To ensure Moor House Adventure Centre continues to deliver outdoor sports & adventurous activities to the young people of the North East
by David Stokes in Rainton Gate, England, United Kingdom
If we receive additional funding over and above our initial £5,000 target, this will further assist us to resist the depletion of our cash reserves during the Coronavirus crisis and will help us address the additional costs of making the site COVID-Safe as we look to reopen the centre.
Every donation towards our stretch target will support Moor House Adventure Centre, Durham Scouts charity and - most importantly - the thousands of young people we support
Moor House Adventure Centre is Durham Scout's camp site and adventure centre situated just off the A1 outside Durham and is the home of fun and adventure for tens of thousands of young people in the North East. With camping, indoor accommodation and a wide range of adventurous activities, we help young people to develop Skills for Life.
It's an asset for all young people in the region and with your help, we can reopen the centre and get it operating as normal as quickly as possible.
What, No Scouting?
When face-to-face Scouting was suspended in March 2020, Moor House Adventure Centre was required to close down, meaning no camping, no activities, no adventures and no life long memories for our 6,000 youth members, other youth organisations or school groups who use the centre.
We are now delivering 'Scouting from Home' to maintain our sense of community, to help tackle loneliness and isolation in young people and families and to continue delivering #skillsforlife to young people - but we can't wait to be back to normal.
As we look to reopen the centre we need the support of our community to help get things back to normal as quickly as possible, so that we can continue to make the biggest possible positive impact on the lives of so many young people.
What, No Income?
We are all missing our activities and adventures, but we are also missing the income that this generates. Our commercial income from Moor House Adventure Centre is what usually covers our fixed operating costs (insurance, electricity, gas, water, licences etc) and generates a surplus to support the work of the Durham Scouts charity.
Even with most of our staff furloughed we're having to use our financial reserves to cover our fixed costs, and the longer the centre is closed, the more cash we have to use and the greater the challenge of reopening the centre.
Will you help us get back to normal?
Getting Back to Normal
One of the challenges we face is the gradual and safe reopening of the centre to families, schools and youth organisations, in accordance with government guidelines. It would really help us to bring staff back to work if we know that we have sessions to deliver and people coming back to site.
Please be assured - although we can't wait to see you, we'll only reopen the centre and specific activities when it's safe to do so (we are implementing COVID-safe guidelines).
How You Can Help?
When the time is right, and once face-to-face Scouting resumes we will have plenty of development projects that Scout Groups and other organisations can get involved with. We have plans to refurbish our wildlife pond & replant our garden areas and we'd love you to come and help us, or even take on a project as your own.
However, our immediate need is financial support to ensure that we can reopen the centre and get back to business as usual - which means providing fun, adventure and personal development for our own members, other Scouts and Guides, school groups and other youth organisations.
We understand that many families have been finding it difficult right now, and as a charity we never usually ask for financial support - these are however unusual times. Every pound we can raise means a pound less used from our cash reserves and a pound less required from our youth members in the long term.
Working together and supporting our crowdfunding campaign, you can help us with our cash flow, ensure that we are busy when we can reopen the centre - and have some fun and adventure of your own!
In normal times, we are here to support our communities - not just our own members, but all young people who use the centre. Working together, members of our local community can now help us.
If you can support us financially through our crowdfunding campaign, we'd be happy to welcome you back as a priority visitor to Moor House once the site and our activities are open again (we are working on our reopening plans right now).
All donations would be appreciated and will help us get the centre up and running as soon as possible.
(If you haven't been to site before, our activities include archery, tomahawk throwing, air rifle, air pistol and crossbow target shooting, survival skills and backwoods cooking, climbing, abseiling and The Cube - our high ropes activity. See https://moor-house.org.uk/groups/ for more details)
If you'd be interested in making a Reward donation and choosing an activity you'd like to do when we reopen the site we'll be in touch as soon as we have staff start to return to work.
We will also benefit from Gift Aid on applicable donations and there is of course the matched funding*, but we need to achieve 100% of our £5,000 target to receive the full matched funding.
Durham Scouts is there for our young people in the good times, and as we've found out recently, were also here to help young people in the not-so-good times.
Will you help us now?
*Our thanks go to Sport England and the North East Local Enterprise Partnership for believing in what we're doing and for their offers of matched funding.
This project offers rewards in return for your donation. Please select a reward below.