Generous £1000 donation

Generous £1000 donation from The Ashton ensures Helensburgh will have Christmas Lights again this year.

Big cheers for the The Ashton proprietor, Euan Catterson, and customers who this week donated a large cheque in every sense of the word for £1000  to the town’s Festive Lighting team to secure this year’s Christmas Lights spectacle. Each year the elves have to raise £8500 to fund the installation, repair and removal of the town’s Christmas lights and a magnificent £1000 from The Ashton this week has given this year’s appeal a real boost, the elves were absolutely thrilled to bits that they can now say that the lights will go ahead this year, with only £2500 now left to raise.

The Trustees accepted the cheque on Monday and can now finalise plans for the installation of the lights which will begin at the end of October ready for the switch on, Saturday 23rd November.  Euan commented when handing over the cheque that The Ashton was delighted to be able to support the town Christmas lights, they do so much for the town in the five months that they light it up and the Switch On brings thousands of people into the town, all good news for local businesses. He also stressed that he understands that each year the Festive Lighting team has to raise a large amount to fund the installation as well as doing all the work involved and it is no good just saying that we have donated in the past and really the lights should be funded by Argyll and Bute Council (when of course they are not) so businesses need to show their support for the volunteers. He is happy to do so once again as The Ashton has generously supported the lights over many years. One of the Trustees commented that we could not do this work without the support that we get from a few very generous local businesses, who donate in cash and  kind on work such as the Christmas tree and in many other ways to help the project succeed. This £1000 has given  a great boost to our morale and maybe other businesses and organisations can follow  Euan’s lead and help us to secure the final funds needed for this year.

The elves will be back in the market on Saturday 28th with our plant stall  and are hoping for a final few sales of the season to bring the total raised again this year from our home grown cacti to £2000.

Many thanks Tristan.