This is a text-only version of an article first published on Friday, 17 October 2014. Information shown on this page may no longer be current.
An architect's illustration of the new AdventurePlus base.
A YEAR ago youth adventure charity Adventure Plus started fundraising to have £500,000 in place for the first stage of buying and transforming the Windmill Farm Conference Centre in Clanfield.
The charity, founded 20 years ago, already works with 6,000 children and young people each year, from this diocese and further afield including London and Birmingham.
As the fundraising began, money began to roll in, and was completed when the collection at the Grand Day out raised the last £3,000 necessary to purchase the centre.
AdventurePlus already had planning consent for the property, which includes fifty acres of open fields and woodland, and disused outbuildings which will provide the footprint of the AdventureBase.
The owners allowed AdventurePlus to buy the entire property over three years, so fundraising efforts must continue to have another £500,000 in place next year, and the same amount the following year.
Jon Cox, Executive Director, said: "Over the course of the last year, so many people from within the diocese and further afield, have caught the vision for the potential benefits to thousands of young people for decades to come, and donations have been flooding in towards this challenging total. "
At the end of the summer, with five weeks to go, they took stock of the finances to see how close to the target they were.
Taking into account all donations, pledges, and Gift Aid, they had raised a staggering £450,000.
A hugely encouraging and impressive total - but still £50,000 short.
Jon wrote to Bishop Colin in mid-September stating that: "With £50,000 still to raise, this effectively meant that we needed to raise £10,000 per week until the deadline. No pressure there then.
"About three minutes later Maria, our book keeper, came in with our latest bank statement, and on it was a donation of £10,000," says Jon.
As more and more funds rolled in, including a £7,500 donation from a church in Kentish Town, the AdventurePlus team became more and more amazed.
It was in the last week of September that Canon Dr Michael Beasley, Director of Mission at the Oxford Diocese, called with the news that the offering from the Grand Day Out open air service had raised £3,000.
"I was able to tell him the exciting news that this would bring us over the line.
Along with so many other donations that challenging total of £500,000 had now come in and we would be able to 'Exercise the Option' on Windmill Farm and start to plan the purchase.
We would like to thank the many who have contributed to help make this vision come to life, and a very big 'thank you' to Bishop John for inviting them to bring our climbing wall to the 'Grand Day Out' and choosing to channel the offering from the day to the AdventureBase.
"Of course the real joy underlying all this is that thousands of children and young adults will come to know, as a result of their visit to the AdventureBase, the life-changing good news of the gospel and that they are never alone - but rather greatly loved by our Heavenly Father.
"Now that really is good news and will continue to yield much cause for celebration as these adventures unfold in the months and years ahead."