Neil Berrecloth is running the London Marathon next Sunday

We managed to get a place for Neil Berrecloth to run the London Marathon. He has paid the entry fee himself so any sponsorship will go straight to us and we remain nearly 100% efficient with almost no money being spent on administration or fund raising.

Neil’s Fund Raising Page

Neil is a great friend of the Blandfords, and we thank him for his support and wish him lots of luck in the final stages of preparation and on the day itself!

Neil and Christian

Neil with the Blandfords

More recently

Posted in Blog, Fund Raising.

Christian’s Latest Piano Piece

We haven’t written much about how Christian is doing recently. He is doing very well! His video game creating is mushrooming with some famous youtubers playing his games and his own you tube channel doing phenomenally well with a recent play through of a game he wrote getting well over a million views! His gaming site is www.cbgames.co.

He is also still playing and writing music, here is a composition he wrote recently, if you’re interested in the games they are on the same channel.

 

Posted in Blog, Christian's Story. Tagged with , .

Father Christmas visits St George’s

 

Santa at St Georges

www.christianblandford.com

 

It has become a tradition that has now been going since 2010. The Bowlers and the Hancox’s, trustees of the Christian Blandford Fund, order and wrap the presents and we visit the hospital to hand them out. This year Santa had his usual elf  Chichi (Christian) and we were also joined by the reindeer Prancer (Jessica) who had a fabulous time ordering Father Christmas around. We also had a full entourage of help including Henry Blandford,  Darren and James Bowler, Neil Berrecloth, the wonderful play specialists, and Trevor Jacobs who offered his photography services at very late notice.

It is always an emotional day. We vividly remember being at the hospital this time of year, hoping that we would be able to get home for as normal a Christmas as we could manage. The hospital wards are, as always, full of love and hope tinged with a fair share of pain and sadness.

We like to think that we managed to raise a few smiles today and hopefully brightened up the day for some children and their families during a difficult time.

The photos are on our Facebook page here and can be downloaded in print quality here.

Posted in Blog, Things We've Done. Tagged with , , , , , .

A couple of Thank you’s

It seems like only yesterday that Christian was loving going to Stagecoach. His sister Jessica, has followed in similar vein, and goes to Make Believe in Sevenoaks. They recently had their Christmas show and half the money they raised went to the Christian Blandford fund. Thank you very much!

Jessica at Make Believe

 

It’s that time of year and Santa and his elves are preparing presents for the Children unfortunate enough to be in hospital over Christmas. This year Santa will have a much better beard thanks to the lovely Dainty Sue and the Kid’s Entertainment Network. Thanks guys!

Santa 2014

Bad Beard Santa!

 

Posted in Blog, Fund Raising, Uncategorized.

Chris Elsmore

Chris Elsmore was a great friend of the Blandford family and he and his lovely wife Simone chose the Christian Blandford fund for donations in lieu of presents on their 40th Birthday.

Peter and Claudia were very touched that Simone chose us again as one of the two charities for donations at Chris’ funeral last week. Our share, with gift aid, was over £1000 which is a testament to Chris and the generosity of his friends and family. Thank you so much Simone.

Chris, Simone and Jude

Chris, Simone and Jude

 

Chris’s friend, Mark Puddephat will be running the Paris marathon and has decided to raise money for the same two charities. Hi donation page is here, thank you very much Mark!

 

 

 

Posted in Blog, Fund Raising.

Santa and his Elves Visit St George’s

We had a wonderful day handing out presents to the Children at St George’s Hospital in Tooting

www.christianblandford.com

www.christianblandford.com

 

Thank you very much to the play specialists for all their help. Thank you to the trustee families, Darren and James Bowler , Amy and Anna Hancox and Henry and Christian Blandford for being amazing Santa helpers!

The photos were all taken by the very talented Hugh Miller from Boy meets Girl Photography who gave up his time and skills for nothing but a thank you.

The photos are available for the parents to look at and share on Facebook here or they can be downloaded in print quality from here.

Thank you also to all our wonderful supporters and donators who have raised money and donated money so this can be possible.

Posted in Blog, Fund Raising, Things We've Done. Tagged with , , , .

A Christmas Update

We have a few bits of news so thought it would be a good idea to do a quick blog post to update our friends and followers on what has been happening.

  1. We are almost ready for the Santa visit on the 21st December, as usual Pete will be donning the Santa outfit and will be accompanied by his helpful elf Christian. It is amazing how quite a lot of kids are quite frightened of the 6′ 4″ santa but all love his elf! Thank you very much to our trustees Darren Bowler and Amy Hancox for ordering and wrapping the presents and for Hugh from Boy Meets Girl Photography, who is donating his time and skills for free on the day.
  2. Waitrose in Sevenoaks have The Christian Blandford Fund as one of their nominated charities. Please drop by and pop the green coin into the middle bin!
    The CBF at Waitrose

    Christian

    The CBF

    The CBF

     

    Jess

    Jess

  3. Christian wrote a lovely piece of music for a string quartet. As proud parents we hope you don’t mind us sharing it!

 

Posted in Blog, Christian's Story, Fund Raising. Tagged with , , , .

The New Beacon choir sing Christian’s carol

Christian is in the Chapel Choir at the New Beacon School and they had their Advent service at the beautiful chapel at Tonbridge school. The junior school choir sang Christian’s composition, “The Snow”, while he played the piano.

If any parent wants photos of the event they can be downloaded from here.

This is a time of year to appreciate what we have and to help others that are less fortunate. Darren and Amy are currently ordering and wrapping toys for Santa to deliver to children who are unlucky enough to be in St George’s over Christmas. We continue to work to work closely with Martin at Samuel’s charity and look forward to continuing to improve children’s comfort in hospitals in 2016.

Merry Christmas!

Christian

Peter Blandford’s photo

Posted in Blog, Christian's Story. Tagged with , , , , , .

Great News

We are thrilled to announce that Waitrose Sevenoaks have chosen The Christian Blandford Fund as one of their three charities for December’s Community Matters!! This is a scheme whereby at the end of your shop you are given a green token to place in a box of the charity you’d most like to support. At the end of the month Waitrose donates £1000 between the 3 charities, with the charity that has the most amount of green tokens getting the majority of the donation.

Please share this with your Sevenoaks friends and make sure the green tokens go in our bin!

Henry and Christian

Henry and Christian

Posted in Blog, Fund Raising, Things We've Done.

And we’re off!!

Rocket

 

The red rocket is on its way full of goodies for the kids at St George’s Hospital. Details of contents to come…

Posted in Blog, Things We've Done. Tagged with , .