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.