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!
Father Christmas at St George’s Hospital (and Pembury Hospital) 2018
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.”
Posted in Blog, Things We've Done. Tagged with Elves, Father Christmas, Penbury, Santa, St George's Hospital.
Organic pear juice to benefit The Christian Blandford Fund
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...
- on it's own or with ice
- 50:50 with water as a sports drink
- with gin or vodka as a cocktail!
We need your help, can you help us sell it?
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!
Please fill in this form to contact Claudia
Posted in Blog, Fund Raising.
The Greatest Showman Sing Along in Sevenoaks!
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 triathlon
Posted in Blog, Fund Raising.
One of the more unusual items we have purchased…
One of the benefits the Christian Blandford Fund has is that its small size makes it very efficient so we can approve purchases that meet our criteria very quickly. The wonderful play specialists at St George's had an interesting request, a mini MRI scanner. Children being treated often find MRI machines scary and, as they need to lie very still, their fear can not only be distressing for them but can lead to unusable images. This is how Justine, the play specialist put it...
This piece of equipment would absolutely prove so invaluable in preparing children/young people for scans and it would also help to reduce the number of patients who go for the scan under a G.A through fear of the actual machine. Showing patients exactly what it looks like (rather than a photograph), how it works and the noise it makes can definitely help to reduce fears, anxieties and misconceptions which will enable fewer G.A’s, risks and waiting times for the patient/parent carer. This is such exciting news for us and we have waited so long for a revolutionary idea like this!
I wondered if I could make a wish for the MAGNETOM from you, I completely appreciate that it is very expensive, but the value it would bring to Play In Hospital at St George’s would be second to none, state of the art and help to bring us up to modern day healthcare standards! Which I strive to achieve at all times.
We were able to approve the cost of it quickly and I am happy to say that it is now being used on the ward at St Georges.
This is from a recent e-mail from Justine.
We are delighted that the scanner is being used and is making a difference and we wish Olivia all our love and best wishes.
Please 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.
Our collaboration with The Tesla Owners Group UK and Elon Musk!
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.
Amazon Smile
Don't forget that 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!
Finton House school fete supports the CBF
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!
Posted in Blog, Fund Raising.
Thank you so much!
The 2018 CBF Triathlon
Most of the sponsorship money has now come in and we have raised a staggering £95,000 including gift aid in the Christian Blandford Fund triathlon. You can track the latest number here, we are incredibly close to our £100,000 target.
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!
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!
Christian Blandford Fund – GDPR
If your inbox is anything like ours, it’s recently been filled with emails asking you to read new privacy policies or asking permission to email you. This is because of a new European privacy law called the General Data Protection Regulation (or GDPR), which comes into effect on May 25.
While this is an EU law, the basic principle behind it - treat people's personal data the way you'd want your own data to be treated - benefits everyone. We have always followed this principle in caring for your data, but we have taken this opportunity to review my processes and policies yet again. You can view the updated privacy policy at http://www.christianblandford.com/privacy-policy/
Our blog posts automatically feed Facebook and our email list. if you are reading this on e-mail, it's because you've either signed up for a fund raising event, or you signed up on our website. You can opt out at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of each newsletter email. I hope you're finding the emails useful, and thank you for subscribing.
CBF 2018 Triathlon – a massive thank you from us!
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Click here for the gallery
The CBF triathlon was everything we hoped for and much harder than most people expected. We started at 8.00am with a beautiful canoe around Peel Island or Wild Cat Island as it was called in the film Swallows and Amazons. It was tough on the shoulders but actually really good fun and took about an hour and a quarter.
We then cycled for a couple of hours including climbing the Honister pass which is one of the steepest climbs in the UK with gradients up to 1 in 4. The next challenge was to climb up Haystacks which took 3 hours, stunning but harder than we all expected, particularly the way down. The last leg was a 13 mile cycle ride which we were not to excited to learn included another exhausting, seemingly never ending, climb.
We hit the finish line at around 5pm, exhausted but happy!
There are plenty of photos of the event here.
The prize of a week in the villa
All our supporters, including those who donated, took part, gave their time for free, who like our Facebook page and are on our mailing list were entered into a draw to win a week in a villa in Spain. The prize was won by Anya Roberts who kindly sponsored Matt and Andrea Starbuck. Congratulations!
The Aim
We are very close now to the £100,000 we have been quoted to renovate the children's wards and St George's in Tooting and have pledged to raise all that amount. If you were planning to sponsor somebody partaking and haven't got around to it yet, please do so now and help us meet our target. If you have already sponsored somebody, thank you so much, we really do appreciate it and we guarantee that every penny raised will go to improving the lives of ill children staying in often very frightening and uncomfortable wards.
Click here to donate or track the amount raised, a list of all the people who participated, together with their fund raising page is at the bottom.
To all those who took part, thank you for making such an incredible effort with the fund raising and with the challenge itself. It was a genuine pleasure to spend the weekend with you. Please share or forward this email to your sponsors as a way of thanking them from us.
Lots of love,
Peter and Claudia Blandford
Peter and Claudia
