Urgent Appeal – £210,000 funding needed for Dundreggan Lodge!

We finally have a completion date for the purchase of the Dundreggan Estate, in mid-May of this year. Unfortunately, the funds for the purchase of the Lodge are no longer available. Please make a donation to help us meet this unexpected shortfall!

Dear Supporter

I'm delighted to report that, after two years of delays, we finally have a date for the completion of our purchase of the 10,000 acre Dundreggan Estate in Glen Moriston. This will now take place in the middle of May, marking a major breakthrough for our work to restore the Caledonian Forest, and I'm very grateful for all the tremendous support we've received that makes this possible. Unfortunately, I've also just heard that, because of the long delay we've experienced, one of our main backers on the project, who was putting up £210,000 for the purchase of Dundreggan Lodge, no longer has that funding available. As a result, we urgently need to find this amount at short notice from other sources. I'm therefore writing to you, and to all our supporters today, with an emergency request for donations to help us meet this unexpected shortfall.

Although this may seem like a huge challenge, I am confident we can find the funding that we need to complete the purchase of the entire estate, including the Lodge, on time. In just a couple of days of telephoning some of our key supporters and donors, we've already received pledges of £30,000 in donations, which means that we're off to a great start with this appeal. If everyone who receives this letter makes even a small donation, we will be well on our way to reaching our target, so please support us in this critical time of need by sending a donation today.

Dundreggan Lodge is essential to the success of our project!

Dundreggan Lodge is a large, 4 bedroom bungalow built in the 1970s, located near the main road that provides access to Dundreggan. It is ideally-suited for use in accommodating all the volunteer groups that will work at Dundreggan in the years and decades ahead, and will also provide essential office space for our operations there. It is key to the successful implementation of all our plans for Dundreggan, so it's vital that we bridge this last minute funding gap. In this photograph here, the end of the rainbow points directly towards the location of the Lodge, and with your help now we can translate the mythical pot of gold at the end of the rainbow into the real-life funding we need, to complete the purchase of the entire estate, including the Lodge.

Here's why the Lodge is so crucial to our work at Dundreggan:

• It will provide the accommodation base for the volunteer Work Week groups that will carry out most of the practical work on Dundreggan. We will be running about 20 weeks per year, and the Lodge will also provide accommodation for some of the volunteer groups that do work elsewhere in Glen Moriston.
• We'll convert the utility room at the back of the main building into an office, for use by the staff who will be based at Dundreggan. There is no office facility there at present, so the provision of such space is essential for all the planning and coordination of our work on the estate.
• The Lodge will also provide accommodation for students and researchers carrying out studies on the Estate, and we plan to install special educational displays there, to inform visiting schoolchildren and wilderness tour groups about the ecological importance of Dundreggan, and about our work of restoration there.
• In the garden area behind the Lodge, we'll create an extension to our tree nursery, where one- and two-year old seedlings that have been propagated at Plodda Lodge will be grown on for a year, prior to planting out in the forest. Already this spring, volunteer groups have lined out 765 aspens there, that will form part of our new plantings at Dundreggan next year.
• To make the Lodge suitable for our use, we plan to install a new, energy-efficient heating system, greatly increase the building's insulation and install solar panels on the roof to provide hot water.

Please respond now to this most important and urgent of appeals!

The success of Trees for Life in the past 20 years has depended on the crucial backing we receive from all our members and supporters. Never has that been more vital and important than today. I'm counting on your support, and that of everyone who receives this appeal letter, to enable us to purchase Dundreggan Lodge in mid-May!

To make a donation online to this project, please use the button below, and my sincere thanks and gratitude to you for your support.

Yours sincerely,

Alan Watson Featherstone
Executive Director

PS. We’ll send a special commemorative certificate to anyone donating £200, and will invite anyone donating £500 or more to a special celebratory event at Dundreggan itself - so please give as much as you can today.

 

Dundreggan News, summer 2008: Thank you for the tremendous response to this appeal!