Friends’ chair Brian Gibbs reports on the year’s fundraising
It was another good year for the Friends. We gave the branch £12,500, which is the same as we gave last year. We only managed to give the branch this amount of money because of the generosity of the general public and the help of the volunteers at the branch.
We had a collection at Brookfield Farm, Cheshunt on December 23 and 24 and collected an amazing £4,030.64. This was with the help of the volunteers and their families who came along and covered all the exits. We used a tap and PIN machine for the first time, which was very successful as we collected £388.10 more than last year. I should like to thank Bashir Dalvi and his team at Brookfield Farm for all their help and support on the days. We also collected at Brookfield Farm in June and raised £1,051.93. The other collection we did was at Van Hage, a garden centre in Ware. Collections are always a good way of raising money as we do not have any expenses.
We held four quizzes, which are always popular. These are well attended by friends as well as volunteers. The questions for these quizzes are set by Rosemary and Ken Wheatley, so a big thank-you to them both. So far this year we have had a record number of people attend our quizzes. I think this is down to Rosemary and Ken’s fantastic ability in setting the questions.
In Broxbourne, we supported three events that were held for the Samaritans. At St George’s Day we had a jewellery stall and a cornhole game for the children and raised £212.71. This is mainly down to Joy, who did the jewellery stall for us. At Broxbourne Open Day and Hoddesdon Charter Day we raised £316.20 and £64.04. Joyce and Joy held car boot sales raising £689.09. My thanks to Joy, who organised these and sold items on line for extra money.
Coins4Cash is going really well, so please let us have all your foreign money. The tubes of Smarties - you take a tube and return it full of change - has gone better than we expected and last year raised £994.58 so please keep taking your tubes of Smarties and returning them.
I would like to thank Rachel of the Ware Christadelphians for the coffee morning they held for us in April. They gave us a cheque for £250. The cakes were delicious. At all these events we gave out lots of leaflets and promoted the Samaritans. One final thanks goes to my committee for their hard work. There is my wife Joyce, who is also the secretary of the Friends, Brian and Pauline Terry, Eric Bright and Nickie Hancock, who is our treasurer.