Hole in Onesie Walk 2015

Following the success of our first Hole in Onesie Walk, we are pleased to announce that the event will go ahead again this year, on Sunday 10 May.

As well as the same route, of around 1.5miles, we have introduced a second course for those who fancy more of a challenge (not suitable for younger children).  The Ramblers Route covers just over 2 miles and includes more steep and narrow terrain around the perimeter of Pine Ridge Golf Course.

Sign up now to take part.  Once you have completed the form, we will email you with details of how to pay the entry fee and how to set up a sponsorship page on JustGiving.

SIGN UP NOW!

Review of 2014

Here’s a quick whizz through 2014! 

After a short breather at the beginning of the year, we kicked off our 2014 fundraising year with the annual Great Daffodil Appeal collections – both static boxes in local shops and businesses and manned collections at local shopping locations.  Between these two activities, over £8,500 was collected – this represents around half of our total income for the year and is a vital part of our fundraising. 

Towards the end of the GDA, we borrowed an idea from another Fundraising Group, which saw a number of our supporters knitting wonderful daffodil pins.  We will be bringing you these in 2015, so do look out for them alongside the regular pin badges.

As you may know, we are the chosen charity of the wonderful PineRidge Golf Club in Frimley, and as such, we hold our main non-collection events at this venue.  We were looking to try something a little different this year, and hit upon the combination of onesies and the lovely woodland area which runs alongside the golf course and created our first Hole in Onesie Walk.  Amazingly, in a weekend that was predominantly rainy, the hour that the event took place was dry and mild and everyone had a great time – spurred on by the thought of a bacon butty and a hot drink back in the club house.

In May we attended the Surrey Heath Show and in the same weekend, 15 of us abseiled down the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth – what a way to spend a Bank Holiday Monday!

June marked the start of Blooming Great Tea Party season and we held another fantastically well supported community event at Pine Ridge, in association with Camberley Mums.  Once again, the support of local businesses who gave their time and the people who came along and generously spent their money, was very much appreciated.

The summer saw us attending a number of events with our trusty gazebo and stall – Potley Hill School Fair, the Pine Ridge Beer Festival (who won a Minion?!) and the Siemens Fun Day. 

In September we bag packed in Sainsburys, with great support once again from some of our younger supporters.

Soon it was Autumn and time for what has proven to be our most popular event, in its third year in 2014 – Family Spookfest.  This year we had so many excited families pre-booking tickets that we had to move from the Baronial Hall to the Green Room at Pine Ridge.  Local businesses supported the event by providing all sorts of activities for the children and as always, Pine Ridge were the perfect hosts.

At the end of November, and 80s night, organised by our very own Katie, took place and amidst the legwarmers and big hair, almost £1,000 was raised in one night – fantastic!

We attended the two new events run by Pine Ridge – a Fireworks night and a Christmas Panto – both brilliantly organised and we were delighted to be invited to be there too.

We also managed to squeeze in a couple of collections at Christmas – at The Meadows and The Mall – we hope to be back with more of these for Christmas 2015.

It just leaves me to give you a sneaky preview of our most ambitious project since we started our Group in late 2011.  We are going to have a Field of Hope project during 2015 – actually two locations – Frimley Lodge Park and St. Anne’s Church grounds in Bagshot.  We will invite local people to purchase a bundle of daffodil bulbs to be planted at the location of their choice in memory of someone, or just to support our cause.  In the Autumn we will plant the bulbs and in Spring 2016 we should see them flower for the first time.  This really is going to be a big commitment for us, so your support will be very welcome.  We hope to launch the Field of Hope bulb sponsoring in late February, so look out for more information then.

So, thank you so much to everyone who has volunteered at events and collections and to those who have donated and attended events.  Thanks again to our friends at Pine Ridge Golf Course and for the ongoing support of the Surrey Heath Residents Network.  Our grand total for the year is £17,263.  This means that our total raised since November 2011 is £48,651 – 2,432 hours of end-of-life care, which I think it is fair to say we are all extremely proud of.

We look forward to your continued support in 2015.

