Introduction
Welcome to the May edition of the makeabigdifference newsletter. In this months bumper edition we share the stories of 2 fundraisers, Lyndon and Trudie who both ran separate grueling marathons to raise money for Young Heroes. Neither of them had previously run marathons but both completed them successfully and in fantastic times, raising a phenomenal amount of money for our charity. Well done you both, you did an amazing job and have proven to others you don’t have to be Paula Radcliffe to run a marathon for charity.
You can also read the latest installment from young hero & volunteer Katie Brooman in ‘Katie’s Corner’, where she shares her secrets for running a successful fundraising event. You will remember last month Katie and parents Brian & Lynn held a cream tea event which raised a staggering amount of money; to be revealed in this edition.
We also speak to Young Heroes’ Health Support Co-Ordinator Bev Law about the preparations undertaken for the respite break season. Both Bev and husband Rob are currently in Lanzarote with their first young person of the season, a story we will be sharing in next months newsletter, so keep posted.
We also share the exciting news of a wedding, a charity awareness event in Birmingham for the Rotary Clubs, an exciting new way to shop online and raise money, car booting for Young Heroes and new guidelines set to improve the diagnosis time for children and young people with brain tumours as released by Cancer Research UK.
Enjoy and until next month,
Kim Tetlaw
Editor
Wedding Bells
Young Heroes would like to congratulate Christa (Greswold) and husband Andy on their wedding last month.
The happy couple married on the 9th April at the Chapel of St. Mary and St. Katherine , Solihull school, where Christa is a music teacher and the musical director of the talented group Saxophony who have raised thousands of pounds for Young Heroes through musical fundraising events.
Congratulations Andy and Christa!
Shop online and donate for free
Have you heard about easyfundraising yet? It’s the easiest way to help raise money for Young Heroes. If you already shop online with retailers such as Amazon, Next, Argos, John Lewis, Comet, Boots, eBay or HMV, then we need you to sign up for free to raise money while you shop!
So how does it work?
You shop directly with the retailer as you would normally, but if you sign up to http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk for free and use the links on the easyfundraising site to take you to the retailer, then a percentage of whatever you spend comes directly to us at no extra cost to yourself. So if you spend £100 with M&S online, we get £5 cashback from your purchase; £100 spent with Amazon raises £2.50 for us, £100 with WH Smith puts £2.00 in our pocket, and so on.
easyfundraising have over 2,000 retailers on their site, and some of the donations can be as much as 15% of your purchase.
This service is FREE to use, and what’s more, joining easyfundraising will give you access to hundreds of exclusive discounts and voucher codes, so not only will you be helping us; you’ll be saving money yourself.
• FREE TO JOIN & DONATIONS MADE AT NO EXTRA COST TO YOU
• BUY DIRECT FROM OVER 2,000 BRAND NAME RETAILERS
• 100s OF EXCLUSIVE DISCOUNTS AND VOUCHER CODES
M&S, Clarks, Topman, BHS, Miss Selfridges, Burton, La Senza, Evans, New Look
B&Q, Screwfix.com, Homebase, Wickes, Argos, Wilkinson Plus, JML, Topp’s Tiles
Toys R Us, ELC, Mothercare, Woolworths.co.uk, Boots.com, LEGO, Kiddicare
Comet, Curry’s, Dixon, Play.com, Maplin Electronics, Dyson, Jessops. Bose, Game, Gamestation
Young Heroes ‘stands out’ at Rotary event
On Saturday 24th April, Young Heroes staff and volunteers attended the annual Rotary District 1060 Assembly in Edgbaston, Birmingham. This most prestigious event brought together all the representatives from 67 clubs throughout the UK and gave an exclusive number of charities such as ourselves the chance to talk to each of them about the precious work we do.
Situated in the ‘House of Friendship’ area, Young Heroes had a display stand where we handed leaflets out, answered questions, collected donations and raised awareness about the charity, our services and about cancer within young people. Lending a hand on the day was volunteer and young hero Katie Brooman who kindly shared her own personal experience with cancer and spoke about her respite break and her charitable work.
Young Heroes feel extremely honoured to have been invited by the Rotary to attend such a wonderful event which gave us a great opportunity to project our work.
The day was a great success and we take this opportunity to thank all those involved.
Fundraising Idea of the Month
Car Boot Sales
Get rid of unwanted items and raise money for Young Heroes at the same time by doing a car boot sale.
How?
Ask everyone you know for unwanted books, clothes, toys, CD’s, ornaments, in fact anything which is unused and good enough condition to sell on in aid of charity. Post your plea request for items through Facebook and Twitter. Ask neighbours, work colleagues, friends and family to donate. Design an advert to place in local shop windows, also community centre’s, churches, pubs, restaurants etc.
Where?
