Agatha's Story is 'best'
- Agatha's Story is 'best'
Following the press & media coverage last month BEST magazine is featuring a article of Agatha’s story & The Appeal in its 16th of June edition.
Best kindly gave a donation to The Appeal for the story & are going to be printing The Appeal details for us. Let’s hope that even one person reads the article & becomes more aware of premature labour! - Treasure Hunters Strike Gold!
An intrepid team of adventurers met up early on bank holiday Monday; their mission was to bring home gold (for Agatha’s Appeal).
The team set out for a ‘gentle’ 8 mile walk in the blistering Bank Holiday heat across mixed terrain of woodland, town & road (via the pub for a much needed sit down).
The group were split into teams & had the challenge of ‘observing’ along the way ready to be quizzed on their powers of observation later that evening. The day was masterminded by John MacNeill who went to great efforts to make sure the day was a brilliant success for everyone who took part.
‘Agatha’s Army’ consisting of Suzanne, Ian, Ben & Perry were triumphant on the day – well done to all of you!
After the long day of walking the teams all assembled for the quiz which was followed by a beautiful meal (for 34)!!! gallantly prepared by John’s wife, Grace. John, Grace & Ken & Jenny Holley generously donated the food & drink & with thanks to all of their brilliant ideas, planning & very hard work together they raised £630.00!
We’d like to thank John & Grace MacNeill, Jenny & Ken Holley, Ann Barnard, Trevor & Raili Allery, Ted & Shelagh Mitchell, Judy & Clive Horton, Mary & Gerry Orbell, Sue Jackson, Joan Robinson, Geoffrey Streatfield, Alistair & Angela Reid, Suzanne & Ben Cox, Perry Doust, Sue & Mike Pullen, Ian Barnard, Monica Anderson, Bobbie & Les Hipsie, June & Derek Andrews, Kathy Bucknall, Caroline Trollope & Jill Rudland for their amazing support.
To see more photo’s from the day please look at The Gallery - Profitable Pack-Lunchers
At the end of May at UK team at OMV decided to eat sandwiches prepared by the team to raise money for The Appeal. The lunch was organised by Gia Pendred & around 35 people took part. Together they raised a staggering £273.11!
We think this defiantly tops the ideas for fundraising at the moment – any challengers are welcome to take the crown! - Agatha’s Appeal goes National
What a week!
As many of you will know this has been a week like no other for us. On Tuesday the 5th of May The Daily Mail, The Express, The Telegraph, The Sun, The Mirror, The Daily Record and The Star all featured articles about Agatha's story and most mentioned The Appeal.
We also had a team of camera crew at the house for a big part of the day on Tuesday. We were interviewed live on Sky news at 11.45am where they ran the appeal address along the bottom of the screen! Sky also filmed a 2 minute piece that they showed throughout the day, all over the world. That clip is now on the Sky website if anyone would like to see it.
Channel 5 covered the story at 5pm and 7pm, London Tonight did a great piece at 6pm which was also re-shown on the 10pm ITV news.
Since the national press interest we have been moved by how many people have taken time to contact us. People from all over the World have not only sent us messages of support for what we are trying to achieve but we have had many letters from people sharing their personal stories of prematurity, health battles, feeding problems, fundraising challenges & huge personal triumphs. This has been both inspiring & in some cases heartbreaking; every letter we have received will drive us on.
We are thrilled that the mass media interest had triggered a lot of interest in The Appeal, let’s hope that the team at St George's see the coverage and that lots of people will now want to get involved!
There are more behind the scenes pictures in the gallery and if you would like to read any of the coverage please click on the links below:
Daily Telegraph
Sky
Daily Mail
Daily Express
The Sun
Daily Mirror
Surrey Advertiser - The Austins Conquer Bracknell, Hills & All!
Father and son team John and Edward Austin took on the challenge of running the Bracknell half marathon on the 10th of May. Despite the unexpected heat, knee and foot problems both John and Edward finished the race in great time.
This was John’s first big run and together he and Edward raised over £2,000.00 for The Appeal.
There to greet her Uncle John and big cousin Edward at the finishing line was Agatha, who you can see was quite overcome with emotion (or was that just the sun in her eyes)!!
We are hugely grateful to John, Edward who gave so much time and energy to this for us and everyone who sponsored them.
For more pictures of John and Edward please look at our gallery. - More Public Support For Our Very Special Cause
The Surrey Advertiser continues it’s brilliant support of The Appeal by publishing an article covering the our huge donation from Cobham Waitrose in the 1st of May edition of it’s paper & also on it’s online edition.
Read the full article - Heather’s Heavenly Coffee Morning
On Thursday the 23rd of April Heather Polledri held a wonderful ‘coffee’ morning at home in Aylesbury. Around 25 people came to enjoy the great company, delicious cakes, warm sunshine & the odd glass of Pimms! The event raised a fabulous £500.00
For more picture of the Lincolnshire ladies enjoying the sunshine please look at The Gallery. - St George’s Day Fun
Leaders Estate Agents held a charity day on the 23rd in aid of The Appeal. The staff, landlords, tenants & shop keepers of Walton on Thames all supported us by taking part in the teams raffle, donating prizes & helping out.