Sharon

80's Christmas Party

Book tickets here

Join us for an 80s themed Christmas Party on Friday 28 November at Pine Ridge Golf Course.
Three course dinner, mince pies and coffee, disco 'til 1am.
£37.50 per person.
Plus!  Fantastic Christmas Prize Draw on the night.

Book tickets here

Blooming Great Tea Party 2014

We held our Fundraising Group's Blooming Great Tea Party on Friday 20 June and would like to thank everyone involved for helping us to raise £420 - 21 hours of end-of-life care.

Below are links to all of those who have been involved in this year's event if you would like to support their businesses.  Thank you so much to everyone who came along and spent generously, we wholeheartedly appreciate it.

Pine Ridge Golf Centre - Thanks to Sarah and the team at Pine Ridge for making us welcome and getting the bouncy castle, proving tea and coffee and being lovely as always.

Camberley Mums for partnering with us and helping to make the event run smoothly

To the following who generously donated their time:

My Little Princess Parties
Red Door Photography
Surrey Performing Arts
Angel Faces
Velvet Rooms 4 Hair

To the wonderful stallholders and beauty ladies:

Belle by Monique
The Treatment Room
The Blue Butterfly
Isabela Beauty/Forever Living
My Time Frame
Usbourne Books
Captain Tortue
Lisa Davies Illustrator
Phil's Embroidery
Party Lite Candles

Thank you to the following for their most fantastic cakes, they really were the high point of the morning!

Emma Treves
Jo Powell
Patricia Barrios & Hubby
Jac Boyce (amazing gluten/wheat/dairy free cakes!)
Jane Oldfield
Emma Moyle
Susan Towlson

And finally, a most splendid team of raffle ticket and cake sellers and generally picking up the pieces as I blunder through:

Tiffany Jackson
Annee Nesbit
Emma Moyle

THANK YOU!

Hole in Onesie Walk 2014

The Hole in Onesie Walk - a walk alongside Pine Ridge Golf Course in onesies - a new event for us - took place on Sunday 27 April.

60 brave folk donned their all-in-ones (or perhaps just go out of bed and went straight there?) and walked around a mile-and-a-half through some rather muddy woodland, though thankfully the rain itself held off for the duration.

The event was covered by the Surrey Heath Residents Network, where you'll find an audio-boo and short video from the day, with thanks to Paul Deach for that.

Thanks to Pine Ridge Golf Club for letting us invade their otherwise peaceful Sunday morning and to Paul Fitchett for taking some great photo's of the walkers.

If you'd like to see this event again next year, let us know!

GREAT Daffodil Appeal 2014 - £7,645 raised

We had the best Great Daffodil Appeal so far this March, with a staggering £7,645 collected at six locations across nine days.  Many of our now regular collectors were joined by some new faces, who we hope will also join us again next year.

If you saw one of our collectors and made a donation for a daffodil pin, thank you from all of us in the Camberley Fundrasing Group - our chat's with your and your kind words make it all worthwhile.  We will be out again collecting at Christmas and of course, again next Spring for the Great Daffodil Appeal 2015!

Hole in Onesie Walk

Our great new Spring event is the Hole in Onesie Walk - a leisurly walk of around 1.5 miles through the woodland which runs alongside the Pine Ridge Golf Course.  It would be great to see everyone in their onesies, though these are of course optional, so don't be put off if you don't have one, or can't be seen in public in it!  To enter, please complete the form linked below.  We will then email you with information on how to pay your entry fee (adults £6, children 4-15 £4 and under 4's free).

CLICK HERE TO ENTER the Hole in Onesie Walk

Review of the Year 2013

So, here we are at the end of our second year as an official Marie Curie Cancer Care Fundraising Group in Camberley.

We had a great start to 2013 as one of three charities to appear on the Asda Community Life (green token) scheme in January/February, which we had been on the waiting list for for a while.  We were lucky enough to win the £200 for the most votes over the two months – with the container having to be emptied twice during that period!  Thank you for your votes.

