Fundraising
Special Friends Club is a registered charity; we rely entirely on grants, donations and fundraising as we receive no statutory funding.
The cost of raising a severely disabled child can be up to three times more than for a child without a disability so each family only pays a nominal subscription to help with the day to day administration of the club. All activities, trips and events are offered at no cost to the families.
We have been lucky enough to receive funding from:
And generous grants and donations from:
SOUTH GLOUCESTERSHIRE COUNCIL SHORT BREAKS
RAOB RBS
AXA Health Spielman Trust
YAPP Charitable Trust
ESG Robinson Charitable Trust
A huge thank you to all of our donors and funders for their support.
Running costs for the club are in excess of £30,000 and with the membership of the club growing costs will only increase in future years. All donations will help to improve the quality of life for disabled children, their siblings and carers.
FUNDRAISING NEWS 2011- 2012 !
Recent Grants and Donations
Phil Newman has completed his amazing run from John O’ Groats to Lands End !
Phil Newman has completed his amazing Charity Run from John O Groats to lands End!!! Congratulations to Phil on his fantastic achievement!!! From all of us at Special Friends Club we would like to express our thanks and appreciation to him for raising funds for our Charity.
Phil Newman is planning to run from John ‘O’ Groats to Lands End to raise funds for our charity.
Here is a message from Phil;
Please support me on this mammoth task, I have chosen to do this insane challenge to raise funds for a “Special” group of people as I have seen first hand the amazing work they do for families with children with wide ranging disabilities .
Any amount small or large would be gratefully received.
Thanks again for your support!
To donate to Mr Newman’s cause, visit www.charitygiving.co.uk/philruns1000.
Follow my progress on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/486262564723410/
If you can come and cheer me on !
Special Friends Club awarded £ 9854 by BBC Children in Need
Special Friends Club are delighted to announce that BBC Children in Need have awarded them a grant of £9854 over the next year. This grant will help fund activities and day trips, for disabled children and their families to attend in the school holidays and will continue to help change the lives of disadvantaged children and young people across the UK.
This spring allocation is the second of four rounds of grants which are made possible thanks to the amazing Appeal total of over £20.3 million – which has risen since November to a record breaking £39 Million. Following the Appeal night last November, BBC Children in Need has received additional donations from fundraisers, schools and businesses from all across the UK who all got together and showed their love for The Bear!
David Ramsden, Chief Executive of BBC Children in Need, said; “Our grants are made possible by the amazing generosity of the public and our donors. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to help such great projects as Special Friends Club continue to help change young lives for the better.”
Since November, the BBC charity has received thousands of applications for funding. These are rigorously assessed and considered in the months leading up to the grant allocation by eight committees who pass on their recommendations to the Trustees of the charity.
All grants go to projects working with children and young people who may be affected by homelessness, neglect, abuse or poverty, or those who have encountered serious illness, disabilities and psychological disorders.
Thank you to James and Helen Hook & family
We were delighted to receive a cheque for £500 from yourselves on behalf of your employers Babble IT Systems Ltd.
The arrival of the cheque was a lovely surprise! It is donations such as yours that make a huge difference to our charity. Thank you also for your kind words, expressing your appreciation for the work we do.
With the Summer holidays coming up and being such a long break for our families, your donation will help us to plan a programme of activities and fun days out, making the Summer a happy time for our children.
Thank you to Margaret Randal , a dear friend of one of our members Shirley Nokes for her donation of £50. They met whilst in hospital and Margaret wanted to give a donation for the work we do. Thank you too Shirley ! , for telling people about the work we do and the difference we have made to the children you support. All donations however big or small make a huge difference to the running of the charity and we will use your donation to help fund a monthly activity such as a visit to the cinema or swimming.
Your donation will enable us to provide many special activities and days out for our Disabled children and their siblings during the School Holidays. We already have an Easter Programme lined up which includes a variety of fun and educational visits which will benefit our children and their families in so many ways.
