Scouts in £80,000 drive for new hut (From Gazette & Herald)

Scouts in £80,000 drive for new hut

PLANS to build new headquarters for a Ryedale community group are closer to becoming a reality with a huge fundraising effort planned for the weekend.

Pickering Scouts are desperate for a new hut because their dilapidated old building, which is next to Pickering Beck, regularly floods.

Youngsters need to raise £80,000 to replace it, and have embarked on a mammoth fundraising venture to reach their target.

On Saturday, about 80 young people will get together for a Celebration of Youth, an evening's entertainment designed to highlight the positive aspects of the town's younger generation.

Pickering mayor Natalie Warriner, who has adopted the project as her chosen fundraising venture while she is the town's civic leader, said: "We are all amateurs and we are pulling it together as amateurs, but we are sure it will be a professional show."

Pickering Junior School jazz band, a solo violinist, singers, ballerinas and a rock band are just some of the acts, along with cubs and scouts, who are planning to provide entertainment after the interval.

Coun Warriner said fundraisers were working flat out behind the scenes to provide a new hut for the group.

"We will be looking to people like Yorkshire Forward and Yorventure for help, although applying for funding is not easy.

"It can be quite soul destroying trying to get funding because you do get knocked back."

She saidd: "I had hoped when we started looking at this that we would have it by the end of this year.

"Now it's looking as though it will be towards the end of next year.

"The biggest problem we have is that it's right next to the river and the most important thing is that it gets on the right foundations - we are not cutting corners."

She said: "I give the Mayor's chain back in May, but I am absolutely determined to get this new hut in place."

Scout leader Lynne Bowman said: "We need a certain amount of money to apply for match funding, so this is why we have to raise as much as we can.

"But it's not an outstanding amount of money when you think of the use it gets.

"All we need is for people to come along now to the show - we are desperate for the audience."

Tickets for the show, which starts at 7pm, at Lady Lumley's School, on Saturday, cost £3.50 for adults and £2 for children, with special family tickets also available.

Updated: 13:42 Thursday, October 31, 2002