Along came the Spring, and with it the major fundraising campaign for the year, the Great Daffodil Appeal (GDA).  With many of our regular supporters being joined by some new faces, we had a fantastically successful appeal, visiting Longacres, The Meadows, Frimley, The Mall Camberley and Sainsburys Watchmoor Park during March and raising £6,705 in loose change! 

Running alongside the manned GDA collections were the outreach boxes – static displays with integral money boxes – which are distributed by our teams to pre-agreed shops and businesses and collected in at the end of the campaign.  These raised an additional £1,592.

We attended the Surrey Heath Show for the first time in May this year, it having been rained off in 2012.  It was a very windy day indeed, but was very well attended, and our tombola and bracelet making activity attracted a lot of support from visitors, raising £193.  Also in May our name came to the top of the list for the Waitrose Community Matters (green token) scheme in the Frimley branch and customers voted us as their favourite charity that month, bringing us a lovely cheque for £440.

In June, a rather ‘out of our comfort zone’ event took place, which saw a number of the members of the Group and friends, take part in the official Marie Curie Cancer Care Skinny Dip in Dorset. 

The weather was remarkably kind to us on that early Sunday morning at the start of June.  Money continued to come in from this event for months afterwards, as the realisation that we actually did do it set in!  Final total came to £2,728.  Many, many thanks to our sponsors and those who supported the crazy women that made up The All Rounders team.  In 2014 we are abseiling down the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth, reassuringly clothed, you’ll be pleased to hear.

The Summer marked the start of the nationwide Blooming Great Tea Party campaign and in early June, in collaboration with www.camberleymummies.co.uk, we held our own event at Pine Ridge Golf Club, who are a great support to us year-round.  The event was a great success, with fantastic support from local Mums who came along to enjoy the activities laid on for their little ones whilst they were able to partake of tea and cakes.  Other local supporters also held their own Blooming Great Tea Parties, raising a further £200.

Another windy day in June saw us fighting with my gazebo on the patio at the Pine Ridge Beer Festival.  The unbelievable weather did not deter a heaving crowd of people enjoying a very successful event and we did eventually retire our tombola to the safety of the well pegged down beer tent and raised £165.

At this point in the year, we realised that whilst a potentially exhilarating sport, extreme gazebo wrestling is not all that much fun, and we began to consider how we could pay for a commercial quality gazebo to serve us better.  We were extremely lucky that a private donor kindly offered to pay for a gazebo and we were able to purchase one from a company in Bracknell (the same one as our colleagues at the Llandudno and Colwyn Bay Fundraising Group).  And so it was that Gertie the Gazebo became ours, ready and willing to protect us from the elements at future events.  Later in the year we secured a grant from the Frimley Fuel Allotments Charity for three quality folding tables which complete the professional appearance we will be showing off during 2014!

As Marie Curie Cancer Care is the Superdrug Charity of the Year 2013/14, we were offered the chance to collect in store over a weekend in July.  We collected £145 and Rachel, who works in Superdrug, painted nails throughout the day and raised a further £109.

In August our luck came up again as we came to the top of the list for the Waitrose Community Matters scheme in the Sandhurst branch, bringing in £570 thanks to many votes from their fantastic customers.

Whilst we were unable to attend a charity day at the White Lion pub in Yateley, a very kind patron ran a stall on our behalf, raising a fabulous £115 and in September, we attended the Siemens Fun Day in Frimley, where cakes, sweets and bracelet making raised £138.

Later in September we visited the Asda branch in Farnborough, who had invited us to organise a bag packing fundraiser following our Community Life success earlier in the year.  Lots of the children of the Group’s members came along to help on the day, and received many compliments from customers for their excellent representation of the charity.  Bags were packed and, as far as we know, no eggs were harmed J  £727 was collected on the day.

In October we held our second Family Spookfest, once again at the lovely Pine Ridge Golf Club, which proved to be a great community event for families with younger children, looking to enjoy the season in a safe environment.  We were supported by many local businesses (see the blog and businesses list) and raised £515.

In late November, we embarked on some early wearing of festive headgear, with five collections dates across three days at Sainsburys Watchmoor Park, Longacres and The Meadows.  The weather was relatively forgiving for the time of year and our supporters layered up and braved the elements to raise a fantastic £2,927. 

