Friends of the Castle
- 28 September 2010 09:0572805hello can anyone tell me how to join as I meant to join earlier but have not got round to it and now I have a friend coming over. Howard said it was cheaper to join than Eng Heritage
- 28 September 2010 10:0072814There membership form is here:
http://dover-castle-friends.org/membership/
£20.10 for adult
£30.15 for joint adults
£35.00 for family
£10.05 for junior
£17.10 for senior
£25.65 for joint senior
£6.00 for EH memberBeen nice knowing you :) - 28 September 2010 10:3772817ok all done thank you so much
- 28 September 2010 13:5372829Hi Anne
Good to talk this morning and I hope Geoff/Anne were able to help.
Hope you and your friend have enjoyable visits to the castle and hope to meet you on one of our members functions. - 28 September 2010 19:4272861I can personally say the Quiz is normally very good.... challenging as well though.. i think i came in last!
- 28 September 2010 20:3972868Mmmm, might have to think about doing a quiz again next year....
Been nice knowing you :) - 29 September 2010 01:1072891I am one of the Friends of Dover Castle and took two of my granddaughters, visiting from Blackpool, for a tour round the castle on saturday. They couldn't wait to see the castle and had a great time going round, particularly in the Secret Wartime Tunnels. The little one had been studying WW2 at school and was fascinated by everything, almost the first thing we saw was the bouncing bomb which she knew all about. The chap on the gate when we went in commented that most people had not heard of the Friends of Dover Castle and it always surprises me that so many Dovorians seem to be unaware of this opportunity for unlimited visits at a very low cost.
- 29 September 2010 09:0072912I remember many years ago the tour guides used to throw lighted rags down that well and we used to gather round and peer down. Health and Safety ruins all our fun these days.
I think the well was cleared out recently - I just wonder how many coins were found down there? - 29 September 2010 09:4872914Ed
The current membership of the Friends is just under 300. We have tried various membership drives viz stand at events like Dover Regatta, Film Festival, Flyer door deliveries and paid advertising. Each time we have monitored the results and paid advertising had the least response and as all profit goes to agreed projects at the castle felt paid advertising was is in fact wasteful of the funds . For example our next project of restoration of the Bofors Gun could be as much as £5k.
We find a greater response when the local papers kindly put a little editorial and we have expanded our website which is succesful not only for membership but other activities at the castle. www.dover-castle-friends.org.
But by a long way word of mouth is by far the most successful as shown on the Dover Forum comments at various times.
The Great Tower has generated many additional visitors and the Secret Wartime tunnels have been a success from the start in particular as WW2 is in the National Curriculum.
You will have seen in the last "Friends Magazine" to members that English Heritage are to close Casemate Level from 1st November to early June 2011 as they introduce a new and exciting "Tunnels Experience" that will generate more visitors to the castle and, hopefully, to the town to bolster the local economy - 29 September 2010 10:4772919i have spoken to many life long dovorians that have never heard of thhe "friends".
they are usually pleasantly surprized when they hear of the cost and benefits. - 29 September 2010 11:2272927Think that is the only way it works really Howard - as Pat says word of mouthBeen nice knowing you :)
- 29 September 2010 13:1972952Thanks for doing a super job. Dovorians are missing out if they don't know about the Friends of Dover Castle but you are doing all you can. Looking at the admission prices information on the English Heritage site, they make no mention of the Friends, which would seem to be the obvious place to include same. Could they perhaps be persuaded to add a note: Dover Residents see http://www.dover-castle-friends.org or are they reluctant to do so as they are pushing their English Heritage membership?
