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