As part of the on-going spring programme over the last few weeks the Foundation has endeavoured to produce articles in the Sunday edition of the Toronto Star written by the Toronto Star Sunday Editor Ken Kidd, and to appear on Peak FM [95.1 FM] Collingwood with the radio host John Nicholls on his Chat Radio 9 o'clock show to discuss the possible return of HMS NANCY.
The thrust of this "awarness programme" has been to promote the concept of "Possibility Thinking" in regards to bringing back a full scale repilca of HMS NANCY from the War of 1812 in time for the Bi-Centennial of the War of 1812 to be celebrated by the Province of Ontario and its various communities from 2012 to the spring of 2015.
HMS NANCY would be based in one of the old Collingwood Shipyard slips and form part of the new Collingwood Heritage Harbour. In addition the new NANCY would actively promote its sponsoring southern Georgian Bay coastal communities around the Province of Ontario, these being of course Collingwood and Wasaga Beach.
The building costs for the HMS NANCY replica would be $2.7 million made up of funding from the Province, Corporate sponsors and donations from the public in roughly 1/3rd increments. The War of 1812 Bi-Centennial would of course allow the participants to recover the costs of HMS NANCY through increased tourism from the fall of 2011 to the spring of 2015, and beyond.
This would bring into the Province of Ontario an additional $250 million while at the same time it is estimated that the additional revenues to the US side of the celebrations would be close to $1.6 billion and would be supported by at least 10 of their vessels from the War of 1812 period.
Surely then, the replica of the little War Schooner, HMS NANCY, is well within the realm of feassbility for Canadians, even with the cost of the required Feasibility Study at $50,000. This is required prior to any Provincial or corporate funding.
So then, our next step is to start a "write-in" compaign to show our support for the City of Collingwood, the efforts of its Director of Leisure, Mr. Peter Dunbar at their municipal offices on 97 Hurontario Street.
This letter writing campaign is also in support of his request for a grant from the Trillium Foundation for the $50,000 to pay for the Feasibility Study which the Province requires prior to any additional funding to build the new NANCY.
To that end then, we invite both your financial support and your comments.
Thank you.