For the location of your nearest car boot sales, visit online car boot search engines like http://www.yourbooty.co.uk or http://www.carbootjunction.com. Note: Some car boots require you to pre-book your pitch well in advance due to popularity.
Preparation
- The day before the car boot, place stickers on all your items clearly displaying the price. You could even sort your items into three or four price bands – 50p, £1, £2 and £5, for example. This will save you a lot of time and stress on the day, and cut down on hagglers.
- Pack all your items in cardboard boxes – they are easier to move in and out of the car.
- Take a table for your goods, such as a paste table
- Arrive very early – usually people start setting up around 6.00am, some even earlier.
- On arrival, unload your table and one box then lock your car while you unpack the box, otherwise people will swarm all over your car, picking up items and confusing you totally
- Take lots of change and a container with a lid for money taken. Once you have a few notes, lock these in your car.
- Take a chair, wet wipes, carrier bags for buyers, sandwiches and a drink.
- Best of all, share the stall with a friend as this halves the cost and ensures you get a toilet break!
Guidelines to speed up diagnosis of brain tumours in children
Scientists at Birmingham Children’s Hospital and the Universities of Nottingham and Southampton have developed new guidelines that should help doctors to diagnose brain tumours in children more quickly.
At present, children may feel unwell for months before they are diagnosed with a brain tumour. Two recent studies found that UK children with brain tumours may face a 2.5-month or 3.5-month wait before they receive a diagnosis. This delay means they are more likely to develop life-threatening complications and experience vision loss and other neurological problems.
The team had previously published a literature review and meta-analysis, along with a study of children newly diagnosed with brain cancer. These publications provided information on the signs, symptoms and progression of brain tumours in children and were used as the basis on which to develop the new guidelines.
In their latest study, the team organised a workshop of 20 healthcare professionals and parents of children with brain tumours. Together they devised new statements describing the signs and symptoms of brain tumours, factors that could be used to tell the difference between brain tumours and other less serious conditions, and the process doctors should follow if they suspect a child has a brain tumour.
These statements were then tested by a panel of health specialists in a ‘virtual’ focus group – 156 took part, with 88 completing all three rounds.
This resulted in final guidelines containing 76 recommendations on the signs and symptoms of childhood brain tumours, assessment of children with possible brain cancer, and whether and when to carry out central nervous system imaging.
Publishing details of the guideline in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, the researchers wrote: “Implementation of this guideline may support clinicians in the identification and timely imaging of children with brain tumours. This may reduce the morbidity currently experienced by many children with brain tumours.”
Sourced from http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/news
Katie’s Corner
Impact Young Heroes has been a constant support for me, my Mum and Dad for the past two years. We wanted to help them raise funds to support other young people with cancer, and decided we would hold an event at some point.
In September 2009 my Mum came home from a Church meeting, the church congregation expressed an interest in raising funds for Impact Young Heroes, and wished to learn more about my cancer experience and the charity. In February 2010 we decided the date for our event would be the 10th April 2010.
In 2008 we held a successful ‘Coffee and Cake afternoon’ for a charity, but on a much smaller scale. So without a doubt we knew my Mum’s cakes had to be involved! We hoped the weather would be getting nicer in April so we decided to have a traditional ‘Cream Tea’ afternoon, with a home produce stall and some fundraising stalls.
In March I visited local shops with Bev and Rob, asking for donations of items to sell on our stall and also to display posters; thank you to anybody who helped us in this way.
As the 10th drew closer, we received some fabulous items to sell on the stalls, and were kept busy by pricing items and sorting out! On the 7th April Mum made 50 scones and by the 9th April Mum had made 70 scones in all, and lots of cakes to sell on the home produce stall! I was busily occupied making lots of greetings cards; I managed to make 30 cards to sell (Mum even found the time to make a few too!)
The big day; all the helpers arrived around 12pm, to help us with final preparations. At 2.30pm everybody had arrived and Mum and I declared the event open; everybody spent up on the stalls and enjoyed tea and scones before me, Bev and Rob got up on the stage. I told my story and read my poem featured in August 2009’s newsletter https://www.impactliving.org/newsletter-august-2009/ then Bev and Rob gave a talk about the charity and what they do.
I am so pleased to be able to tell you the grand total for our event is £765.00, we are so grateful for all the support given to us, for the people who came along or helped in one way or another. We are amazed we have reached such a fantastic total to help Impact Young Heroes support another young person with cancer. Thank you.
Half Marathon, Full Success
On Sunday 9th May, almost 5,000 runners lined up at Millennium Square for the 2010 Leeds Half Marathon and its sister event, Jane Tomlinson’s Junior Run and Mini Fun Run.
Among the runners was Lyndon Ashley from Spalding Moor, East Yorkshire who was running for Young Heroes.
