William's Fund

2008

Grand Total £425,000

Comedy Night The comedy night was a huge success and so brilliantly funny! Thanks to Robin Ince for organising the whole event, to the Bloomsbury Theatre for the venue, to the audience for coming…especially those committed William’s Fund supporters who trogged into London, the Marlow 10!! As for the fantastic comics….absolutely outstanding, thank you to all of them. The evening raised a whopping £6,400. Pic on right is Peter and Johanna with Tim Minchin, the last act of the evening and wow…what an act!!

Christmas Cards are being printed as we speak! This year is called ‘He’s Been’ Available soon…..

Angels Gather Here Summer Fair was amazing! As visitors walked through the fragrant lavender bushes and bunting they were welcomed with a perfect
summers day in the beautiful garden. Stalls looked so attractive and the refreshments all served on bone china, scrummy homemade cakes and cookies.

William's Fund was honoured to be the chosen charity once again and so far have over £338 from entrance donations into William's Wishing Well and raffle tickets. Thank you to Chris Myers and her 'Angels' once again and thank you to everyone who visited.

Stone Challenge VIII was a brilliant success once again, the golfing was superb and the after dinner speech from Greg was an absolute masterpiece as always!! Pics below... Greg speaks, Dr Chris Mitchell speaks, Chris receives Christmas Card money from Elizabeth Cox (artist) Ziggy laughs at Greg's superb banter (ladies winner Michele hunter alongside) Winner of the CG-Lock prize and William's Grandpa, Uncle Graham and Dad set out to play in the golf challenge (brother Edward usually plays but was not allowed this year due to exams!)

The winner of the Best Golfer went to our celebrity guest Ziggy Lichman (Big Brother) who had a fantastic round having not played for 9 months!! Well done Ziggy and thanks for coming to support us.

Charity Sail - Cannongate Publishers have sent £200 for the use of the photo Malcolm took, (at least I presume that's what it is for as it had no note to accompany it!) Well done to Malcolm for taking such a splendid shot and for donating to us in lieu of payment. It is a fantastic shot! See www.charitysail.org

Swindon Half Marathon - Last year (October) Jon Paul Hardy and Rob Chandler ran the Swindon Half Marathon for us! They have been friends since they were 8yrs old and never done anything like this before, so they trained and completed the toughest half marathon run in good times and raised £501 for William's Fund... thank you both and may this be the start of something new! I asked for photos for the website but they weren't keen on the lycra shots!!

Read the Oxford Children's Hospital campaign update. William's Fund is on the front cover and see page 11 for Johanna's story.

Mike Snelling - London Marathon - 13 April 2008 - Many thanks to you all for supporting William's Fund and his efforts in last Sunday's London Marathon. Your very generous donations when combined with Gift Aid has so far raised almost £4000 for Childhood Cancer Research. He have been instructed by many of you to provide a summary of his race day experience.I can do this simply and briefly:-

The first 30km was completed at a steady pace and on target for my desired 4 hour finish time. The crowds and my personal supporters provided fantastic and enthusiastic encouragement.

At 30km I hit the wall and slowed dramatically, no amount of crowd encouragement could stir my aching body and destroyed mind to an adequate response for the last 12km.

My finishing time of 4hours 30mins was therefore personally disappointing being some way off my target and slower than many of my longer training runs. However, looking on the bright side that leaves plenty of room for improvement!

If you have been generous enough to pledge a donation but have yet to transfer the funds, then you can still use the website athttp://www.justgiving.com/mikesnelling Alternatively you can send a cheque to him at 52 Pondcroft Road, Knebworth, Herts, SG3 6DE made out to The Childhood Cancer Research Fund.

Many thanks again to all of you who were generous enough to make a donation
and to all his supporters on the day and during the training.

Emma Barnard held a Captain Tortue clothes party/coffee last week and raised
£90 from the proceeds, thanks to the Mums for buying and Emma for hosting,
really appreciate it.

A new Researcher is starting at the Childhood Cancer research lab soon....
watch this space!

Davenies School, Beaconsfield - the following appeared in the Davenies Newsletter December 2007 : On Monday 3rd December we had two visitors at our morning assembly, Johanna Dodd from ‘William’s Fund’ and Ben Pegna from the ‘Right to Play’ charity. The visitors spoke to the boys about their respective charities and were each presented with a cheque for £1775, the money having been raised at the Davenies ‘Casino Royale’ Ball in July.

Davenies

2007

Christmas Carol Singing at Gerrards Cross Station, organised and very well decorated by the Ferris Family once again, raised a whopping £428. Thank you to the Ferris Family, singers and the kind commuters for supporting the wonderful singing.

The Rodgers Partnership raised £252.32 for us on the Fun Nights in Gerrards Cross and Chalfont St Peter just before Christmas. They sold Mulled wine and held competitions and also sold The William's Fund Christmas cards in both branches. Thank you to all the Rodgers Partnership staff and customers.

Bolsover Cruise Club once again sent a donation of £94 from the offices in Chesterfield. Thank you to Julie Straw and her team; we really appreciate your loyal support.

We have our first Marathon runner for 2008! Mike Snelling has secured a place and is running the Flora London Marathon on 13th April, Good Luck Mike!

David Carr ran the Berlin Marathon last year and I have been very remiss in keeping up with his news, here are a few words from David after the run:

All went well in Berlin. Made it around in under 3.30 that I was pretty pleased with.
A few aches and pains along the way, and a local runner was on hand to help encourage me through the last mile or two, when things got particularly challenging!
The fund raising exercise was well supported, which made it all very much worth while.
I went to meet Chris (Mitchell) and his researcher. It was a brief trip just to give me some background and has enabled me to give some more info to those people who sponsored me, as and when it crops up. Chris is a very nice chap and was very helpful as was his researcher. And it is great news that he has another researcher lined up.

