We had such a wonderful night on Saturday and managed to exceed our fundraising target! I thought I’d post an update on the whole weekend …
A few of us arrived at Bonis Hall at around 9am on Saturday morning. We came in assorted cars and vans, loaded with equipment and drink and took on the task of converting a staff canteen into a stylish party venue. Furniture was rearranged, decorations, technical equipment and fairy lights put in place and within a couple of hours the room was really starting to take shape. Sharon (Spoilt for Choice, Cheshire) lent us her expertise and resources and we were delighted with the end result.
Thank you Sharon, Sophie, Connor, Niamh, Callum, Joe, Glenda, Jimmy, Gill, Anna, Zeb, Heather and Charlie ?
There was a huge display screen on the wall and our favourite graphic designer had put together a slide show to tell our guests a little about MS, HSCT and all our fundraising efforts …many thanks Dave ?
We whizzed home in the afternoon, showered, changed and glammed up, returning to Bonis Hall by about 5.30pm. It was lovely to walk back in again with fresh eyes and see how wonderful it all looked.
We finished a few last minute jobs and by 6.30pm our first guests began to arrive. I was a bit of a nervous wreck by this time …like everyone else I’d been on my feet all day and also hadn’t eaten much, so was feeling decidedly wobbly! I was also a little worried about having anything to drink in case I just keeled over!
An hour later I was feeling much better. Lots of people had arrived and there was a lovely happy atmosphere in the room. People seemed genuinely pleased to be there and I began to relax a little.
Our fantastic compère, Chris, opened the evening and welcomed our first performer, Ashleigh. I hadn’t heard Ashleigh sing before, other than on a video on someone’s phone, but I had heard several people say how good she was. This turned out to be quite an understatement! What an amazing voice! Thank you Ashleigh, for your wonderful singing – I’ve had so many people ask me about you and tell me how amazing you are! ?
Next up was food time! We had lots of discussions about food on the run up to the event and a number of small hurdles to overcome. We wanted to keep the cost low and the quality high and we also had no access to the kitchen facilities. Thankfully our wonderful friends, Heather and Nick saved the day with their expert catering knowledge and culinary expertise and the decision was made to provide a choice of curries, with naan bread and popadoms. The food was delicious and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Thank you Heather and Nick xx
After the food, I managed to shuffle up to the microphone to say a few rambled words of thanks (my thanks is heartfelt, even if I didn’t manage to articulate it very well!).
The mammoth task of drawing the raffle was next. We had received so many donated prizes and it took quite a while to work out. I still have some prizes in my living room, so will be contacting more winners later in the week. We had sold a few tickets ahead of the event but most were sold by my wonderful niece, Anna, on the night. Thank you Anna ❤️
My slightly tipsy friend, Karen, then decided to embarrass me with a few words of support (thank you lovely xx). Karen is a wonderful supportive friend and will be coming to Russia towards the end of my treatment, in order to help me on the journey home.
Then it was time for more live music from Dan and Chris, who were fabulous! Thank you both ?
(By this time my camera skills had completely gone out of the window, so I sadly have no photos of Dan and Chris! Please send me one if you have any ?)
Edit: photo added 27.02.19 …thanks Glenda
Chris was fantastic as our compère and managed to keep everything running smoothly, despite us going off plan more or less from the start of the evening …thank you Chris ?
Whilst all this was going on, there was also a bit of face painting (thank you Tiah x), a kids activity corner, selfie props and a football table.
We decided to stock and run the bar ourselves, offering drinks at a great prices but still managed to make quite a bit of money. Thank you to Jimmy and Gill from Swan Brewery who provided the beer and wine and did a lot of the leg work on the bar ?. Connor, Niamh and Sophie also spent a lot of time running the bar too …thanks all of you ?
We managed a token tidy up at the end of the night then all left for a few hours sleep.
By 9am a group of us were back at Bonis Hall for the big clean up! It was important that we got the room back to exactly as it had been, before the site cleaners arrived (otherwise we could have incurred charges). After much hoovering, scrubbing, mopping and car loading, it was as if we had never been there at all!
My sister, Glenda, was with me for the weekend and was a wonderful support, both practically and in helping to keep me calm! It was lovely to have that bit of time together – Glenda lives in Germany and although we are in touch a lot, we don’t get together as often as we would like. After taking Glenda to the airport, I went home and had a 3 hour nap!
The busy weekend and the hectic build up have rather taken their toll on me and 3 days later, I am still exhausted, my legs are very sore and my right hand is having episodes of numbness and tingling.
It was all worth it though …through everyone’s hard work and generosity we managed to raise …
Perhaps more importantly, it was so uplifting and heartwarming to see what can be achieved when a group of people work together with a common aim. Despite our exhaustion, we all really enjoyed the evening and it gave us all a positive optimistic boost. I really hope all our guests felt that too. There really is an awful lot of good in the world ❤️
Thank you to everyone who helped to make it such a great night ❤️
