Kevin Farran of Etcetera Restaurant in Gerrards Cross hosted a culinary feast evening at the restaurant and raised £167.30. Kevin is a great supporter of William's Fund and we thank him for his continued support....just wish we could get to the restaurant more often... it's fabulous!

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St Helen's Angie and I went to speak to the St Helen's Old Girls at St Helens School in Northwood. We were asked along as they have donated to us in the past and we were able to tell them all about William, the fund, and how Angie (old girl) got involved. The talk was well recieved and several ladies came to talk to us afterwards, some even gave us donations! We would like to say thank you to St Helen's for having us as their guests and we look forward to seeing you again soon. The photo shows Angie Adams introducting William's Fund, with Sally Fleming (secretary), Mrs Cadman (deputy Head), Miss Leader (ex headmistress) and the editor of St Helen's Newsleterr (sorry - not go the name!)

Pam McNally ran the London Marathon in a very respectable 7 hours and 25 mins and raised £1309. Thank you Pam

Elaine Stacey gave £1 a day for Lent instead of giving up something. Well done Elaine. Thanks for the £50.

Sue and Helen have been charging for end of term "dress up or pay up" at their trampolining lessons again. This raised £23.81

Emma Marshall ran a Les Trois jewellery party at her house at which 10% of sales was donated to William's Fund. Thank you to everyone who went along. They had some fabulous jewellery and we received £225.50. Thank you ladies!

Stones Challenge Golf Tournament Once again, the Stones Challanege at Beaconsfield golf club was a huge success. This event is organised by Greg and Amanda Myers, and it was a highly successful event! The photos show Chris Mitchell (Consultant) and Greg Myers laughing (great speech from Greg!!), Greg and Amanda drawing the raffle and assorted tables of golfers enjoying the banter of the many insults that fly about their golf prowess! Greg and Amanda put in a huge amount of work to arrange the teams, prizes and speaches and the mood is exactly right between nostalgia, fundraising and taking the mick out of fellow golfers...pardon the pun Declan! Greg always raises a toast to 'our inspirations' led by thoughts of Andrea Stone after whom the tournament was named, William and other inspirations we may have, I find this a very touching moment, especially as it is amongst local people and friends. Congratulations to Greg for another stunning event. The exact total is not known yet...watch this space!

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St Helen's Old Girls have donated another £100. Thank you ladies.

12 March 2005 Activity Chest in Chalfont St Peter is one year old and to celebrate fund raised for William's Fund. - Having your picture taken with Huggy Bear was was fun and loads of balloons were given out! Photo shows Huggy with Jamie and David. This raised £341.33. Below you can see some photos of Huggy and also the owner, Michael, presenting the £100 prize from the free prise draw to Natalie Hatton, who then very generously gave William's Fund £25. Thankyou!

The Gallery 30th November 2004 saw a shopping and pampering evening at The Gallery , Oxford Rd , Gerrards Cross. There was an opportunity to try out treatments and get some good Christmas gifts… the evening was a great success, and as always the Gallery had striking decorations and many therapists available. Thank you to Jackie, Linda & Gary and all the staff for the £320 raised

Fulmer Lighting Up This year was a quieter event as the main ‘lighting up' cottage owners have moved! Kay & Brendan still organised Carol singers and mulled wine and yes….snow! A lovely way to get into the Christmas spirit, William's Wishing Well stayed in the bar during December and raised £701.55. Some of this was from a raffle of a large bear donated by a local couple so thank you to you, and also to the cricket club.

Chalfont St Giles Stage Door On 14th December the Chalfont St Giles Stage Door group went Carol Singing for William's Fund… they must have sung beautifully as they raised a wonderful £239.48 Thank you !

Millennium Trees supplied trees throughout the festive months; they set them up in your home and remove them after Christmas! Millennium donated £32.50 from sales of trees – thank you Will!

Beehive and Honeycomb Nursery have been generous once again. Thank you to the staff, parents and children for your continued support. £120 was raised at Christmas.

