Great News!

Tonight the Biggleswade Town Council voted to make a donation to the Chamber of Trade Christmas Lights of £4,000. That's an increase in their annual donation from last year of £1,000.

That's great news for the lights. The Council did discuss the future of the lights, and the concept of who owns the lights, so there's hope for this year, and hope for future years.

Our fund raising target remains the same. We'd really really love to see the lights improved this year, and each year. So, "Hurrah" for our local town Council, and "Keep it up!" to all you lovely fund raisers.

Fans of Biggleswade Christmas Lights

In under 2 weeks over 200 people have joined us as official fans of the Biggleswade Christmas Lights. If you click on the square to the right you can see these lovely people.

All of our discussions, events, comments and feedback from the people of Biggleswade are on our facebook fan page. You don't have to join or have a facebook account to take a look.

Help us spread the word. Why not forward our website address http://www.biggleswade-lights.org/ to your friends?

Already, people are making plans for their own fundraising events.
Please email fundraising@biggleswade-lights.org if you want your event publicised on our website and our facebook page.

Our first £1,000

We've made it past our first £1,000 with just under six weeks time remaining to meet the £5,000 that's a brilliant first week!

At the moment about £800 of that £1,000 is still pledges, rather than actual received cash donations. That's because about £500 of shop pledges are waiting on raffle tickets to sell to their customers and they're not back from the printers yet.

There are also about £300 in pledges received via text message after Bill, sent out a plea for £10's and £20's to all his mates. Now there are official collecting points, Bill will be following that up. Why don't you try the same thing, and then donate the proceeds online or drop the proceeds into Café Mocha?

Do you get your online donation refunded if we don't make the target and the lights don't go up? Yes, all online donations would be returned in full.

This Thursday a few of us meet in Biggleswade to brain storm a few fund raising ideas. Let me know if you'd like to join us: Help@biggleswade-lights.org

Donate online... Right now!

The online donation work is complete.
Just click the yellow 'Donate' button to securely donate using Pay-Pal.
You do not need a Pay-Pal account though, and can just pay via Credit or Debit card using this service.

Collection points for donations

Just to confirm our first official collection point for donations to the Biggleswade Christmas Lights appeal is:

Café Mocha
59 High St
Biggleswade
Beds
SG18 0JH

Please pop your cash donations in there.

Please email collect@biggleswade-lights.org if you'd like to act as a collection point.

Crying Wolf Again?

OK, so you've heard it all before. Is this the 3rd or 4th year running that the lights won't be going on?

Sadly this year, things are just a bit different. As I write, the lights belong to the Biggleswade Chamber of Trade. At the Chamber of Trade AGM on Monday 13th July, the executive announced they would not be running the Christmas Lights in 2009!

Fortunately, a handful of shop and pub owneres were present at the meeting, along with one Town Council member. Thankfully, a last minute reprieve was arranged, and the conditions are this....

If £5,000 can be raised before 1st September 2009, the Biggleswade Town Council will match funds and the combined money raised of £10,000 (yes a whopping £10,000 to get the lights up each year!), and the lights can be saved.

What next? Well it seems that with the excecption of a few very loyal shops, pubs and businesses, that the lights will need to be financially supported by the general public.

Should we debate "Who should pay?", well we could, but there's no time. If you want the lights, the question is, "Would you pay?" Many people have asked themselves that question, and thankfully the pledges are starting to trickle in.

Contact pledge@biggleswade-lights.org
or check out our face book Cause and Fan pages (see links below) for updates on progress so far.