s a big cost for parents who may struggle to go but don’t want to let their kid to miss out. We have 4 mile sponsored walk, race night, bake sale, raffles and loads of other things happening but one of the mum’s has also set up a crowdfunding page.

You’ can find out more and make a donation here:

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/craigroyston2025

Pioneering Scottish rewilding project hits £1 million mark 

 ·         £1million raised in ongoing crowdfund for mass ownership of Highlands Rewilding 

·         Money raised comes from 622 investors, over 40% of whom are Scottish residents 

·         The for-profit rewilding company hopes to achieve 1,000 investors by 16 May 

Highlands Rewilding, a pioneering Scottish project focused on scaling nature recovery and community prosperity through rewilding, has secured £1 million through its crowdfunding campaign, three weeks before it is set to close on 16 May 2023. 

The company operates a frontier rewilding model that allows citizen rewilders to invest from between £50 to £200,000 to co-own rewilding land, earning a potential 5% return. This mass ownership approach has proved popular with smaller and larger investors alike, since it launched at the beginning of December 2022, despite the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.

Many founding funders who engaged with the company during its establishing year have also reinvested in Highlands Rewilding’s crowdfund, in a strong show of support for its pioneering project. 

The £1 million has been raised by 622 ‘citizen rewilders’, 43% of whom live in Scotland, testament to the groundswell of support for nature restoration which is actively combatting climate meltdown and biodiversity collapse. The for-profit rewilding company hopes to achieve 1,000 investors in the crowdfund by the end of the campaign. Larger investors have also joined forces to raise many millions more, helping Highlands Rewilding expand its operations and take rewilding to scale in Scotland. 

Further supporting the ambitions of Highlands Rewilding, this month the UK Infrastructure Bank (UKIB) committed £12 million to support the acquisition of Tayvallich Estate, a 1,300-hectare estate in Argyll.

The funding boost marked UKIB’s first deal exclusively in Scotland and will contribute to enabling Highlands Rewilding to develop new natural capital and revenue models on the Tayvallich Estate, and create an exemplar of community-company synergy. 

Dr. Jeremy Leggett, CEO of Highlands Rewilding, said: “We are delighted to be hitting such a key milestone in our fight against biodiversity collapse and climate meltdown.

“We aim to play a lead role in the great diversion of investment from ruin to restoration, through rewilding.

The more citizen rewilders invest at the £50 to £100 level, the more the financial institutions are likely to invest at the £50 million to £100 million level. Hitting the £1 million mark in our crowdfund shows that our model is working in offering tangible hope, not just for nature but also community prosperity.  

“Tayvallich is a new opportunity which has arisen since the start of our fundraising campaign. The success of our crowdfund and off-platform fundraise to date, has enabled us to sign a contract for the unique Tayvallich estate and expand our rewilding and decarbonisation work to three sites.

“Each site – Bunloit, Beldorney and Tayvallich – is unique in their own right, but together they are a powerhouse for Scottish nature recovery, and a beacon of hope for the global biodiversity treaty, recently agreed by 200-plus governments.” 

With three weeks to go, Highlands Rewilding is inviting investors to join it during its scaling campaign, that moves beyond the simple protection of nature towards nature recovery and restoration in Scotland, and later, beyond.  

As with any investment, those interested in the Highlands Rewilding project are encouraged to make sure they fully understand the process, what their investment means, and the potential risks of investing.  

Find out more about Highlands Rewilding and the crowdfund here:

www.highlandsrewilding.co.uk/crowdfund  

Scotland’s pioneering rewilding project exceeds 50% of crowdfund target in less than three weeks

  • £271,320 of £500k target raised, so far from 239 (98 Scots) investors, with 10 weeks still to go
  • Halfway point comes as COP15 30×30 agreement reached to safeguard world’s ecosystems

Highlands Rewilding, Scotland’s 2,000-acre project focused on combating biodiversity collapse and climate meltdown, has raised over 50% of its £500,000 target in less than three weeks.

The crowdfund for mass ownership of the company Launched on 1st December and runs until the end of February. Exactly £271,320 (54.26%) has been raised from 239 investors, 98 of which are Scottish, so far.

The crowdfund’s milestone comes as the historic 30×30 deal at COP15 has been agreed, with 196 countries agreeing to the deal which aims to conserve 30% of the land, freshwater and ocean globally by 2030.

The Highlands Rewilding project intends to serve as an example of how citizen projects can help support the Scottish government reach their ambitious climate and biodiversity targets which are set on reversing nature loss by 2030 and substantially restoring and regenerating biodiversity by 2045.

Highlands Rewilding’s crowdfund encourages ‘citizen rewilders’ – those with a passion in the fight against climate meltdown and biodiversity collapse – to invest as little as £50 and anything up to £200,000.

Dr Jeremy Leggett, Founder and CEO of Highlands Rewilding, said: “We have been blown away and so encouraged by the support we have received from the nation’s citizen rewilders so far and thank every single investor for their support. Every pound really does count in enabling us to grow and expand the Highlands Rewilding model. We hope many more Scots will choose to join us in our quest.

“There has never been a more pivotal time for the nation to consider how nature recovery can support our world’s future, especially as the thirty-by-thirty deal has been reached at COP15 which makes a giant leap in conserving our land, freshwater and ocean globally. It acts as a hopeful exemplar of how grassroots projects, like Highlands Rewilding, can help governments meet their targets to safeguard vital ecosystems by the end of the decade.”

The ambitious Highlands Rewilding project, which stretches over 2,000 acres across two estates in the Scottish Highlands – Bunloit Estate in Inverness and Beldorney Estate in Aberdeenshire, – is pursuing a business model to scale nature recovery like no other.