Louise & her team had the most amazing raffle with prizes donated by: Sony, Moveto property paper, Carluccios Restaurant, Wine Rack, Rituals, Pen and Cob, Cancer Research, The Fragrance shop, Vodaphone, Mr and Mrs Cooper, Louise Beardmore, Sue Palmer, Lee Stairs, Deborah Bernard, Samantha Hardy, and Sam Hardy.
Everyone went to amazing lengths to help us & with thanks to everyone’s effort they raised £310, Thank You all!!! The event was also covered by the local papers. There are more pictures of the fun to be found on The Gallery. - Sheila Duggan Designs...
Sheila Duggan from Sheila Duggan Designs has done a phenomenal job of re-designing our Appeal leaflet. The new DL size is perfect for our local shops to carry on their counters. Please feel free to down load any for printing or contact me if you are holding an event & would like some copies.
- Community, cakes and lots of fun!
On Monday the 6th of April we were joined by families of premature babies, neighbours, family and friends for the Beautiful Books for Babies event.
Sarah Crotty sold Usbourne books and Karen Austin, Jenny Holley, Janet Steedman, Jackie Mould and myself all baked cakes to be sold on the day. We had a brilliant turnout and were pleased to see new faces supporting The Appeal. Everyone had a great time, raising money whilst eating cakes and all on a Monday afternoon!
We also did the raffle draw for the wonderful prizes that were kindly donated by Jo Jo Maman Bebe, Cobham Camera’s, Britannia Photographers ad Costa Coffee.
The afternoon was a tremendous success and raised a wonderful £440.00 for The Appeal.
There are more pictures from the day, please look at our gallery. - Waitrose Customers vote Agatha’s Appeal!
In March, Agatha's Appeal was fortunate enough to be one of the 3 charities selected by Waitrose Cobham as part of it's community scheme.
Each month staff vote on which charities to support. Once the months charities are selected by the staff, every time someone makes a purchase they get given a green token. The customer can then 'vote' for their favourite cause by placing their token in one of the three tubes.
A total of £1000 is allocated to the Community Scheme by the store each month & that is shared out, based on how many tokens are received by each cause.
We are delighted to announce that Agatha’s Appeal has been awarded a massive £504.00 by the store, a clear majority & a fantastic show of support by our local community.
Waitrose has done a really fantastic job of supporting The Appeal, we are very, very grateful to the support that the staff & all its customers have given us.
- Bridge Night Brings in £2,030.80!
On March the 13th Agatha’s Granny and Grandpa held a bridge evening at Bookham Barn Hall.
The evening was a complete sell out! Over a hundred people came to enjoy an evening of food, bridge & the odd glass of wine.
Jenny & Ken were helped by many of their friends who gave their time to organise, cook, serve, washed up & all manner of things that made the evening possible. They were even joined in the kitchen by the St George's midwife, who helped us so much on the night Agatha was born.
With thanks to the kindness of all the volunteers, the people who bought a table and the generosity of all the people who bought raffle tickets; the event raised over two thousand pounds!
- Youngest Appeal supporter holds very special event
Baby Iris O’Brien had a very special first birthday party on Saturday the 21st of February. The Brighton baby celebrated her big day in style with friends & family at her home. Anna & Tom, Iris’s parents very kindly asked for donations in aid of The Appeal after hearing about the campaign through another family who had premature twins at the same time that Agatha was born.
Many thanks to Iris, her family & all her friends that have contributed to The Appeal, together they raised a massive £150.00 which with Gift Aid makes a total of £192.31! Something we’re sure that Iris will be very proud of in years to come. Well done Iris (and of course Mummy and Daddy!)
- Agatha’s story makes Surrey News
Agatha’s Appeal made local news again on the 12th of February. The Surrey Comet & it’s sister paper The Guardian ran a feature on Agatha’s story so far & although the on-line version was unable to mention the website details; the paper edition (which went to most homes in Surrey) was able to mention the site.
As a result The Appeal has received several donations from people moved to help after reading the story. One family, Catherine, Lee, Charlotte & Grace Davis who contributed after reading the story said “We saw your story in the local paper, good luck with the appeal, it’s a brilliant cause”.
To read the full article, please click here. - Battling Baby Hits The Headlines...
On the 5th of February The Cobham / Esher News & Mail featured an article on The Appeal.
To read the full article, please click here. - Bun Bake for Babies is Huge Success
On the 27th of January Emily, Agatha’s sister held the first ever Appeal event. With the help of family members we produced 570 cakes to be sold at Emily’s school during one 20 minute break!!
The Bun Bake made £162.50 profit for the Appeal!
Huge thank you’s to Cranford House staff for letting us hold the event & of course the pupils for buying ALL the cakes. Apologies to all the parents – Granny’s blue meringues may have made bed time on Tuesday interesting!!
Tell us your news...
If you are involved in the appeal, and have something that you'd like us to add to the news page, please contact Samantha.