Restoration funding secured!

July 2019

The news we've been waiting for - confirmation that the National Lottery Heritage Fund has agreed to award £680,000 towards the Raybel restoration.

Two years of planning and preparation work - involving help from so many of our supporters that are very grateful for - has paid off. We can now start to look forward to the restoration happening at Milton Creek, and to the return of Raybel to the Thames in 2021.

Raybel will now be readied for the work to start – which means bringing her back to Milton Creek, Sittingbourne, from the current berth in Heybridge, Essex.

We will also be recruiting the project team - a project manager, activities co-ordinator and the shipwright crew - and bringing on board volunteers. We're after volunteering help not just with hands-on restoration tasks, but also with creating the Raybel digital archive, telling the project story, carrying out some new oral history interviews and working with our community partners on reminiscence activities and with young people.

And finally - we are on the hunt for three new directors of the CIC - especially looking for people with strong networks and connections to community in Sittingbourne and Swale.