Kingscote School performed their annual nativity play. This is a very poignant event for us as William attended the nativity play to watch his class 2 days before he died. He presented the flowers to the teachers and a potted cyclamen to me. The cyclamen is still flowering regularly and reminds me of the brave little boy who wanted so much to see his friends in the play, even though he wasn't well enough to be in it. Thank you to Kingscote for remembering William on this day and to all the parents for their generosity to the collection at the end (£650). I'm sure the play was as polished as always – thank you boys!

Kiddleydivey Christmas Party – Kiddleydivey held Christmas parties at their various venues for all the children who attend the music groups, lots of fun was had and an amazing £360 raised. Thank you to Sally and David for your continued support. If you would like to know more about Kiddleydivey go to www.kiddleydivey.co.uk

And Also: We would also like to say a big thank you to all the following who have supported us over the Christmas period with raffles, donations in lieu of Christmas Cards and collections:

• Pensar systems – www.pensar.co.uk
• Paramount Pool Products
• Booth Locket Makin
• Bolsover Cruise Club
• Richard Alberg
• Amarlok Grewal
• LFC Insurance - www.lfcinsurance.co.uk
• Mrs Fryer
• Margaret Sheldon
• Sue & Helen Cox
• Pampered Chef (via Anna, Jan Wright)
• D Elsley

Armando Ianucci was the speaker for the HM Treasury Charity Burns Night and suggested the raffle money be donated to us, thank you Armando for the £635

The Rotary Club of the Misbourne Matins - In March I gave a talk to the Rotary Club. I was made very welcome at their Breakfast meeting and the club very generously made a donation to us For £500. To learn more about this Rotary club please see www.misbournematins.org

Jane Ferris and friends Carol Singing – More choral adventures! This outing is at the Gerrards Cross train station which Jane has visited with her children and friends for the past few years, peak commuter time brings great rewards for their expert singing ability and all the decorations they put up. Thank you so much Jane and all the participants, we really welcome this festive fundraiser. A massive £250 raised this year at Gerrards Cross Station, thank you to all who made donations too. Thank you to all the families who sang … The H ewitts, Tsatsamis - Coopers, Lomax's, Beechings, Crossmans, Smith, Robertsons and of course the Ferris's.

Could this grow even bigger?! Thanks lots. Look out for more news of Jane's latest fundraiser…. ‘The Mother and Daughter Dance Class' … a brilliant success and our first 2006 news item, watch this space!

Marianne Walsh Christmas Sale – Marianne held a very successful sale at her lovely home inviting lots of friends to buy Christmas gifts, jewellery, books, decorations, cookery equipment and more. William's Fund received A fantastic £312.93 . Thank you Marianne and all the ladies who shopped (I don't think I saw any men?!)

Chesham High School - £71.54 Our good friend Caroline Godson who attends Chesham High School put William's Fund forward as her class charity for the school charity week. Caroline and friends set up a stall with information about William's Fund and sold the Christmas cards to pupils. Thank you so much to Caroline for supporting us and to all the pupils who helped.

Millennium Trees - £110.00 – many of our locals will know Millennium Trees for their fabulous service and Christmas trees, the company offer a delivery, set up and collection (for recycling) service for Christmas Trees. The delivery chaps are just lovely, ours arrived with Rudolph head gear and I'm sure I heard him singing as we opened the door! We selected our tree from the van, it was expertly trimmed, shoes removed for the set up in the lounge and it was even watered! Splendid!  Anyone ordering a tree from Millennium can specify an organisation or school (from Millennium's list) that they would like a donation made to, we were lucky enough to be chosen by lots of people and received £110. Thanks to Millennium for their support and splendid service, and to everyone who nominated us to receive the donation.

Bolsover Cruise Club - £120.80 – Once again our Bolsover friends had a collection in the office. Thank you all for your continued support. It would be great to have pictures of you all on the website, so if you have any please send them to me. Happy New Year!

