The Blandfords have just returned from holiday and were delighted to find two checks for the Christian Blandford Fund. One from St George’s Church in the Weald for £747 and another from LVS Ascot for £743. We would like to particularly thank Luisa Northing and her friends in Coburg House at LVS who took part in a giant cake sale, a ‘splat the teacher” event and a student leg wax!
Lu and Christian, many years ago
While waiting at Geneva Airport for departure, we spotted a piano…
We were so pleased to be able to support The Royal Marsden by donating towards Ella Gracie’s Garden Project. This new garden for the children’s ward provides some much needed outside space for the kids and their families. The first picture shows the space as it was originally!
Yesterday we had another amazing day handing out presents at St George’s. Christian and Jessica were fantastic elves helping me as Santa. The CBF trustees, Darren and Amy did a great job of wrapping presents and Neil and the St George’s play specialists were a great help on the rounds. As usual it was a day filled with both laughter and tears. We are reminded how lucky we are that Christian has made such a great recovery and we are touched that he has become a beacon of hope for many families who are going through an incredibly difficult time.
Thank you to Matt Binnie who provided his photographic skills and equipment for free. You can see a selection above, the rest are here where friends and families of the patients can get downloads for free. Click on the cloud to download individual photos.
For the first time we also handed out presents in a different hospital, our local NHS hospital in Kent, Pembury. As my sledge is having an MOT we had to bring in some external Santa help! Here is a message from Claudia
“The Pembury Father Christmas trip would not have been possible without the generosity of Granville School staff, parents and pupils who generously bought and wrapped all the gifts. We would also like to thank Dionne Lessner who gave up her time to help Claudia on the day, Susannah Boughtflower (from Susannah’s People and The Kids Entertainers Network) who found us the most brilliant Father Christmas and who waived her fee & Damien Warren Smith who was a fantastic Father Christmas and who charmed not only the children but their parents and the Dr’s and nurses and play specialists.”
Our good friends Robin and Bee have kindly donated their entire production of incredible organic pear juice to benefit The Christian Blandford Fund.
So we now have 550 bottles looking for a good home and we need your help to sell them!
a bargain at
£10 for 3 bottles
£18 for 6 bottles
the bottles are a full litre
The pear juice is 100% organic, no pesticides were used on the trees and they have no additives at all. The juice has been lightly pasteurised, which means it will last for 6 months if sealed but other than that, it is as fresh and natural as you can get. The pears were all grown and cared for locally and harvested by Robin himself and we are very grateful that he and Bee decided to donate the result of all this hard work to The Christian Blandford Fund.
The juice tastes amazing...
The pear juice is £10 for 3 bottles or £18 for 6, with all the profit after bottling costs going to the Christian Blandford Fund.
Do you think you could sell some for us?
Could you send an email to your kids' class parents group for example?
Any other ideas for places to sell them?
We are planning a prize for the person that sells the most bottles, so please join in the fun and help us sell this incredible and heathy batch of organic pear juice.
Thank you!
Update
The wonderful Fidelity Weston at Romshed Farm will be selling the pear juice for us at their pop up shop on the 1st Dec. The Blandfords buy nearly all of their meat from there and highly recommend it , it is local, organic, ethical, delicious and surprisingly good value when bought in bulk.
If you wish to pick up some juice with your order please tell Fidelity before you pick up, some will be available on the 1st for those who forget!
THE STAG THEATRE
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 4TH
4 – 6.30PM £15 per person,
includes:
Popcorn and a choice of soft drink (bar open) In aid of the Christian Blandford Fund – raising money to refurbish the children’s ward at St George’s Hospital, Tooting For tickets please contact: Ruth Bussey or
Kym Herregods
Thank you so much Kym and Ruth for organising this event for the Christian Blandford Fund, we can't wait to go along and enjoy what promises to be an amazing night!
Claudia, Kim, Leyla and Ruth returning from the CBF triathlonPlease see pictures below of our lovely Olivia with my Play Specialist Hayley, learning all about having an MRI scan using the Mini-Magnetom MRI scanner model, which the wonderful Christian Blandford Charity purchased for us to help to teach our patients about having a blood test. As you can see, Olivia really benefitted from the experience and had a wonderful time learning about having an MRI scan. Olivia is a patient on Pinckney ward and has recently had her head henna’d which she absolutely loves.
We are delighted that the scanner is being used and is making a difference and we wish Olivia all our love and best wishes.
It started off with one or two Tesla owners donating mini Teslas that they received from a referral scheme. Mark Goodier, you may remember, donated his for us to auction and raise funds for our charity. Other owners approached children's hospitals to see if they would like them, yet more owners pledged money to buy more. Will Fealey, the president of the Tesla Owners UK group had the bright idea of asking Elon Musk for support and Elon agreed to help! There are more details in this news story.
The Christian Blandford Fund have offered to help in collecting the money, claiming the gift aid, and assisting in the administration as much as we can. It fits perfectly in our mandate, to help improve the lives of children and their families, particularly those affected by cancer, during prolonged stays in NHS hospitals. We have bought a couple of little electric cars for St George's in the past and thoroughly agree that going to an op in an Electric mini Tesla is much more fun (and less scary) than going in a wheel chair.
We are also delighted that Will Fealey has joined our charity as a trustee and we look forward to helping Will and the generous Tesla owners who have donated help as many children as they can.
You can read Will's post on the Tesla Owners UK site if you would like to recommend a hospital or hospice who would benefit from a Radio Flyer mini Tesla you can do so here.
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Please click on this link to set The Christian Blandford Fund as your charity of choice. Thank you again!
It is always lovely when somebody chooses to support the Christian Blandford Fund, not because they know the Blandford family but because they have been touched by something we have done and want to support what we do.
Finton House School is very local to St George's Hospital and have picked the CBF to be the chosen support in their Summer fete. One of the mums at the school, Lisa, sent us this message...
I suggested your charity to be our chosen support for the upcoming school fete for a few a reasons. We spent 3 years in and out of Pinckney ward with our son Rory as St George’s was our local hospital. Rory was complicated so was more often then not whisked off to GOSH. However, it was during ours stays at George’s we read about Christian’s story and your charity on the posters on the ward but also continued to follow you and your hard work online.
As a fellow parent who has experienced life within the 4 walls of a hospital (and the maze which is life in the community when not there), I have been so impressed by your attention to detail, your true understanding of what will really help and your generosity of spirit in wanting to make it easier for others.
Photo kindly supplied by Finton House School
Thank you so much to the staff, pupils and parents at Finton House for thinking of us. St George’s are about to embark on a major refurb of the Children’s wards, something we have been pushing for since Christian was ill and we have been making a big fund raising push to raise the money needed, so your timing is perfect!
Peter, Claudia and the rest of the trustees would like to thank all the incredible people who took part this year and made such an enormous effort in the fund raising. We would also, of course, like to thank everybody who supported this fantastic cause by sponsoring one of their friends in the event.
We appreciate that most of you must get asked to support various causes frequently, so we are particularly grateful to so many of you who chose to dig deep and support us this year. We are in discussions with St George's and thanks to you wonderful participants and sponsors, the refurbishment of the children's ward should be underway soon.
Amazon Smile
We have joined Amazon Smile. If you use this link before you shop at Amazon, they will make a donation of 1.5% of your expenditure for no extra cost to you!
Please click on this link to set The Christian Blandford Fund as your charity of choice. Thank you again!
Support the Christian Blandford Fund when you shop at Amazon
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