As for the money raised. Total raised of £4,461 plus gift aid reclaimed of £917 giving a total of £5,378.

I feel great, although I have to confess I haven't done too much running since Berlin!
The experience was great and many people were supportive of what is a fantastic cause.

David

ps - I ran with a local chap, Andreas for much of the race, and he was a great help over the gruelling last couple of miles. He slowed up to help me out, which says something about the spirit of the occasion!
I shan't forget him!

Thank you David, we really appreciate the time and effort it takes to run a marathon and collecting the sponsor money can be just as hard!! Good Luck for April!!

Christmas Fair...another huge success, fabulous stalls including our 'Blendypen Man' Robin demonstrating his brilliant pens. The Kitchen girls worked like troopers all day serving the superb food they had cooked at home, all our visitors had a great time and lots of shopping was done too! We raised over £3,000 with some money from orders still to come. Thank you to all the helpers and all those who came to support us.

Angels Gather Here.... Wow, the house looked amazing and the smell wafting through the house was divine! William's Fund were selling cards and were the beneficiary of the entrance fee and the raffle. I was there for most of the morning but the fair carried through the afternoon and I left the cards/raffle and entrance to Nicola (roped in as penance for forgetting to come to the Christmas Fair!). When I returned to the gorgeous house in the evening to collect the Wishing well I was greeted by some very tired but happy stall holders and Chris Myers (the wonderful hostess) celebrating their successful day - and told they had raised £600 for William's Fund, I was so staggered I couldn't speak!! Thank you so much everyone! Looking forward to next year...and I must get the recipe for those fabulous cookies!

The King of Prussia (www.thekingofprussia.com/) has launched a big campaign to promote William's Fund and the Christmas cards! On Friday I was invited along to meet Ziggy from Big brother who has become a supporter of William's Fund! What a lovely man! We not only found each other...Aaaah, but also the magnificent King Of Prussia, a splendid setting with a cosy atmosphere, comfortable seating and a fabulous menu, really recommend a visit. Thank you to David Gibbs for organising the event, David the Manager for his wholehearted support in promoting us and selling the cards and to Ziggy (and his lovely Dad) for coming along and supporting us. Look out for the King of Prussia staff wearing their William's Fund shirts throughout December!

The Activity Chest are at it again!.... They are running a competition in the shop from Chalfont St Peter Fun Night (7th Dec)and throughout Christmas, for William's Fund -'Find Rudolph's Nose' treasure hunt style! Why not pop in and have a go and get some great Christmas presents for children at the same time!

Charity Sail - Malcolm Palmer in his Legend 356 set off from Chichester, Sussex on June 4 to sail round the UK in aid of 3 charities - one of them being William's Fund. Follow his progress on www.charitysail.org and please sponsor him. Malcolm arrived back home in early September. So far he has raised £427 for William's Fund from his sailing adventure. Read the newspaper articles about him:

The Asian Womens Club (GX Branch) raised £1,0000 from a fundraising event in London in January.Many thanks to all the ladies.

Bucks Punjabi Society (GX) raised £1,000 from another event in The Bull Hotel in Februaury- see photo of the cheque being recieved from Paul Riat (President) and Jay Purewal. Jays son Kavan is at school with Henry and her daughter Jeevika is at school with Lucinda!

Captain Tortue Clothes were displayed at a coffee hosted by Kathy Pitt. Orders taken on the day were so good that Williams Fund recieved £130 in commission kindly donated by Mrs Pitt. Thank you to the shoppers and to Kathy for her generousity.

Stoke Park Captain Jarlath McHale (2006) chose Williams Fund as his charity for Captains day held in August. A tournament was played followed by a BBQ, raffle and dancing to a jazz band. This was followed in November by an Auction Dinner with many lots up for grabs including a 5 day trip to the USA First Class! Williams Fund recieved a magnificent £7,250 which was matched with another donation to the Lillian Ramsey Eyeless Trust. Many thanks to Jarlath for choosing to support us and to all the golfers and supporters of the charity days.

The Activity Chest - raised £76 with a competiton that ran from 1st December, the night of the Chalfont St Peter Fun Night, to 23rd December. Thomas Garry, age 9, won and collected his prize on Christmas Eve.

Oakland Park Golf Seniors - Noel Overton the Senior Captain for the year 2006 whose charity for his year in office was Williams Fund made a presentation on behalf of the Seniors section of Oakland Park Golf Club to me for the sum of £1700.00

Chantrey Vellacott DFK - Dr Stephen Hill was recently invited to provide a session on Identity Theft at Norton Rose's Distinguished Speaker Programme, joining a number of inspiring speakers including Lord Hoffman, Ken Livingstone, Robin Bew and most recently Lord Millet.
Stephen present on the issue of Identity Theft looking at the risks facing organisations and the steps both organisations and individuals can take to prevent them becoming victims of identity fraud. The event was well received with well over 90 people attending.
Norton Rose set up a programme inviting speakers from the legal and educational communities to deliver an evening lecture on a topic of their choice. In return, Norton Rose offer to pay the sum of £500 to a charity of the speaker's choice. Stephen chose the Childhool Cancer Research Fund with the money going to the fundraising organisation, William's Fund, which was a link via Jonathan Horrocks from the Tax Dept of Chantrey Vellacott DFK (see picture)

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