Finally, in December, we were invited back to Superdrug for a weekend collection which was a great success, raising £242.  I was very grateful for the supporters who came out during one of the busiest pre-Christmas weekends to spare some of their time to help with this at short notice.

Many thanks to all our supporters who have been involved with our collections and events this year and made our final total (excluding the Skinny Dip) over £15,600.  This is truly an amazing amount and will provide over 780 hours of care.

A huge thank you goes to our Treasurer, Sue, who works tirelessly to pay all the money we raise into the bank on our behalf, spending every evening for weeks after big collections just counting and bagging the money.  We couldn’t do it without her.  Her employer, RBS NatWest, support staff commitment to a voluntary organisation each year, and Sue was able to apply for a grant of £250 again this year in recognition of her unpaid work for the Group.

Lastly, thanks once again to Paul Deach of the Surrey Heath Residents Network for his continued support in 2013.

We really do have some fun as well as raising lots of money, so if you are interested in getting involved, please do get in touch by emailing camberleymariecurie@hotmail.co.uk or visiting our Facebook page www.facebook.com/mariecuriecamberley following us on Twitter - @CamberleyMarieC.

Bring it on 2014!

Sharon

Festive Collections 2013

Well, it was cold, but not too wet and our wonderful collectors stood outside of Sainsburys, Longacres and The Meadows - accompanied at The Meadows by the Shuffletunes Choir.  A fantastic total across the five collections, over three days on 22/23/24 November, was £2927!

Well done everyone, you did us proud.

Family Spookfest 2

Following the success of our first Spookfest last year, we were pleased to be able to hold the event again this year with our friends at Pine Ridge Golf Club.

We were delighted to welcome some new faces to the event, including Emma from Cake Your Day, who very bravely guided 72 children through piping on icing and decorating a spooky cupcake.

Annee, one of our committee, and owner of Chocolate Trickly Treats brought along her spectacular chocolate fountain and Paul Fitchett offered families the chance to take home a great memento of the day with his spooky photo booth.

Julie from Craft Attak took charge of the glitter this year, with over 80 children making a spider or other craft activity, I think the floor of the Baronial Hall will be sparkling for some time!

Once again this year, Rachel from The Secret Stage School was spectacular with two half-hour dance mini-classes for the little ones.  We're not sure where she gets her energy from, but if that's a taster of her classes, then we would definitely recommend taking your children along to tire them out while they have a great time.

We also held a raffle, with another outstanding cake donated by Louise of Lou-Lou Cakes, ran a tombola and sold scrummy biscuits courtesy of the lovely Jane.  And thanks to Caroline of Caroline's Creations for donating some gorgeous handmade pumpkin shaped soaps which smelt good enough to eat.

Paul Deach of the Surrey Heath Residents Network has put together a great photo blog for the event too, do have a look - you might spot yourself!

We are so grateful to all of these people and businesses for supporting this event, and for Pine Ridge for being such patient and welcoming hosts (sorry again about the glitter!) - we hope we can do it all again next year.

Our final total is £515 - on top of that we hope we provided the community with a happy  and safe Halloween experience for their children through this fun family event.

FULL CONTACT DETAILS FOR ALL THE BUSINESS WHO SUPPORTED THIS EVENT CAN BE FOUND HERE.

Family Spookfest is back!

Our first Family Spookfest in 2012 was so popular, we couldn't resist bringing it back for 2013!

Spectacular start in September

So, after our 'quiet' summer (see previous post!) we have made a great start in September, with two events.


On 14 September we attended the Siemens Fun Day.  We got to use Gertie gazebo for the first time!  We sold cakes, pick and mix sweets, temporary tattoos and had free bracelet making and daffodil making.
Despite the drizzle of the day, people were not put off, and in fact were glad to stand under Gertie to keep dry.  We raised £138.  Thanks to our helpers that day, it was a great team effort.

The following Saturday we were at Asda, Farnborough.  We had been invited to hold a bag packing day there after we won their Community Life (green tokens) scheme earlier in the year. 

With loads of support from our children (sorry, young people), supporters and friends, we had a hugely successful day and raised £727 in six hours.