Mrs Sidhu – Another generous donation, with gift aid - thank you once again.

Mrs Mcgreevy – Another successful and pain free dental visit!!! Thank you again for your donation! ( Every time Mrs McGreevy has a treatment free dental check up we receive £20 with gift aid which takes it up to £25.60) Keep cleaning those teeth!!!

Jane Griffiths – Windsor Half Marathon £285 Congratulations Jane on running the half marathon in such a great time. Thanks to all your sponsors and for getting so much gift aid.. £79.80) Do you have any pictures for us?

Rhys and parents - click to view larger images

Rhys Williams - His mum, Sarah, asked their friends and family not to buy Rhys presents for Christmas but to send donations to us. William's Fund received £210 from this generous idea and we are very grateful to Rhys and his family and friends.

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The Christmas Fair: Following an amazing day at the William's Fund Fair I would like to say a huge Thank you to everyone who came along and all those who helped.

• The Kitchen was buzzing all day with beautiful home made cakes, very kindly donated by so many skilled bakers. Thank you.
• Jan Wright was Pampered chef for the day and made extremely tantalising Tasters for everyone Thank you.
• Jo Ollis created a masterpiece of a Roasted Vegetable soup with fresh home made bread which people were almost fighting over!
• Our 3 helpers Danka, Tatiana and Marketa, slaved all day in the kitchen chopping, serving and making tea & coffee. Well done girls we couldn't have done it without you!  
• All the stall holders had a good day and the atmosphere was friendly and cosy. I managed a huge amount of Christmas shopping!
• Thank you to Chalfont Park Sports Association for the use of their fantastic venue. We have had lots of great feedback so well done everyone and another Thank you!!

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Cobs and Cakes had a competition to guess the weight of an enormous pumpkin. Hilary Morton, a regular Christmas Card customer organised a ‘Guess the weight of the Pumpkin' competition in her village of Matlock in Derbyshire. The local ‘Cobs & Cakes' shop displayed the Pumpkin and the guesses brought in £61.07. Thank you Hilary and Matlock Village ! – see write up and pic from local paper PS as there is talk of this being annual I hope the Pumpkins are growing fast!!

Thank you to all those in Matlock who guessed the weight of the enormous pumpkin, we are very touched that William has reached so far and that you raised £61.07. We hope there are more pumpkins growing steadily in a hidden location! If you are in the Matlock area, please pop in to the Cobs and Cakes shop to see Hilary Morton, there may be some collection boxes with pictures of William in there, and the snacks and lunches sound scrummy! Thank you ladies for all your support. Well done Pauline on growing such a whopper!

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Brian Morrisroe had a fantastic 50 th Birthday Party at his restaurant Café Café in Harrow on the Hill (Fantastic venue too!) Brian asked people to donate to William's Fund instead of presents and we received £695, thank you to Brian and to all his generous friends.

Peter Elms organised a Golf day Auction with some splendid lots and raised a fantastic £910. Really appreciate it Peter – Thank you to all those who bid!

Kenneth Davis ran the Reading Half Marathon and raised £225, well done Kenneth and Thank you for supporting us.

Emma Marshall held another Christmas Les Trois Jewellery party this year and raised £127 for us, just as well the girls love their jewellery! Thank you Emma!

Caroline Godson (aged 12) took William's Fund into her school in Chesham as a worthy cause for fundraising week. Chesham High School decided to support us and Caroline organised some events in school, raising £71.54 – Well done everyone and thank you to Chesham High School.

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Adele Cable ran the Dublin Marathon on 31st October for William's Fund and raised £2900. Adele has never run a marathon before so even more of a result to finish in 4 hours 23 minutes! Well done Adele. Photo shows Adele from one of the many fundraising events Adele ‘ran' to raise money … film nights, coffee mornings and an amazing golf weekend auction. I'm awaiting the Marathon picture! Congratulations from us and all your supporters at the Black Horse Pub!! And Thank you.

