Update 8 - July 2023
We have just two weeks to go until the British Airways colleague charity voucher scheme closes where staff have a £20 credit to allocate to one of the airlines charity partners. We are very grateful to be one of the official partners and would urge you to ask anyone you know who works for British Airways to consider donating to the Blackbushe Heritage Trust. So far we have had over £4000 donated from the current scheme which will all go towards stage one of the restoration of Vagabond.
We are excited to announce a new partnership with Farnborough College which is particularly relevant as Trustee Phil Johns started his apprenticeship there in September 1960 after starting work at Blackbushe with Eagle Airways in 1959. As of September a group of apprentices will begin working one day per week on Vagabond. There is lots of work to be done before we can offer professional training and we need to equip our workshop with tools and equipment. We have just launched a fundraising campaign to raise £10,000 for this purpose.
The recently formed Engineering team have started work by removing the floor boards which were fitted before Vagabond was used to host children’s parties during her time outside McDonalds in Schwechat. This begins phase one of the restoration which will include focusing on the area from the nose to the front of the wing root including fitting new cockpit windows. If you are interested in getting involved and are not currently part of the team let us know and we will put you in touch with Phil Johns who is the Trustee responsible for Engineering. A scaffolding tower has been purchased and we will shortly be funding the training for a member of the team to become accredited to build and certify this.
Members of the Engineering Team begin pressure washing the front of the aircraft.
There was a huge team effort involved in the successful Air Day at Blackbushe on 3rd June with volunteers involved in introducing many members of the public to Vagabond for the first time. Apart from giving external guided tours of the aircraft, the team were involved selling merchandise and books from the shop, running ‘spin the wheel’ and selling raffle tickets. The raffle was drawn at 3pm next to Vagabond by Director of Flight Operations at British Airways, Simon Cheadle, who generously donated a simulator session for our top prize. The winner was Seb Fernandez who thoroughly enjoyed ‘flying’ an Airbus A320 on 30th June at the airlines training centre at Heathrow. We are also very grateful to Mike Biddulph for donating flights in his immaculate Cessna 150 for the 3x second place prizes.
Air Day visitors viewing Vagabond, many seeing her for the first time
Raffle prize winner Seb Fernandez ‘flies’ the Airbus A320 simulator at the British Airways Global Learning Academy at Heathrow.
Apart from the Air Day, the Fundraising and Events team have had a busy few months attending a number of airshows, fly-ins and fairs at Kempton Park, Abingdon, White Waltham and Camberley. The total amount raised so far from these is over £1500. Book sales remain popular, especially now we have them presented on shelving for easy browsing. A reminder that all our branded apparel can be purchased through https://logothatpolo.co.uk/store/bbushe or through the ‘Merchandise’ link on our website. This means we don’t have to keep stock which saves space and capital.
The talks programme begins again on Wednesday 20th September and then will run on every 3rd Thursday of the month thereafter. We cannot hold the first talk on a Thursday as the Pathfinder is already booked. We have a number of speakers lined up and we will publish details on those as soon as we have final confirmation.
Save the date!
Weds 20 September
Thurs 19 October
Thurs 16 November
Thurs 21 December
Thurs 18 January
Thurs 15 February
Thurs 21 March
Thurs 18 April
Thurs 16 May
It was reported previously that we were looking at offering a membership package with a number of benefits. After a consultation with our dedicated team of supporters we have decided to postpone the implementation of such a scheme at this time.
So many of our committed team of volunteers have been busy during the last few weeks, as always a huge thank you for all your hard work. It is difficult to mention everyone as we might miss people out but we feel a particular mention must be made of Paul Nichols and Josh Gardam. Paul has constructed a very high quality set of wooden stands at no cost to BHT. These will be used to support the tail plane to enable work to be undertaken on them at a safe height. Josh has raised £140 by running the Yateley 10km Road Race during last week’s warm weather, many congratulations and thank you so much for your support.
Wooden stands built by Paul Nichols.
Best Regards,
Peter, Phil, Dave, Pat, Chris, Becky and Mark
Trustees