Our next event will be the return of Family Spookfest on Sunday 27 October, 4-7pm at Pine Ridge Golf Course.

Thank you everyone - just look at all those happy faces! ♥

Summer funtime

At the end of June we attended a very wet and windy event at Pine Ridge Golf Centre (our 'home') - their first, and very successful Beer Festival.  After trying to hold down and gazebo intent on escape, we moved into the beer tent and continued our tombola, which took £165.

In mid-July we were invited to hold a weekend collection in Superdrug, Camberley, as part of Superdrugs support for Marie Curie Cancer Care as their charity for 2013.  Across the two (very hot) days we collected £145 and Rachael, who works in the store, painted nails with all profits to Marie Curie, raising a further £109.  If you'd like one of the specially commissioned silver daffodil pins - they are available only from Superdrug - so hurry while stocks last :-)



© Paul Deach

At the end of July we were invited to attend a charity day at the White Lion in Yateley.  Unfortunately we were unable to get anybody over there as it was the first weekend of the school holidays.  However, a kind regular held a stall on our behalf and took £115!

We were thrilled to be on the Waitrose Community Matters (green token) scheme during August and I was staggered when the lady there called me in September to say we had the highest number of tokens and that a cheque for £570 would soon be heading our way.

Maybe, for me (sad but true), the most exciting thing during the summer was the arrival of our lovely new branded gazebo.  MCCC do not have resources to supply these to every Fundraising Group, and the one gazebo they do have is a domestic one (which we nearly lost at the Beer Festival).  Thanks to an individual sponsor, who wishes to remain anonymous, we were able to purchase a commercial quality gazebo, complete with name banner, which as you will see from the next blog, made its first appearance at the Siemens Fun Day.  We have also offered to lend this out to local MCCC Fundraising Groups, which we have already done with the Windsor FG.

A gazebo named Gertie

Finally, to complete our new swish look, I have just this week received a cheque for a grant from the Frimley Fuel Allotments charity to pay for three new folding tables (commercial quality) instead of using my own rather feeble ones.  Happy days!

So, I had started off by thinking I would say what a quiet summer we'd had, but looking back, that wasn't the case at all!  Thanks to everyone who has helped by supporting these events.

Blooming Great Tea Party 2013

We were delighted to once again be invited to hold our Blooming Great Tea Party at Pine Ridge Golf Course.  This year, we invited Camberley Mummies to partner with us on this event.

Once again, the support of the community was fantastic.  All our wonderful cakes were donated by professional cake-makers and keen amateurs, which made for a very impressive selection of mouth-watering goodies which were key to the success of the day.

We also held a Tea and Cakes themed raffle and a 'Name the Teddy Bears' competition.  Linda, one of our volunteers, also contributed some great toddler-friendly lunches and mini cakes, which were very much appreciated by the Mums there.

Pine Ridge organised for a bouncy ball pit to be available and we were joined by Red Door Photography who put up their photo booth and donated all monies from prints to us.  Surrey Performing Arts kept the little ones amused and Little Faces make them look beautiful!

We welcomed stallholders, all of whom are members of the Camberley Mummies business directory, as well as two beauticians/nail technicians, who all helped add to the community atmosphere of the day.

Heidi Kilgariff of Heidi's Heart Pillow Project also joined us, she is spearheading a project to encourage people to make heart pillows for use by breast surgery patients at Frimley Park Hospital.  The pillows are used under the arm to give relief to the areas of surgery.

With many thanks to Pine Ridge for having us once again, and supplying copious amounts of tea and coffee and to the Surrey Heath Residents Network for assisting with promoting the event.

We raised £366 in three hours!

Surrey Heath Show 2013

The week running up to the Surrey Heath Show was glorious, just the weather we needed to see after last year's show was cancelled due to water logging of the fields.  But when we arrived at 8.30am on Saturday, not only was it chilly, overcast and windy, it was raining too - boooo!

But we forged ahead, and between myself, Charmaine and Linda, we got the gazebo up and everything beneath it ready to go in time for the 10am opening.

