Helping Lemon Studio to replace their kiln

Lemon Studio is a small pottery business based in Grappenhall, Warrington that opened in 2016.  The studio is run by me, Jeni, hello!  

As well as creating and selling pottery, I am a community artist and I work on a weekly basis teaching pottery to users of local charities and nursing homes.  I offer mobile pottery in peoples homes to those who are isolated and I teach students at Lemon Studio. On a quarterly basis I hold open studio events for the whole community to support local artisans and charities. 

Unfortunately, on Monday 21st January 2019, Lemon Studio's existing kiln suffered from overheating which as well as damaging the kiln also caused irreparable damage to the controller.  The quotes to repair the kiln are so high that it is not cost effective and my insurance company are unable to identify what the exact cause of the overheating was so are refusing compensation.

The kiln has to be replaced which will cost almost £3,000 (including cabling and an electrician to wire it in etc).  I have some money put aside to replace the kiln within the next 2 years, but this has been brought forward dramatically and the existing kiln cannot be sold to create any down payment as I had previously envisaged.  I have researched the market and the best option that I can find that meets the needs of the studio and is the best price available is:

https://www.hot-clay.com/nabertherm-top-100-pottery-kiln-free-uk-delivery.html

Being without a kiln has meant that I am no longer able to fire the weekly work of charitable organisations such as Windmill Cafe's Over 55 pottery group or student work.  In the short term I am renting space in another kiln, but a new kiln is required within the next 3 weeks if this small business is to survive as it is very difficult to safely transport unfired pottery without damaging it and I am running out of space to store unfired work.  Every day without a kiln puts me further behind and risks losing this small community business completely.

I have set up this Crowdfunding page to ask you to help raise a quarter of the cost for the replacement of the kiln (£750) as I cannot afford the whole amount on my own. I really hope that you can help me and all the users of Lemon Studio that regularly benefit from the therapeutic rewards that working with clay can bring.   I would really appreciate any donation, no matter how small.   As a thank you each person who donates to this cause will be emailed a code to use for 5% off their first pottery course booking.