It is with regret that we announce that our final ranking in the Chase Charity Community Giving contest was 205. Unfortunately we missed the top 200 by only 5 places. During validation we rose 4 places from position 209 where we finished last night and it appears that none of our votes were disqualified in the process. Effectively, another 70 or 80 votes would have won it for us.

We would like to thank everyone who supported us and voted for us. We would particularly like to thank the small group of volunteers who have worked on this unstintingly for the last four weeks and who have made real sacrifices in terms of their time and efforts. The contest was open to every registered charity in the US, with over 80,000 organizations receiving votes in the competition. If we were finally denied success it is largely because a great many organizations went into this better prepared than we were. Most had prior experience of last years contest and knew exactly how rough things would get in the last few days. We did not! We were aware that we would have to work harder as we drew closer to the finish line but underestimated the degree of competition that we would face. Consequently after struggling to stay in the top 200 for 27 days we were finally knocked out in the last 24 hours. This is a bitter pill to swallow but we did make rank 205 out of more than 80,000. We did everything we could to stay in the running and WE'LL BE BACK. Next time we will know exactly what we have to do to win.

This result will not affect our pre-existing plans for this years Left Coast Eisteddfod but unfortunately a program of expansion which was contingent upon our receiving this funding will not now go ahead. Although, of course, we are not giving up on finding other sources of funding. We will be making new and exciting announcements about the LCE in the days to come.

Once again...a thousand diolch's to all our supporters. CYMRU AM BYTH!