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

Open Day at Pine Ridge Golf Course

We were invited to attend the Pine Ridge Open Day on Sunday 2 December.  With the help of our lovely fundraiser Lisa, we pulled together some fabulous items which we were able to make up into themed hampers.  In the end we had seven - one huge Christmas themed one - a pamper one, two Dad themed hampers, and two for children.  One the day we also received some donations from the stallholders attending the event, which we made up into a further give prizes.

We had a Name the Teddy competition, and were able to offer a runner-up prize for that two as one of the stallholders donated a cute little cuddly donkey.

Pine Ridge also pulled together some great items, including some from the stallholders, to run a tombola for us too.

The final amount raised was £350.

Thank you to Kim, Lisa and Angy for helping throughout the day and to everyone who made the effort to come along and support a fun day.  If you didn't manage to make it this year, look out for next year's date - it's a great opportunity to try all the things that Pine Ridge has on offer (not just golf!).

Family Spookfest 2012

It was such an amazing day, it's taken me a week to come down from the high and write this blog!

It's pretty nerve-racking organising an event like this.  We are very lucky that we are the charity that Pine Ridge Golf Course have chosen to support.  It means we don't have the outlay we would otherwise have on hiring a venue, which is great.  However, many people contributed things such as cakes, sweets, prizes, Pine Ridge put staff on the bar, etc and the last thing you want is to stand in an empty room with everything prepared, but no-one comes!  Which is why we tried out hardest to sell tickets in advance for this event.  Over 50 were pre-sold, but that was right up to even the morning of the event.  Thankfully, over 100 people came on the day, making it a HUGE SUCCESS.

Most people chose the £5 ticket to include bowling, eventually selling out all the lanes.  The rest of the time was spent partying, with the excellent disco and entertainment from Stefan the DJ, and an hour of dancing fun with Rachel from The Secret Stage School.

The mask making craft and biscuit icing for kids were included in the ticket and after a clean and tidy start, eventually everything was demolished (I suspect Pine Ridge's cleaners are still mopping up glitter!).  But in the process, much fun was had by all and as far as we know, no-one ate glitter or iced a mask. Though I may stand corrected.

The guests brought their pumpkins too, which looked great displayed in the fireplace in the Baronial Hall.

The tombola - items donated by Tesco (via a voucher) and some fabulous bath bombs and soaps from Caroline's Creations, proved a hit and everything went about an hour before the end!

And of course, everyone was very impressed indeed with the magnificent Halloween House cake so generously made and donated by Lou-Lu Cakes, which was our main raffle prize, along with some more bath bombs and soaps and vouchers from Make Your Day Mascots and Pine Ridge.  Luckily the winner of the cake was still present when the draw was made so I didn't have to take it on another perilous journey in my car!

Some stupendous cupcakes were made and donated by Jane Oldfield, which were very popular with children and adults alike - the Rolo and Liquorice Allsorts spiders were definitely looking at people on the way in!  And the sweetie bags from Annee Nesbit (Chocolate Trickly Treats) were soon snapped up.

Leigh from Pear Tree Photography was kept busy throughout the day, taking some great photographic mementos of little pumpkins, devils and witches.  All of his takings (£125) were donated to Marie Curie Cancer Care.  And Becca from Little Faces painted so many faces, she didn't even know anything else had gone on in the room during the four hours!

Helpers on the day were very much appreciated - Angela, Marcia, James, Thomas, Jacquie, Tina and Annee.

All in all, a fantastically well-supported event which raised £535.