December 2010 Volume 3, Issue 2
The Lamp A Newsletter from Oldfields School
Special Interest Articles:
Upcoming Campaigns and Fundraising Introducing...Our New Indoor Riding Arena Reflections on Giving
Upcoming Campaigns and Fundraising Initiatives By Taylor Smith, Head of School Boarding schools and Oldfields in particular will have a multitude of challenges during the upcoming years. Although the School remains well-grounded philosophically, these challenges will make it difficult to sustain the quality of education over the next decade and beyond. As a result, the Board of Trustees is launching a capital drive, the goal of which is to raise 30 million dollars by the School’s 150th Anniversary in 2017. The key concept in our campaign is sustainability. We must raise sufficient endowment to allow the School to sustain itself financially. We must also build and maintain a facility that will sustain the quality of the education to which our alumnae have become accustomed. In addition, as the School renovates and/or constructs new buildings, we must also seek ecological sustainability. I am very excited to present three fundraising initiatives that the School will be taking during the upcoming year. These mini-campaigns are part of the overarching campaign, “30 By 150,” and are designed to meet the immediate needs of the School. Although our focus during the next six months will be on these three mini campaigns, we welcome any gift. As a matter of fact, during the last year, some of the most generous gifts have been made to endow scholarships and to help us maintain the older buildings on campus. NEW RIDING FACILITIES Although we have identified few capital needs that must be addressed during the next ten years, construction of a new riding arena and the renovation of the existing riding facilities became imperative and rose to the top of our list of objectives as the result of the condemnation of the indoor ring last winter after record-breaking snowfall. The fundraising for the new riding facilities will occur in three phases. The first focus will be on the new indoor riding arena, which will cost approximately 1.5 million dollars. Although our beautiful new riding arena was completed in October, we still need to add an additional 40 feet to the north end. Subsequently, the School will need an additional one million dollars in order to endow the building’s maintenance. The third phase will allow the School to upgrade the present stable facility and will cost an additional one million dollars. The total cost of all three phases will be 3.5 million dollars, one million dollars of which will be used as an endowment for the riding facilities.