Holiday Club News

How far would you go to help Holiday Club?

Steve Gill, whose niece has been a holiday club member for several years, will be cycling from Lands End to John O’ Groats to raise funds to support our activities. He plans to set off on 1st August, and to complete the journey over 3 weeks. He will be accompanied by three friends and describes the project as ‘an effort to satisfy our respective mid-life crises’, as well as a chance to support their favourite charities.

Steve has set up a fund raising page on  Everyclick , http://www.everyclick.com/steves-lejog-bike-ride. You can share Steve’s Everyclick sponsor page by email or post it on your Facebook profile, LinkedIn and other networks using the share buttons on the page.

He has also started a blog at http://steveslejogblog.wordpress.com/

Please encourage your friends, colleagues and employers to support the sponsored ride.

Holiday Club spends around 95% of income directly on our charitable activities – all fund raising and charity administration is done by volunteers, so overheads are kept to a minimum.

It’s easy to set up a fund raising page on Everyclick – maybe you could challenge yourself and support our activities too?

Don’t forget, supporting us with Everyclick does not have to involve any effort – just using the Everyclick  search page whenever you search the web helps our fundraising. It is powered by the Yahoo service and includes shopping, image search and more.

charitypaintball.org.uk have donated paintball tickets to be used to support our fund raising or any other way we can think of.

We are currently selling one of them on eBay for Charity, joining the Monthly Daft Charity Coalition auctions – click here to view the auction listing

If you have an idea for using a ticket for your own fund raising – eg as a raffle prize -  please get in touch.

Several Holiday Club supporters have used eBay for Charity to support our fund raising. We would like to thank them all for their support.

See all current listings supporting Holiday Club on eBay for Charity

We were recently invited to a Presentation Evening by the Lions Club of Devizes, who presented our representatives with a cheque for £500. The Lions Club of Calne and Chippenham have both supported us too this year.  Chippenham Ladies Circle have donated £50, and singing group ‘End of the Track’ sang at a local Rotary Club event and asked for a donation to be made to our funds as payment.

The Ray Harris Charitable Trust,  Combined Charities Trust, ‘Worshipful Company of Grocers’ charity and Chippenham Borough Lands Charity have made grants supporting our activities this summer, and the Sobell Foundation are supporting us for the second year of a three year award – this was a particularly welcome award, as it helps us to plan for future years. Chippenham Town Council recently confirmed a grant and the Wiltshire & Swindon Community Foundation have supported us once again.

We have also been supported by local churches, Calne Methodists and St Martins, Bremhill and by Corsham Civic Society.  Local businessman Colin Bray, of Topmead Ltd, made a generous donation earlier this year.

The support of local company Wavin has been mentioned in earlier updates and the Hills Group has also made a donation towards this years activities.

Despite all of this support we have not yet reached our target for the summer. Our costs are higher than those for most holiday activities because of the need for a high ratio of qualified and experienced staff to support our members, so we have to work much harder to raise the funds needed! We are still awaiting reply for several grant applications.

Several supporters have helped us to raise funds using eBay for charity this year.  Many thanks for your support!

Our AGM will take place on Friday 23rd April at 7.30pm, at the Jubilee Rooms, 32 Market Place, Chippenham (near the Gazette & Herald offices, opposite the Rose & Crown). This is an open meeting and parents and family members are welcome.

Trustees will be appointed/reappointed at the AGM. If you would like to be a trustee and committee member please get in touch, even if you are unable to attend the AGM.

Click here for a map

At the end of last year the charity committee of Wavin made a generous donation to our funds after reading about our funding difficulties in the local Gazette & Herald.  They also invited us to attend a meeting in January to discuss possible funding from this year’s charity budget.

A volunteer and a parent trustee attended the meeting and the committee decided to award a very generous grant of £7,000, adding to the £1,250 already donated.

This is a brilliant start to the year and we would like to say a big thank you to everyone at Wavin.

We would also like to thank the other organisations who have donated to Holiday Club funds.

Thanks also to the  Gazette & Herald for publishing the articles. We are featured again in this week’s edition (18th Feb 2010) after telling them about the generosity of the Wavin charity committee.

We still need to raise lots more to cover the costs of the summer’s activities. If you would like to help please contact us via our contact page.

Since the local Gazette & Herald printed their front page article about our funding difficulties we have been contacted by several businesses and groups offering to help out.

Wavin Plastics have made a generous donation from their charity account, and the Hills Groups made a donation in lieu of sending Christmas cards to their corporate clients.  Chippenham Ladies Circle are also raising funds for us.

We contacted the Gazette to let them know that their article helped us out, and they printed another article along with a thank you letter.

We still have a long way to go to meet our fund raising target for the summer, but we can look forward to 2010 with a little more optimism! Many thanks to Wavin, the Hills Group and others who have supported us.

Happy New Year everyone!

Share this Post

Holiday Club recently featured in local paper the ‘Gazette & Herald’, with a front page article about our funding difficulties. We originally contacted the paper hoping to be included the letters page to thank our supporters – we never dreamed that it would result in a front page article!

Fortunately Jo had included a question about permission for use of photos in a recent feedback form, so we were able to give the paper a photo to go with the article, which must have influenced the front-page decision. Thank you to our members who returned the forms and gave permission for photos to be used in the press. Quite a few of you were in the photo that was chosen so we hope you were pleased to be in the paper! The article also appeared in other local papers.

There were a couple of slight inaccuracies in the report, and also a rather major omission, which we would like to correct. Continue Reading »

Most of our members, or their families, are entitled to Disability living Allowance (DLA) to support the extra costs of living with a disability.

With the recent release of the Green Paper for Social Care, one of the proposals put forward is that …… “some elements of disability benefits, for example Attendance Allowance” might no longer be paid to people and instead integrated into a new social care budget. DLA is mentioned too. Continue Reading »

We didn’t get much of a summer this year, but our activities brightened up the holidays for our members.  We had a successful summer, with several new outings and activities including a one-day Performance Workshop.

Our co-ordinator, Jo Simpson, got married in August and is now Mrs Jo Burton. Congratulations Jo!

Share this Post