After a slow start (people waiting for the weather to pick up probably), by lunchtime it was heaving with people and our tombola and tea cup guess game, plus Linda's homemade cakes and bags were going well. 

We were also pleased to welcome lots of children in to take part in our free bracelet making and daffodil craft.  Hopefully we've encouraged a few people to hold their own Blooming Great Tea party this June/July as a result.

By the afternoon, the sun was shining and before we knew it, 4pm came around and it was time to pack away. 

Thank you to all our helpers during the day - Charmaine, Linda, Helen, Katie, James and Clare and to everyone who supported our stall.

See more photo's from our day at www.facebook.com/mariecuriecamberley.

For anyone interested in how many tea bags there WERE in the cup - it was 579!

SKINNY DIPPING FOR MARIE CURIE!

Seven brave (i.e. crazy) ladies from Camberley will be braving the chilly sea of the South coast on 2 June to take part in the official Marie Curie Event - Dorset Skinny Dip.  Please sponsor us if you can!

https://www.justgiving.com/theallrounders1

Coverage in Shine On supplement

Thought you might like to see this.  It's from the South East regional supplement that goes out to supporters with the national Shine On magazine from Marie Curie.

Great Daffodil Appeal collections 2013

We have now had our locations and dates confirmed for the 2013 Great Daffodil Appeal.  If you can help on any of these days, please email: camberleymariecurie@hotmail.co.uk.  Many thanks.

Longacres - Sat 2 March, 9-5

 Longacres - Sun 3 March, 10.30-4.30

 Meadows - Fri 8 March, 10-4

 Meadows - Sat 9 March, 9-5

 Frimley - Sat 9 March, 10-2

 The Mall - Sat 9 March, 10-4

 Sainsburys Watchmoor - Fri 29 March (Good Fri), 10-4

 Sainsburys Watchmoor - Sat 30 March, 9-5

2012 - A Review of our Fundraising Success

As the year draws to an end, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on our first full year of fundraising as the Camberley Fundraising Group for Marie Curie Cancer Care.



Helen, Angela, Thomas & Marcia
collecting at Longacres

We started the year in anticipation of the Great Daffodil Appeal in the Spring - the first test for us of just how much support we have in terms of local people willing to stand and hold (not shake, NEVER shake!!) a collecting tin.  Thankfully, the people on the lists I was given by the Marie Curie regional team were happy to help, along with friends of the Group and other local people recruited on-line.  We were lucky to have 52 people who helped us collect a phenomenal total of £6,300 across three days and four sites.  That was one hell of a weekend!

Another element of the Great Daffodil Appeal is placing static display boxes of daffodil pins in shops and other premises who have agreed to take them, and of course collecting them afterwards.  Thanks to the dedication of a small team, this brought in a further £1,700.

Shortly after the GDA, we were introduced to Pine Ridge Golf Course by Paul Deach of the Surrey Heath Residents Network.  After a couple of meetings, they confirmed they would like our Fundraising Group to be their chosen charity and we have worked together on a number of events during the year. 

Supporting the Marie Curie
runners on Tower Bridge

In April, a couple of us and our families travelled to London to cheer on the 200+ people running for Marie Curie in the London Marathon. The official 'cheering stations' set up by Marie Curie provide a focus for supporting the wonderful people who are taking part not just for Marie Curie, but for so many other deserving charities. This really is a fun thing to do and the support is very much appreciated.



The egg boxes were ready to
become daffodils, but the
Surrey Heath Show was not to be

Also in April was the Swimathon, an event organised every year on a national scale. Our local pool taking part was the Arena. We tried as hard as we could to help support them with publicising the event, with limited success. They also support a swimming event for the British Heart Foundation in March, so won't publicise Swimathon until that one is complete, which leaves only a few weeks. We wish to pursue this in 2013, so fingers crossed we may have more success.

We had a bit of a disappointment in May, when the Surrey Heath Show was cancelled due to the atrocious weather in the run-up to the day making the ground impossible to use.  We hope the event will be back in 2013 and that we can make an appearance.