SOUTH GLOUCESTERSHIRE COUNCIL SHORT BREAKS
Special Friends Club has for the year APRIL 2011 – March 2012 received funding from South Gloucestershire Short Breaks. This funding has enabled us to provide activities throughout the holidays, we have also developed two monthly activities , trips to the cinema, swimming and soft play centres. The funding also enabled us again to go on our very special weekend trip to Center Parcs , which was an amazing experience for all our families that went. The trustees and Special Friends Club members would like to say a huge thank you to South Gloucestershire Council. We have had an amazing year visiting some of our favourite places and also visiting some new venues and trying new activities. Please see attached a report and summary of the year , feedback from parents and the activities we took part in.SFC Report April 2011-March 2012 copy
Short Break Services Statement (FV)-1
FUNDRAISING NEWS 2010-2011
This year we have been successful in securing sufficient funding to enable us to visit bigger venues and try new activities. We have been supported by important and large organisations such as Children in Need, Quartet and South Gloucestershire Aiming High. This has also allowed us to open up to more families doubling our membership.
We received funding from South Gloucestershire Aiming High grant. The monies received from Aiming High paid for our South Glos family activities throughout the year, it allowed us to introduce new monthly activities and funding for those families to go to Center Parcs. We are also thrilled that they have agreed to fund us the same amount for the next financial year. This is fantastic news!
Children in Need funding has been vital and supports our activities throughout the year. Children in Need fund us for a two year period. A few trustees attended the Children in Need event at Bristol Zoo this year ….who could forget Sophie’s appearance on the telly!!!
Quartet funding contributed to the costs for the Bristol Families to attend the Center Parcs weekend in January 2011. We all had amazing time and a first for Special Friends Club.
FMS funding has paid for activities throughout the year including cinema, Diggerland, Butlins and most of the Summer Activities.
Sarah Townsend (Trustee) was nominated for a funding award by her work AXA Sunlife. This is for the voluntary work she does for Special Friends Club and won £1000 for the club. WELL DONE SARAH and THANK YOU !
We received over £1000 in Memory of Skanda Vaitilingam (Maya’s Dad and Rani’s Grandpa!). Maya’s family asked for donations to be made to Special friends Club. Thank you Baba X
We were touched to receive a donation of over £1600 from Alex McCall, Tom Coombs and Matt Hooper who cycled from Land’s End to John O’ Groats to raise funds for the club. Their adventure was sponsored by Warwick Humphries of Bristol Honda. £1000, from the ESG Robinson Charitable Trust. We were pleased to see them at our Xmas party to say a huge THANK YOU !
We also say a huge thank you to all the smaller donations we receive from members, families, friends, local groups and organisations there are far too many to mention but here are a few examples:
Many Thanks to the residents of Linden Close sheltered housing in Stockwood who held a raffle and donated £80 to the club which funded a trip to Slimbridge
Thanks to Court Ladies after Sophie had given a talk they gave us a donation of £150 to pay for our Cattle Country trip.
The Lacy and Hines family donated £250 after the sale of their car. Mickey Hines is also aiming to raise £1000 by being Alcohol Free for the 2011. There are links to his fundraising page on our Facebook page so please help support him!
Chantal our secretary is a member of The Bristol Samba Group and they raised funds of £250 for the Charity.
The club could not run without all these smaller donations as they pay for activities such as swimming and soft play.
We also hold Special Friends Club sponsored events such as train ride, summer BBQ and raffle at Christmas party.
We have been able to visit the Circus and Funderworld this year thanks to both organisations donating us tickets, these tickets have been donated to us from local businesses.
Donate online at:
Shop Online and Raise Money!
Have you heard about easyfundraising yet? It’s the easiest way to help raise money for Special Friends Club! If you already shop online with retailers such as Amazon, Argos, John Lewis, Comet, iTunes, eBay or HMV, then we need you to sign up for free to raise money while you shop!
So how does it work?
You shop directly with the retailer as you would normally, but if you sign up to for free and use the links on the easyfundraising site to take you to the retailer, then a percentage of whatever you spend comes directly to us at no extra cost to yourself.
How much can you raise?
Spend £100 with M&S online or Amazon and you raise £2.50 for us. £100 with WH Smith puts £2.00 in our pocket and so on. There are over 2,000 retailers on their site, and some of the donations can be as much as 15% of your purchase.
Save money too!
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