It was the first time Lyndon had competed in a marathon and his inspiration to run for the charity was down to friend Charlie Massey, who last year completed the 26 mile sponsored walk. Through Charlie, Lyndon learned about Young Heroes and was touched in particular by the story of Alex Albiston who sadly passed away last month.
Lyndon, who already had a place in the 2010 Leeds half marathon, decided Young Heroes would be his chosen charity and began fundraising immediately for the 13.1mile race. Within the first day of setting up his JustGiving page, he had reached his fundraising goal and went on to triple the amount.
Speaking of the event, Lyndon says “It was a fantastic day. The weather was nice and cool which made perfect running conditions”.
When asked how he physically coped with his first ever marathon, he said “I had been doing lots of training to prepare for the run but nothing serious so I found the first part fine. However when I hit the half-way mark I was exhausted and felt like I’d already run the full 13 miles. The crowds were great though and I just kept on thinking about all the people who had sponsored me which gave me the extra strength to carry on. The last mile was pretty tough but there were a lot of spectators cheering us on particularly towards the finish line which really helped push us”.
Lyndon completed the half marathon in a fantastic time of 1 hour, 40 minutes finishing 471st out of around 5,000.
A big congratulations to Lyndon for completing the marathon and raising such phenomenal amount of money for Young Heroes. Thank you and well done.
You can still show your support for Lyndon and Young Heroes by visiting his Just Giving page:
http://www.justgiving.com/Lyndon-Ashley
Preparing for Lanzarote!
It’s nearly that time of year when Robert and I go out to Lanzarote as support workers for those Young Heroes who have been offered a respite break. ‘WOW! Off to the sun’ some people comment ‘lucky you’. Yes, we are lucky, not because of the sunshine, (though that is very nice), but to have the opportunity to do something tangible for a young person and their families, which we know will make a difference to their lives. A positive difference, because our previous Young Heroes have fed back what a respite break has done for them.
It is a tense time preparing forms, collecting Consultant’s permission for their patient to fly abroad, organising medical insurance, trying to book flights at a reasonable price, without paying greedy airlines ‘mega bucks!’ Some of our Young Heroes have to have a blood test a week before they fly to ensure that their blood counts are safe enough for them to travel.
For us, we are so relieved to know everything possible is done and when we meet and greet our guests at the airport, I just love to see their excited faces, and although they are often tired from travelling, they are also in disbelief that they have finally made it!
On a form recently received, one family have described their reason for needing the holiday, as a time to heal the emotional and physical trauma they have been through as their child slowly recovers from the harsh treatments of cancer, which are as life threatening as the disease itself.
I am currently reading a book which I recommend for all those involved in this type of work; called ‘At least it’s not raining’. It was written by Stephen Redman whose little boy died with cancer. The book describes their journey throughout his illness and how God remained at the centre of their hope and despair. People say to me, ‘how do you cope meeting people facing such adversity and sadness?’ Well, surprise, surprise! The people we meet are very special. They laugh, cry, share their stories but always teach us about the meaning of life in adversity. What is important to them one day, totally changes the next. Every day of their lives becomes a focus for change as they face mortality, not only of their child but themselves.
Robert and I couldn’t support these young people and their families without our own faith. We pray for the families and the Young Heroes, their friends and all those involved with their care. We also ask for the strength and guidance, to be able to offer ourselves totally and honestly as we walk alongside them. We benefit so much and that impacts positively on us as individuals. Sometimes as a nurse and Robert a priest, we are asked very straight questions about dying, recovery and death. Through these questions and encounters, we grow in experience which enhances our relationship with other people in similar situations.
What a privilege and honour to be able to work alongside such wonderful people!
Bev Law – Health Support Coordinator
Trood’s Trotting Success
Big congratulations to Trudie Newlove from Kilham, Driffield for completing the very first Brighton Marathon on Sunday 18th April with a fantastic time of 05:57:39.
In total 7,589 runners turned up on the day to complete the gruelling 26.2 mile course around the coastal city of Brighton and Hove, with 7,426 people finishing the race.
“It was absolutely brilliant” says Trudie, “I thought I was going to die on mile 22 and my legs fell off about 7 times but apart from that it was so good!”
With the mild temperatures, sunny skies and thousands of cheering spectators lining the streets, Trudie says “The spectators were so loud and shouty which really helped. The atmosphere was just fantastic. I definitely want to do it again next year!”.
Remember it’s not too late to show your support for Trudie’s marathon success and Young Heroes by visiting her JustGiving page.
http://www.justgiving.com/troods-trotting
Look out for June’s edition of the makeabigdifference newsletter when we will announce Trudie’s grand total.
Well done Trudie and on behalf of everyone at Young Heroes thank you so much.
Thank you’s
Young Heroes would like to say a big thank you to Mrs Susan Mottram from Raskelf, York for her kind donation for which we are most grateful. Thank you.