BGTP at Lakeside Primary School

With a month or so to draw breath, summer was just around the corner, and along with it, another fantastic Marie Curie national campaign, the Blooming Great Tea Party.  Thanks to Pine Ridge Golf Course, we were able to hold our first ever BGTP in their magnificent Baronial Hall, and were pleased to welcome lots of local families along, who helped us to raise £403.  We also did as much as we could to publicise the BGTP campaign and encourage local people to get involved.  Many friends of the Group held their own parties as well as some new people who we met through social networking.  They helped to raise a further £548.

We managed to have a little rest over the summer and enjoy the Olympics (and a myself and Charmaine and our children took part in Marie Curie's Walk Ten event in Dorking), but were back and running in September when we attended the Siemens Fun Day on what turned out to be the last really hot day of the year.  This would have been great if we hadn't been running a cake stall and spent most of the day catching the icing which was running off the cakes!  But you live and learn, and somehow that day we raised £110.  Thanks to everyone who kindly made some amazing cakes for us to sell.

Our next event at Pine Ridge was a Ladies Pamper and Golf Day.  After some concern and sleepless nights, the day was well supported and we raised £487.  We learnt that people don't much like to commit themselves in advance and most people who attended just turned up on the day.  Thankfully.

The Secret Stage School creating a spooky
dance routine at Family Spookfest

As soon as that day was completed, we began promoting out very successful Family Spookfest, again at Pine Ridge.  The splendid surroundings of the Baronial Hall provided a perfect backdrop for the event.  Again, we needed to sell tickets in advance to know how many cakes to make, how many people to cater for, how many sweet bags, etc. etc.  It was another uncertain run-up which thankfully turned out 'alright on the night' and was fantastically well attended.  A total of £535 was raised.

Our amazing hampers - everything
was donated by supporters and
local businesses

At the beginning of December, Pine Ridge invited us to join them at their annual Open Day.  We held a Raffle and a Name The Teddy, and Pine Ridge organised a Tombola too, helping us to raise £350.

Finally, the Marie Curie Regional Office had secured us two Christmas collection venues - The Meadows and The Mall, Camberley.  Both of these days were relatively quiet.  The Meadows was a Tuesday which is clearly not that busy.  But despite that, we collected £966.  All we had to compare this to was the collection there we hurriedly coordinated just a few weeks after the Group was created at Christmas 2011 - that was a Saturday and took £1051, so not actually that much different.  However, we were there for considerably longer this year, and with more collectors.  We started at 9.30am and finished at 7pm, with 2 or 3 collectors at all times.  The Phoenix Choir from Tongham sang carols and collected for us from 7-9pm and during that time they collected £258 of the days total, so we are very grateful to them for their support.  


Pia - braving the cold
at The Meadows

The Mall raised £576 during the six hours of Sunday trading.  I think we all agreed that we preferred collecting at a supermarket venue, but this was still pretty impressive, and brought our Christmas collection total to £1542.  I had one gentleman who pushed two £20 in my tin in The Mall - people's generosity never ceases to amaze me.  And the stories people have of loved ones cared for by Marie Curie nurses never get any easier to hear, but do bring home the reason we are doing it.

So, at the huge risk of missing out people, I will thank a few individuals who have helped enormously to make this a successful year we should all be very proud of. 

Kim for all her support, ideas and for being there at almost every event; Pine Ridge Golf Course, especially Sarah, for supporting our Group and hosting our events; Paul Deach for publicising our events; Charmaine, Annee, Jane, Lisa, Georgie, Hayley, Helen, Tina, Katie and Emma for everything they do to support the Group; Sue for counting endless piles of coins and dragging them to the bank to pay in; Leigh of Pear Tree Photography who donated all the takings from his Photo Booth at the BGTP and Spookfest; Camberley Mummies for allowing me to post about our events in their Facebook Group and supporting our events.

So, our final total for 2012 was £12,022!  I hope we can continue our success throughout 2013.  Thank you so much for supporting us and the Nurses who are there every day of the year to help people through the last few days of their life, and support their families before, during and after their loss.  Every £20 pays for an hour of care.  Every £20 makes a difference.

Happy Christmas all, see you in the Spring! 

Sharon