The Save the Rivoli Cinema campaign, spearheaded by Bruce Webb back in October 2013, sadly comes to a close this month.
The campaign had hoped to raise enough cash to buy the former cinema and re-open the building to the public.
Strong public support
The campaign had accountants, lawyers, architects, cinema owners, producers and property developers all involved and offering their expert advice.
Despite raising tens of thousands of pounds, with more promised behind the scenes, it wasn’t quite enough to meet the asking price for the property that now has planning permission to demolish the building and replace with houses.
Refunds are being issued
If you donated to the appeal you should have received an email from the team explaining how to claim your money back. Many have already replied, asking the team to pass the money onto other good causes on the Isle of Wight.
The organisers posted this message to their Facebook page today,
Hi everyone
We have now sent out refund emails to everyone and want to say thank you to those of you who have responded already with wishes to pass the money onto charities, Libraries and other good causes. We knew you lot were a nice lot with good tastes in Architecture and a love of communities.
We are putting feelers out now for local organisations who can benefit and will inform you on how much went were but it looks like possibly £1000’s of pounds has accidently been raised for good causes.
It’s still going to take a while to administer these funds – we have lost people, some are asking for cheques to be sent abroad and some people are having problems filling out the forms because of IT issues etc and we are doing this around work and time off, but we hope to have much of it refunded by the start of the New Year and will work over the holidays to get it done. So thank you for your patience.
Again we wish you lots of thanks for all the support – the messages we have had have been really heartwarming and we wish you all a Happy Christmas and a fruitful New Year….with lots of kisses for your loved ones.
[don’t watch if a momentary flash of bare breasts would offend]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEFugVbzsSo
Our thoughts go out to all those involved with the appeal, who we know put their hearts and souls into trying to make this happen.