As the project’s crowdfund and fundraising efforts continue, the Highlands Rewilding science team have released their second Natural Capital Report which uses cutting-edge methods, from satellites, to drone-based and ground-based sensors, eDNA analysis, and detailed observational work by ecologists, to assess biodiversity habitats and carbon stocks.

The results give an unprecedented insight into the Bunloit and Beldorney estates, and the methods that can be used to maximise benefits for the environment and the planet’s future prosperity.

Dr Jeremy Leggett added “Our Natural Capital Report provides us with a rich source of natural capital data which covers a variety of habitats so that we can better understand where efforts should be concentrated to harness and maximise carbon sources.

“In our continued efforts of producing high-quality, evidence-based data on natural capital quantification, our hope is that our work will begin to feed into the ongoing policymaking process in government to generate the best possible outcomes to support our nation’s long-term climate goals.

“After two and a half years of operations in our start phase, we have a strong and growing team, deep roots in our local communities, and a rapidly expanding core of cutting-edge science. Our intention is to become a world-class open laboratory for natural-capital verification science and demonstrate that natural capital can be grown verifiably for planet, people, and profit, both in wildland and actively managed land.”

It is hoped that £500,000 will be raised through the crowdfund by ‘citizen rewilders’. Investments are also expected from equity investors and financial institutions. No funding limit has been set for the entirety of the Highlands Rewilding fundraiser, but the organisation is aiming to raise at least eight million plus.

As with any investment, we encourage those interested in our project to make sure they fully understand the process, what their investment means and the potential risks of investing.

Find out more about the Highlands Rewilding and the crowdfund here:  

https://www.highlandsrewilding.co.uk/crowdfund 

You can download a copy of the Natural Capital Report here: 

https://www.highlandsrewilding.co.uk/research

News from Heart of Newhaven

MAY NEWSLETTER

First of all, a big thank you to everyone who contributed to our recent Crowdfunder campaign.

This is to be put towards the costs of sprucing up the building once we get the keys. Lots of volunteers are of course already hard at work getting ready for the big day, making inventories and moving furniture, all essential logistical work.

Soon, it really will be “all hands on deck” as we start with the paintbrushes and the trowels and we’ll be calling on even more help on the ground then.

Meanwhile, if you haven’t already given, the Crowdfunder is still open for donations.

Did you know however that you can gift to our charity at any time you like, or even on a regular basis?

All you have to do is go to our website and follow the links.

You can donate online directly to our bank or you can send a cheque if you prefer.

All the details are on the website here 

Now that the weather is improving, remember our big Picnic in the Park, to be held in Victoria Park on Sunday 19th June, between 12.30 and 3.30pm. 

Inspired by the Eden Project’s Big Lunch, this is being held in collaboration with the Friends of Victoria Park and the Victoria Park Allotment Holders. Bring a picnic and enjoy meeting your neighbours. Take part in the fun races and games or take advantage of the plants and books swap tables. There will even be an (optional) fancy dress competition for children and pets – with prizes!

New initiatives

Thanks to successful applications to the Social Isolation and Loneliness Fund 2022, The Arnold Clark Community Fund and the People’s Postcode Trust, we have successfully achieved funding to help connect and bring people together. This is the aim of the following two new projects.

Reminiscence training

We know that sharing stories and memories is valuable in preserving not just family history but social history and brings people of different generations together through understanding and sharing. It’s also enjoyable and rewarding.

If you’re interested in reminiscence and recording people’s stories and memories, then we have funding for training in reminiscence work which will be led by the Living Memory Association. 

Do get in touch with: judy.crabb@heartofnewhaven.co.uk or christine.mcderment@heartofnewhaven.co.uk  if you would like to take part.

Pots of kindness

The second project is an expansion of our earlier Pots of Kindness. That project was so well received that we are going to run another.

This time, as well as primary school children, we are inviting young people of 16+ to get involved.

We will supply the seeds, pots and compost. All you do is plant the seeds and write a short letter to an elderly recipient. We’ll deliver the planted pots with their accompanying letters to the elderly or isolated within the community.

It’s a wonderful way to bring the generations together.

Get in touch with judy.crabb@heartofnewhaven.co.uk if you know a young person who would like to get involved.

Annual General Meeting

Finally, we are due to hold our next AGM shortly, probably towards the end of June. If you’ve not become a member, consider doing so now, before the meeting, so that you have the right to vote.

There are two types of membership depending on where you live and you can find out all about it on the website page.

JOIN US.

Remember to check the website and our social media regularly for updates and blogs.

Will you help The Yard?

While we were celebrating our 35 Years of Play and planning our Christmas celebrations, we didnt know we had yet another challenge coming our way this year.

On the 7th of December, The Yard Edinburgh was a victim of vandalism. On Tuesday, a fire was deliberately initiated in the boardwalk, damaging the grounds, outdoors electric systems and the door of the Solar Dome.

We are devastated and currently doing our best to have affected areas repaired as soon as possible, which will be a costly process. Luckily, no one was harmed and damage was contained.

Services were suspended on Tuesday, but we reopened the following day. We are still going ahead with our Christmas celebrations as scheduled, but families will not be able to access some areas for a while which will reduce the quality of play experience we pride ourselves for at The Yard.

Despite this heartbreaking news, we are confident that we’ll come out to the other side stronger, as we always have.

Please support us today if you can and donate as much or as little as you can. Every donation will help us rise stronger and continue to be there for the families that use The Yard.

To see how you can help following the link:

https://buff.ly/3dURTRX