MAPA
A project to restore
General Maczek’s
GREAT POLISH MAP OF
Eddleston
Progress
at April 2012
We don’t forget that the map was built in around
2 months back in 1975 by a handful of Polish students from the other side of
the Iron Curtain with the enormous moral and financial support of the then
owner of
In humbling contrast our own efforts have
seemed painfully slow. As reported and
discussed at the 2012
Annual General Meeting, at the start of the project we vastly
underestimated the amount of paperwork that we faced, - through applications to
the WREN Landfill Grant Scheme (unsuccessful), to the Heritage Lottery Fund
(HLF), which resulted in £20k grant aid approval, to Historic Scotland for
listed status and to Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) for SCIO status.
The Heritage Lottery Fund, like similar
grant-giving bodies, requires that the project work shall have a no-break
lease. The map is on hotel property, and this has not been immediately
forthcoming, complicated by
We meanwhile keep the map clear of weed
growth and further deterioration. Direction signs made by Bob Johnson were
installed recently to mark the route from the hotel car park.
Wide publicity has been received over the
past year and useful contacts made at a public presentation on General Maczek in Penicuik, at the launch of the book ‘Scotland and
Poland’ at the University of Edinburgh, and at a public lecture there on 31st
March by Captain Zbigniew Mieczkowski
of the First Polish Armoured Division to celebrate the 120th anniversary of the
birth of General Maczek. A poster/ banner made for this last event has
been added to an exhibition 'For Our Freedom and Yours' recently opened at the
We plan to write as a matter of urgency to
Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Cultural and
External Affairs to follow up a contact made at the 31st March lecture with Dr
Noel Fojut, Head of Policy and Legislation, Historic
Scotland. In addition, other relevant Cabinet members like Mike Russell
(Education and Training) and Richard Lochhead (Rural
Affairs) will be contacted also. We are
determined to get the strongest possible cross-party political support for the
proper recognition of the Map as an important national and international asset.
Long but necessary additions to the
constitution were recommended as part of our application to become a Scottish
Charitable Incorporated Organisation. These have now been approved at the 2012
AGM so our formal application for SCIO status can now be taken forward .
We’ve noted the possibility that the Great Polish
Map of Scotland is the largest such topographical relief model in the world and
we are keen to pursue this. It is at
least 2.8 times greater in area than the model map in
We have also become aware that a ‘Goretex National Trail’ from Kirk Yetholm
to Cape Wrath has recently been proposed and may run through Eddleston on the Old Post Road, about ½ mile from the map.
We intend to follow this up and suggest the Great Map itself as an ideal place to launch the opening
–on the route and showing the route at the same time.
The
Project at February 2012 Extracts from an earlier progress report by Keith
Burns
Members
will recall that at last year’s AGM after failing to secure support from WREN
and the Landfill Tax source, we had submitted an application to the Heritage
Lottery Fund for grant aid for the project. We were very pleased to hear
during the summer that Heritage Lottery Fund had offered us a starting grant of
£20,000, with a requirement to find equivalent matched funding from another
source (which we were pursuing).
However,
it is an understandable requirement of the grant terms that we obtain a
no-break lease securing public access to the map. This is necessary to
prevent any risk of sequestration of the map as an accumulating asset once we
start spending money on materials and adding value with material and
labour.
Meanwhile
we have had very strong support from Heritage Lottery Fund staff in
If you
would like to get involved in any aspects of our work, through the Steering
Committee, please let me know.
Keith
Burns, Secretary,
For Mapa
Tel 01620
860257
Progress in 2011
saw volunteer work on the map and an application for £42,100 Heritage Lottery
Funding.
Earlier progress following our inaugural meeting on
1. Major grant application submitted
to Landfill Communities Fund and entered the assessment process.
2. Grant application submitted
to Scottish Borders Council Community Grants Scheme for 3rd party funding grant
in conjunction with 1. above.
3. Letters of support received
from 18 local and regional bodies with an interest in the restoration of the
map as a community facility and a heritage site with national and international
importance.
4. Visit made to map by Polish
Consul General in Edinburgh (brother of the map’s designer, Kazimierz
Trafas).
5. Bank account set up to hold
membership subscriptions and donations.
Donations and subscriptions received from as far away as
6. Application submitted for
charitable status.
7. Nine project meetings held
since the Steering Group was formed.
8. Press and media coverage
achieved on BBC Scotland TV (filmed interviews at map were broadcast on main
evening news on election night) and radio, TV Polonia,
Polish National Press, Royal Scottish Geographical Society magazine, featured as Collins (publishers)
“Map of the Month”, Southern Reporter feature article.
9. Minute of Agreement signed
with landowners for co-operation with the project aims and assuring open access
to public.
10. Meetings and visits to map
hosted for potential sponsors and grant aid providers.
11. Numerous talks given to
interested groups. Exhibitions
at
12. Coverage in forthcoming
book to be published on “Scottish Oddities” by Hamish Brown.
13. Clearance work in progress
on map to prepare for start of repair work when grant aid secured.
14. Tool shed in place at the map.
15. Project costing completed
for phase 1 and quotations secured for specialist contractor work.
16.
Specialist advice obtained on surface reconstruction, rebuild, surface protection
etc.
17. Communications established
with one of the original team (Janusz Szewczuk in
18. Preliminary design of
hydraulics system completed.
19. 3d virtual landscape
visualisation software acquired for sculpting of rebuild sections.
20. Question and answer
session for WREN CEO and Edinburgh and
21. WREN Board Meeting on
22. WREN rejects our grant
application after advice from their Edinburgh and
23. Map clean up continues
through November with plans for trial repairs to
24. Search for new sources of
grant aid starts, Nov 2010.
Dear Members and Supporters,
Following our frustrating failure to secure grant aid from the Landfill
Communities Fund we have submitted a pre-application to the Heritage Lottery Fund
for which we seem to fit their heritage requirements very well. Meanwhile, the steady progress with clean up
at the map has been suspended due to snow on the map that’s a good
scale-representation of the next ice age at peak glaciation. When the thaw arrives we’ll be able to model
sea level rise over the next few centuries.
Thank you for your continuing support.
This is vitally important for our continuing eligibility for grant
aid.
With best wishes for the Festive Season and
the New Year.
Your Steering Committee, Mapa
Replies to: mapascotland@gmail.com
Keith Burns, Secretary,
Tel: 01620 860257
21 The Dean
East Linton
EH40 3ED
We are a small (though
enthusiastic) group. Please give our project publicity: spread
the word! Your membership is important
to us and subscriptions are an important source of funding. Please join us with as many friends
and colleagues as you can. Use these
links to find out more about the
project: our constitution, our inaugural
leaflet, our latest
news and activities, our project progress
to date, some photographs and some of the historical
background to the Great
Map.
For queries about
membership and project plans, contact the Secretary, Keith Burns, at mapascotland@gmail.com. And for more about the history and
background of the Great Map, contact Roger Kelly at roger@kosmoid.net
www.mapascotland.makers.org.uk