Adele's Thankyou

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I would like to say a very big Thank You to all who have supported me in raising almost £3000 with more pledges and donations still coming in. I was overwhelmed by your kindness in your donations, cards, letters, text messages and calls. These really did bring me through those ast couple of hard miles. To those of you who don't know me personally I really appreciated you taking the time to send me notes and donations in response to the note from Maltman's Green School in their Newsletter. This was really kind.

I have realised a lifetime goal and completed the Dublin Marathon in 4 hrs 23 mins which I was really pleased with. William's Fund is a charity I feel so passionately about and you have helped to move the fight against Childhool Cancer forward. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Adele Cable

Peter's London to Oxford bike ride raised £850. Thank you to all his sponsors and well done Peter!

Mrs McGreevy has once again sent her £20 from a treatment free visit to her dentist. This must be at least the 4 th donation. Mrs McGreevy must have very good teeth! It's a lovely thought to send it to us instead! Thank you

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Sue Press (2nd from right) and daughter Hannah (1st left), with team just before the 2005 Hydro Active Women's Challenge in Hyde Park which they completed along with more than 20,000 other women.   They held a coffee afternoon to raise some funds and got an amazing £340. Well done girls! Sue's son Tom has recently completed his course of treatment for a similar tumour to William's. We wish him the sincerest of crossed fingers for his future scans.

Memorials by Artists for young people, children and babies.I was unfortunately unable to attend Sue's coffee afternoon (see above) as I was at a book launch in London. The book is written by the ladies who helped us to achieve our wishes for William's headstone. The book is called Memorials by Artists for young people, children and babies. A Practical guide compiled and edited by Harriet Frazer & Hilary Meynell. It is a beautiful book and William's stone is featured as one of the works by Martin Cooke. Although we hope nobody will have a need for such a book it is the sad truth that the need does arise. To see further details of the book please visit www.memorialsbyartists.co.uk  or if you would like to discuss anything about the work of Memorials by Artists call 01728 688934. I would like to thank Hilary and Harriet both for their compassion and help in organising William's stone and for inviting me to the book launch. Congratulations ladies on such a great success.

Chalfont Party in the Park – we had a fabulous time at this event, it was very well supported despite the late arrangements. The weather was fantastic, the buzz from the local community as they joined in with the cricket or games was wonderful, many people brought a picnic and just chilled on a rug listening to the live music. The BBQ cooked all day and the beer tent almost ran dry! Huge thanks to Chalfont Park Sports Association for organising the event, a fabulous location with great facilities… (soon to be revisited for our Christmas Fair!) Special thanks to Caroline Chipperfield for her hard work and support of William's Fund. Congratulations on such a fantastic community event…. More next year?!

Party in the Park raised £843 - £500 of this was donated by The Chalfont Sports Association from profits on the day, The Activity Chest Raffle and balloons raised £162 and the winner of the Mega Sphere was Kira Fowle – well done and Thank you to all who came or donated.

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More special mentions go to:

Kevin Farran from Etcetera Restaurant in Gerrards Cross who donated a Champagne Dinner for 6  for the raffle, we do not know who won the prize so if you know, we would love some feedback from your gastronomic extravaganza! See www.etceterarestaurant.com

Huggy Bear – from Activity Chest (smart stuff for smart kids, see www.activitychest.com ) who came to meet all the children and was very popular indeed. Liz from the Activity chest held a raffle for a huge Hoberman Mega Sphere which was presented to Kira Fowle aged 8years by Michael Warner also from Activity Chest, There was also a word search competition…. now where did I put the name of the winner…. You can find out on the Activity Chest website! 

Anouska Cox – Anouska is William's cousin (age 11) and is very talented at gymnastics! Anouska put on several mini gym displays at the party in the Park and found people throwing money in the bucket ably carried by her sidekick Lucinda!  Very impressive tumbles they were too. Anouska raised £91.88 for William's Fund. Well done!

