It's ages since I posted an update but there has been lots going on in the background! We now have the very comprehensive 25-page report which has been prepared for us by the independent researcher/curator I mentioned in my last post. This document focuses on the scoping for the historic interpretation/interactive elements of the lighting scheme, and based on this report I am meeting with the team this coming Friday for a brainstorm to agree on what we want the educational elements of the scheme to incorporate. Once we have agreed the way forward we will be meeting again with our professional partners in early July to discuss next steps. We are in serious fundraising mode now and have started pitching to key individuals, corporates and philanthropic donors. Please let us know if any of your contacts or associates might be willing to help us turn this vision into reality by donating towards the cost of the installation of the lighting project next spring. They can contact us on SE16.RI@gmail.com. As you know every single pledge of support, however small, will help us reach our target by 30 March next year in time to coincide with the Mayflower 400 celebrations/commemorations which will be going on in Rotherhithe in July 2020! Thank you once again for your support so far - onwards and upwards! Clare

There has been a great deal of progress since my last post! In early April we reviewed the lighting designers’ presentation of the concept and feasibility design, which was hugely inspiring and exciting. Our vision really is beginning to come to life now….. A few days later we had a meeting and a walkabout an independent researcher and curator who has come highly recommended. She inspired us with new ideas and ways in which we would be able to incorporate educational and fun elements into this lighting scheme. She is very keen to help us with this, and we have commissioned her to prepare an interpretation strategy / scoping document for us. This will include project description, potential audience segments, key messages and themes, and potential content and outputs. We will receive this document by the end of April. After Easter the lighting designer and the conservation architect will meet again with each building owner/representative to discuss the development of the concept as it relates to their building. And this week I had a really constructive meeting with our key City-based supporter, to discuss the wider programme for Mayflower 400 in London as well as the fundraising strategy for the installation of the lighting project next spring. A number of extremely helpful ideas and suggestions were floated which I will be feeding back to the campaign team in a few days’ time. In the meantime we have already received several generous offers of financial support from various organisations and individuals. Let us know if any of your contacts or associates might be willing to help us raise the funds we need to turn this vision into reality. Donations of any size will be hugely welcomed – every single pledge of support, however small, will help us reach our target by the 30 March 2020 deadline! Thank YOU once again for your generous support – as you know, without your help we couldn’t have got this far. More soon. Till then, Happy Easter! Clare

Work on the feasibility study is now well underway! The initial meetings with the owners/representatives of the six historic buildings have all been arranged and will take place during the next few days, along with a site survey of each building, so that the lighting designer can develop detailed drawings of each site. We have now started fundraising for the cost of the installation of the lighting scheme. In the last couple of weeks we have had three really useful walkabouts and conversations, one with the representative of a transatlantic law firm, one with the Head of Thames Vision Delivery at the Port of London Authority, and one with the Culture Team at the US Embassy in London. We are hopeful that we will be able to secure the funds needed to ensure that this community-led legacy lighting scheme is installed and ready to go before July 2020, when the key celebrations to mark the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower from Rotherhithe will take place. Huge thanks again to you for your support and for your generosity in helping us get this far! Clare and the campaign team

Lots of exciting news! We've received a very generous pledge of £500 from City Cruises, which was made after pledging via Spacehive was closed. This will be held in reserve to put towards the cost of the installation of the lighting scheme, after the technical feasibility study has been completed. On Tuesday next week we have a meeting at City Hall with the Mayor's Regeneration & Economic Development team. We will sign off on the contract with the GLA and meet our Regeneration Project Manager, who will work with the campaign team to help deliver the project. Once the contract has been signed your generous pledge will be collected - probably next week (w/b 4 February). Finally, on Thursday next week a senior person from a transatlantic law firm is coming to meet us in Rotherhithe for a walkabout and a chat. They have expressed keen interest in providing financial support for the installation of the lighting scheme later on, so we are really thrilled that they want to come and meet us and see at firsthand what we are trying to achieve and why the idea has generated so much enthusiasm and so much generosity! Thank you once again very much indeed for your support - watch this space! Clare and the campaign team

First of all a very Happy New Year! Some of our backers have asked me to clarify the details of the pledge collection process and why there is a delay. The team at Spacehive Support have confirmed that pledges can't be collected until we have signed off on our Funding Agreement with the GLA, in person. A meeting will be booked in for us to do this sometime during the next 2 weeks. Once the Agreement is finalised you will receive an email from Spacehive letting you know that your pledge is now going to be collected and explaining why there has been a delay. We have a meeting with the conservation architect and the lighting designer this Friday morning - 18 January - to discuss next steps. They have sent us a project timeline and they will be starting preliminary work on the feasibility study next week. There are 2 evening lighting demonstrations provisionally scheduled for early May which you will of course be invited to attend - I'll keep you posted with regular updates as the project progresses. It's really fantastic that we are now actually about to embark on the next stage of taking this exciting vision forward - all thanks to YOU and your generosity! Clare

Further to my post of last night no-one has been able to read our lovely letter from the Mayor because the text is too small! It's now been confirmed by Spacehive support that it isn't possible to increase the size of the text in the project Journey section of our project page, but I have just uploaded it into the 'Gallery' section of the project dashboard. So if you are interested in reading the Mayor's letter you can click on it there and read it very easily. Happy holidays! Clare

WE HIT OUR TARGET TODAY - 3 DAYS BEFORE MONDAY'S DEADLINE – AND WE'VE EXCEEDED IT! We never believed for a moment that it would be possible to raise such a significant sum in such a relatively short space of time, but thanks to YOU and all the other 176 generous pledgers we have actually managed to achieve our goal. We are now in overfunding mode! This is a wonderful - and very unexpected - position to be in. It will still be possible to make a pledge for the next couple of weeks, and as stated on our Spacehive project page all the additional funds will be held in reserve to put towards the cost of the installation of the lighting scheme later on, after the technical feasibility study has been completed. It’s been suggested that there is potentially funding available in another mayoral funding pot to cover part of the cost of the installation, and last week I was given a promise of corporate financial support for the installation, which is very exciting! But there is lots more work to do. We want to move the process forward as quickly as we can now, and we are still hoping that there might be time for this legacy lighting scheme to be installed by July 2020 when the Mayflower 400 celebrations/commemorations begin. We have already arranged to meet with the conservation architect and the lighting designer in January to discuss next steps And if you would like to learn more about the proposed scheme, evening lighting demonstrations will be available for local friends and neighbours - and for anyone else who’s interested - before design development. Please help us by sharing this good news with all your networks and via your social media. THANK YOU AGAIN for your support and for your enthusiasm and for making it possible for us to take our exciting vision forward to the next stage. Festive greetings and very best wishes for 2019. Clare and the Illuminate Rotherhithe! campaign team