Dear Volunteer,
Millennium Stone
You may have already heard - particularly if you managed to see the two-part BBC documentary - the Millennium Stone is hibernating over winter!
Just to briefly recap, between 25 and 60 volunteers each day, pulled the 3 tonne Bluestone 17 miles from the Preselis to the Cleddau estuary - along the way we had glorious Pembrokeshire weather, apart from one downpour, which, at the time lasted an eternity but in reality lasted all day!
American tourists made a special detour on their journey around Britain and came to visit us before going on to Stonehenge. Local people came out to shout words of encouragement and we had reporters and TV crews following our steps. Even the temporary loss of the wooden sled didn't stop us pulling and pushing the Stone.
We rowed to Linney Head but bad weather forced us to seek shelter at Dale. It was here the Stone slipped out of its lashings and fell to the seabed, although it was soon retrieved and re-lashed more securely. It meant that we lost a couple of weeks. You all remember this year's summer, the continuous bad weather, compounded by the loss of our safety boat and prolonged discussions with the insurance company which meant that we missed the weather window for this year.
Thanks to the ongoing support of the Heritage Lottery Fund and Pembrokeshire County Council, we have been given the opportunity to continue our journey next year.
The project will be reactivated next March with rowing to commence in May, a month earlier than this year's effort if the weather permits! We will be writing to you all in March to give you the updated timetable which at the moment looks like rowing in May, canal section in early June and pulling overland to Stonehenge in late June, July, August and we'll be arriving in Stonehenge in September 2001.
For those of you who came out to pull or row the Millennium Stone, THANK YOU, we hope that you enjoyed the spirit of the project, meeting other people and that you'll be with the Stone in 2001. For those we've not met yet, apologies but based on the fun that the volunteers had this year we know that it's worth the wait!
If you have any queries, don't hesitate to give me a call on the number below. Alternatively, have a look at the websites - www.bluestone.org.uk and www.carregglas.fsnet.co.uk.
Look forward to seeing you next year.