Jane Griffiths ran the Windsor Half Marathon in 2 hours, 26 mins & 21 seconds. Well done to her raising £285. Well Done Jane and Thank you!

Update from Dr Chris Mitchell - the doctor heading the research which is funded by William's Fund at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, has sent us his latest report. Read the Report in pdf format

The Corinthian Convention is an annual event that takes place at Villa Park, Birmingham (home of Aston Villa F.C) and is the only place to be if you collect either ProStars or MicroStars. The auction of the Pele Unreleased Master raised £600 in June 2005. Thank you to Corinthian and the buyer!

Biesecker Foundation - $2,000 (USD) converts to £1,099 at todays rate. Britta Biesecker is a close friend of my brother in the US. Britta works for her father's business manufacturing medicine/pill bottles They just sent a donation because they thought it was a fabulous cause! Thank you so much to The Biesecker Foundation.

Officers Wives of London (OWL) - £80 Anna (our accountant's wife) was asked to a ladies lunch (which she said was delicious!) where she introduced William's Fund and thoroughly enjoyed meeting all the ladies. Thank you OWL.

Mike Snelling - £2,103.20 - ran the London Marathon and has done a great job in collecting Gift Aid declarations for just about all his sponsors. This should make another £557.26. Well done Mike and thank you so much.

David Green - £100 – Donation due to another heart won by William's story. Gift Aid - £28

David Green (again)! – £73 Mike held a sponsored golf event where the players donated for each time they hit a tree, the water or a bunker! He said he wasn't sure about what the total said about their standard of golf! Gift Aid - £20.44

David Poole – Victoria Open Golf Day - £3,400 David organised this golf day specially for William's Fund, and he wrote:

The Vitoria Open Charity Golf Day 29/05/2005 The Day began at 8.30 am at Cheshunt Park Golf Club, making sandwiches cooking sausage rolls and laying tables ready for when 93 hot bothered and tired golfers made it back to the clubhouse with the aim of reliving every shot and piece of misfortune they had suffered during the 5 hour round of golf. The bar was full of the cries IF ONLY that putt had dropped, IF ONLY, IF ONLY. The golf itself ranged from the very good to the very very bad..

The winner, with far too many points; whilst receiving the congratulations from his fellow golfers commented on how everyone should have scored well on such a perfect day for golf - bright sunshine, no wind and receptive greens, but in all seriousness everyone agreed that the event was well organised and well attended with a worthy winner.

The organiser would to thank everyone who helped make the event happen and run smoothly, but most all thanks to all who took part and donated their time and money. Gift Aid £428.40

Village Hall Charity 5 – A-Side Football The sun shone on us once again, as the teams warmed up for the tournament on Gold Hill Common on Sunday 23rd May. Mark and Tom from the Village Hall set the teams going with a talk on fair play and introduced William's Fund. All the teams had to keep a female player on the pitch at all times, which is a great way to keep the testosterone down! The teams were all very friendly and brought quite a few supporters with them and the children enjoyed the use of a bouncy castle courtesy of The Village Hall. Running around between the teams the atmosphere was fabulous, a lot of laughing and joking…not just at each others play!

At the end of the day Brian, it's a game of 2 halves and the boys who got the most balls in the back of the net were ‘Best of the West'. Unfortunately, as they were a late entry, we did not get any pictures of them, but well done team!
The runners up for the cup were Carly Utd, a team consisting of Jack Dignum(C), David Tavrum(VC), Midfield Maestro James Dean, The Wall (goalie) Luke Goulden, Matty (Paddy) Keeting, Carly Brosnan and Lee Beckham. Jack Dignum said after the presentation..'Life goes on, but we'll be back!'
The winners of the Plate were the Village People closely followed by The Village Hall as runners up.
All the teams played well and had a great time.It was a family event with children supporting Mums and Dads on the field. Thank you to the Village Hall for hosting this event and to all the teams and supporters.
After the tournament Tom Neath (Manager) said ‘ The event was a big success, we will be doing it again on a regular basis, for William's Fund as our chosen charity, and we hope it will get bigger each year to involve more of the community.'
Other teams which took part were: Poachers A & B teams, Chalfont Hoops, The Toes, Happy Hammers, Three Pigs, Claire's Accessories, Tyde Barn, Adam Allstars, Mabbo FC, Jonny FC.

