Friends 
of Upminster Windmill
http://www.upminsterwindmill.co.uk
Membership
enquiries e-mail to fouwjoin@hotmail.com
BAFM Membership No. SE(EC)/100496
Chairman: R W D Sharp, 4 Plough Rise,
Tel/Fax: 01708
226040 Email: bobsharp@ukonline.co.uk
Secretary: F A J Morley,
Tel: 01708 703740
Windmill News –
January 2003
Editors
– Bob Sharp, Brenda Coombs and Richard Saville
So, welcome to 2003, the year in which we hope to start the heavy work on restoring the windmill. This will, however, be subject to some administrative details.
The leasing of the windmill to the Upminster Windmill Preservation Trust has to be agreed before the major restoration can start. When the Trust is incorporated and registered as a Charity it will be able to apply for funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and other sources. Significant funding is required and this leads us nicely on to the first topic of this Newsletter.
FUNDING
Our funds have so far come mainly from membership subscriptions, donations from individuals and the Residents Association and from our fund raising events. We anticipate that the Heritage Lottery Fund and other bodies will provide 95% of the £500K required for restoration, leaving £25K to be found from our own resources. Without this money and partnership funding from other sources in place, the Heritage Lottery Fund will not make a grant.
Therefore we need to do some very strenuous fund raising. We shall be glad to look at all ideas. Social events have helped, but these have been few so far and only a few Friends have been involved in the running of these. If you have any suggestions for fundraising or would like to organise a fund raising activity, please let us know.
SOCIAL EVENTS
The superb concert by the Thurrock Male Voice Choir was well supported and produced £530 shared equally between the Methodist Church and ourselves. The retiring collection produced £25 which we donated to the Choir towards their rehearsal costs.
The Barn Dance was not so well supported but those who did come certainly enjoyed the evening and contributed generously to the raffle. The raffle realised £89 which put us in the black for the evening! Although many asked if and when we shall be having another dance, we must be sure of better support before arranging one.
Details of our next social event, a Quiz Night, are on the following page.
We would like to have other social events, but we need people to organise them. A summer evening barbecue, coffee mornings and cheese and wine parties have been suggested, but we need volunteers to run them and we need to have some confidence that a worthwhile number of people would attend. Ideally we would like a social committee to be formed.
Quiz Night
Our next social event will be a Quiz Night in St Laurence Church Hall on the 29 March. This will be organised, as last time, by Stephen and Gill Roome so you can be sure of an excellent evening with a wide range of questions.
Doors will open at 7.00pm ready for a 7.30pm start.
Please bring your own food and drink.
Tickets are priced at £4.00 each. Come along and enjoy the evening. You don’t have to be a Brain of Britain to take part!
Tables will be for eight to ten people. To avoid disappointment please contact Stephen or Gill on 01708 250708 as soon as possible to book a place or even a table.
WORK AT THE MILL
The small working group has met regularly on Tuesday afternoons since the summer. We broke for Christmas following a get-together in the Crumpled Horn on 17 December, for which no tools were needed! Work resumed on 7 January but we gave up about 4 pm as it was very cold in the mill and in the container. The millers who worked all through the harder winters early in the twentieth century were very tough!
In the last newsletter we showed the removal of the shutters and hemlaths from the sails. Manufacture of replacement hemlaths will commence shortly. We shall invest in machinery to assist with this job. The replacement hemlaths will improve the appearance of the mill and will be satisfactory until the major restoration takes place when new sails will be made.
The floor in the mill has been repaired where the channel was cut in the concrete for the electricity main and the telephone line.
A cupboard, shown above, has been built to conceal the electrical switchboard, the alarm panels and the telephone. Care has been taken to make the cupboard look authentic.
For some years one corner of the meal (first) floor has been supported by a timber framework as the ends of joists supporting the floor had rotted. The rotted ends have now been cut off and new ends fitted to the affected joists. The damaged floor boards have also been replaced.
Undertaking the above work is enabling us to re-arrange the ground floor. We hope the inside of the mill will be more attractive to visitors and easier for the stewards who assist on open days.
We all know how much rain we have had of late! The Windmill is very vulnerable due to its height. The rainwater runs down the wooden body of the mill (the smock tower) and onto the ground floor brickwork and the dampness causes moss and algae to grow. Most of the moss and algae was cleaned off during the summer and autumn but is now growing back. We are attempting to stop the water running down the brickwork by fitting a temporary ‘apron’ of plastic damp-proof course material to the bottom weather-boards of the smock tower to throw the water onto roofing felt fitted to the reefing gallery. Hopefully the water will then run off the outer edge of the gallery and give the brickwork a chance to dry out. We have been advised that the ‘drying out’ of the brickwork may take up to two years.
We are also trying to exclude the water which blows in round the reefing gallery doors and soaks the floorboards inside. As our rainfall seems to be increasing, as one of the effects of global warming, we consider the rainwater problems to be a matter of priority.
We are gradually acquiring a number of hand and power tools. If anyone has a table saw and/or a band saw they no longer use, we would be very pleased to take it off their hands.
As the days get longer we shall recommence work on Tuesday and/or Friday evenings. We welcome visitors when we are working and we are pleased to show them what we are doing. Even more welcome will be new members of the working groups.
2003 OPENINGS
We will be opening the mill on the following weekends during 2003:
Saturday & Sunday 5/6 April
Saturday & Sunday 26/27 April
Saturday & Sunday 10/11 May
Saturday & Sunday 21/22 June
Saturday & Sunday 19/20 July
Saturday & Sunday 16/17 August
Saturday & Sunday 20/21 September
The first weekend in April has been added this year so as to increase the number of openings in line with the recommendations of the cost and feasibility study carried out in 2000. More openings will strengthen our case when applying for funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and other bodies.
In addition, we will celebrate the Windmill's bicentenary on Sunday 13 July. Linda Hawthorn is arranging a special event. This is intended to complement the Upminster Fun Day in the park. More details will be published soon and Linda will be glad of volunteers to assist with the planning and running of the event.
MEMBERSHIP
We welcome the following new members who have joined the Friends in recent months.
Robert Dickinson & Karen Brookes Maureen Atherton Tim Wright, Marina & Simon Birkelbach Miss Iris Tammadge
Our Group now has a total of 153 members.
The fee is £7.00 per year for Individual Membership and £10.00 per year for Family Membership (for family members at the same address). Please contact the Membership Secretary if you know someone who would like to become a Friend of Upminster Windmill:
Brenda Coombs, Membership Secretary
1 Highview Gardens, Upminster, RM14 2YU
01708 221298
A new e-mail address for membership enquiries has also been set up. This address is printed on the first page of the Newsletter in the heading details.
ANNUAL GENERAL
MEETING
Our next AGM will be held on Tuesday 22 April. More details will be sent to members nearer the time.
CONTACTS
If you have any ideas for fundraising or if you would like to help with the work on the mill please contact Bob Sharp on 01708 226040 (e-mail address in our letter heading) or Brenda Coombs (address above). We look forward to your support.