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Lord Cormack
Chairman of the Historic Lincoln Trust
. Lord Cormack has spearheaded
the fundraising for the Magna Carta Vault and has been instrumental
in the planning of many of the 2015 celebratory events, particularly
Lincolnshire's Great Exhibition and the Three Choirs Festival.
Best moment - I shall have four abiding memories of the last three years.
The first is of helping to ensure that all four 1215 copies of Magna
Carta came together for the first time in 800 years. The second is of the
positive reaction of the Cathedral to the idea of a Three Choirs Festival.
The third is of the enthusiastic response from the Royal Collection, many
of our greatest institutions, and numerous generous private owners, to
the idea of Lincolnshire's Great Exhibition. And the fourth, and most
exciting of all, was hearing from David Ross that his foundation would
give £1.4 million towards the £2 million needed to build the Magna
Carta Vault and since then he has given a further £100,000 towards
sponsorship of the Festival and the Exhibition.
Worst moment - There have not been many but we have had, inevitably,
a few administrative glitches and at the beginning, some disappointing
replies from charitable foundations of which we had great expectations.
David Ross
David Ross Foundation
. David made a very generous donation of £1.4m
to the Historic Lincoln Trust towards the new Vault to house Magna
Carta and Charter of the Forest.
I was attracted to this project because of my family's historic links to
Lincolnshire and the importance of Magna Carta to English Law, having
read Law myself at Nottingham University. I remember as a boy visiting
Lincoln and seeing the Cathedral and archives, to see the work that
has been achieved makes me feel very proud to be involved with such
a remarkable project. As Lincoln's Magna Carta is one of only four
surviving, I hope the new vault will attract more visitors to Lincoln and
teach them about the relevance of Magna Carta even to this day.
Graeme Blakey
Director Realm Projects Ltd.
Graeme is a Director for the exhibition fit
out contractors for the Lincoln Castle Revealed project.
Best moment - I've a couple of moments. First was turning the corner
towards the East Gate and seeing the Italian registration number on
the delivery lorry thus knowing that the vault showcases had turned up
on site on time. My second moment was wandering around the wall
walk one early sunny late March morning to check over some signage
installations and getting an overview on what is a world class attraction
and feeling proud to have been associated with it knowing that our
joinery work will be part of Lincoln Castle for a very long time to come.
Most challenging moment - There were several challenging moments
throughout the project mostly revolving around programme
reorganisation, overcoming unforeseen hurdles and rescheduling
resources all aimed at achieving the completion date.
Carole Souter
Chief Executive, Heritage Lottery Fund
My worst moment was when I found out how much the cost had
increased, for reasons entirely outside the Council's control.
My best - I'm cheating and going for two - was realising that the
proposals were even better than before and then seeing our Board
agree that this great project absolutely deserved HLF support.
Lord Cormack
David Ross
Carole Souter
Graeme Blakey