Town Hall Birmingham, photo by Tim Ellis, please click it for the original.

Those who keep track of this website will know that the trust had a set back this year.

Losing the funding for the Coffin Works punched has left us keen to concentrate on a broader range of ways we attract funding or, at it’s crudest, make money that allows us to support our project work.   We are still working on ways forward with the coffin works and grow more confident by the day, but that doesn’t mean we should ever be complacent.

You may know that we have an online shop:

http://www.buy.at/birminghamconservation

Some retailers donate 10% per cent or more of what you spend through it, and clearly Christmas is a busy time for spending.  For example the National Trust give us 30% o the value of a membership if you use this link – and that would make a great present for someone!  Marks & Spencer contribute 3% whether boy buy a new dining table or just a pair of their famous pants. Amazon – which seems to sell almost everything – coughs up 1%

More and more people are using it, but we wonder if you can help us grow that number?

We mention it on our recently set up twitter account, and that works to a degree – many of you click through and some shop. Thank you.  I (Nick Booth) also mention it on mine and we include it in our occasional e-mail’s.   But I do worry about over egging it, making us look like we’re trying too hard etc. We have also begun looking at how useful ther service might be for epople, for example here we write about how busineses could use it, whilst also earning us income:

The same is true of our online donations site:

www.justgiving.com/birminghamct

I’ve even set up a Curmudgeonly Christmas campaign with this…

www.justgiving.com/Nick-Booth-Brum

So any immediate help or thoughts on how to encourage people to make more use of these links without cheesing you all off (oh to boldly split infinitives) would be gratefully received.

Thank you.

Nick Booth

Trustee.