The total raised from this was £200

Pictures show teams in action, and Jack Dignum, David Tavrum with runner up medals and Tom Neath from the Village Hall with William's Wishing Well.

Pam McNally walks her way to raising £1609 for William's Fund – Well done Pam and Thank you!

Emma Marshall   ran the London Marathon this year in a very impressive 4hours 27 mins. Emma raised a fantastic £1,088 for William's Fund. Emma was incredibly organised and managed to secure Gift Aid declarations from all her sponsors, this will add another £304.64 to the sponsor money giving a total of £1,392.64. Well done Emma and thank you so much.

Kitty and Anya Nelson - Lucinda came home from school last week with an envelope addressed to me (Johanna) with a sticky note on saying 'found behind the radiator in Nursery, sorry for delay'. When I openend the letter it was dated June 2003! The letter told of how two sisters from Maltman's Green School - Kitty and Anya Nelson, along with their older sister had been touched by William's story and had performed a concert to family and friends to raise money for William's Fund, the concert was held at Christmas 2002 and raised £55.40! Mrs Nelson had spoken to Peter on the day we moved house and obviously not got much sense out of him... eventually she found our contact through Lucinda at school and sent the letter in there...only for it to fall behind a radiator and sit for 2 years!! I immediately wrote to Mrs Nelson as I felt awful about not having thanked the girls, only to find we have mutual friends at school but didn't know it! We are now on a mission to meet up in the school car park!! Yes the cheque is out of date... but Mrs Nelson is sending another one!! Thank you to Anya and Kitty, sorry for the delay in responding!!

Gerrards Cross Fire Station Car Wash Sunday saw the return of the Gerrards Cross Fire Station Car Wash. The weather forecast reported rain on the way but I knew it would be a lovely day! Another succesful car wash at which the firemen worked very hard both at cleaning cars and fighting off children with wet sponges and buckets!!

We had tremendous fun and a new addition this year was the Bonus Ball Lottery Draw sponsored by Roberts Newby Partnership. The winners of the 3 bottles of Moet et Chandon Champagne are those who correctly chose the winning bonus ball number which was drawn on Wed 18th May. The 3 lucky winners were Chris Godson, Elizabeth Cox and Jackie (from Fishers). Congratulations! They have all won a bottle of Moet et Chandon Champagne kindly donated by The Roberts Newby Partnership in Gerrards Cross. Thank you to all the people who took part in the draw.

The Car Wash and the Draw raised £661.74 for William's Fund.

Thank you to the Gerrards Crosss and Beaconsfield Fire fighters, Roberts Newby for the Champagne and to everyone who came along with their cars. Lucinda had a wonderful day as this was her 6th Birthday; she gave up her party to have the car wash instead, all her friends were invited to come along and help and instead of bringing presents Lucinda asked them to donate to the fund. Lots of them came and got very wet!

Photos above show (click for larger versions):

• Lucinda (birthday girl) accepts a teddy from Jackie (firefighter's wife and instigator of event!)
• Firemen take a rest
• Andy in Action (organiser)
• cooling off
• Lucinda in action
• Lucinda still at it!
• Revenge is sweet... Edward gets dunked!
• Shall I scrub your back Edward?
• Finished?!
• The new recruit gets initiated!

PS - Gerrards Cross Fire Ststion are having 'A bit of a Do' on 4th June 'til late, Live Band 'QED' , Nibbles, Bar, £3 a ticket. Just call Andy on 07985 244640

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