Yesterday was our 2015 Family Fun Day.

The morning was busy preparing things and transporting all our stuff down to the venue.

The weather was being quite nice to us and we managed to get prepared pretty quickly and smoothly.

Our first stall holders started to arrive.

We were all starting to feel very nervous but also very excited. We just wanted it to get underway and for people to start arriving. 

Soon we had all the stalls sorted, the disco was in full swing, the bouncy castle and slide were fully functional and the cakes were all ready to be bought and eaten.

All we needed now were people.

We needn't have worried, people started to arrive just before 1pm.
You could almost feel the anxiousness leaving our bodies.

More people started to arrive and we all seemed to be getting much busier. I was on the Tombola stall and it was getting a good amount of customers.

One of our patrons, Kim Groves, arrived and she was really happy and pleased with the amount of people that had already come. She said she was very proud of what we had achieved and how much we had there for people to do.

We had a slight blip at this point as suddenly the heavens opened and we were all getting very wet. Everyone rallied round and we took all the stalls inside the venue.

Although it meant we couldn't carry on with the bouncy castle and slide or the crazy golf it didn't stop the people coming and enjoying the things that were happening inside.

Everyone who came seemed to be enjoying themselves and we saw lots of kids running around with blue and pink mouths from the candy floss they had eaten.

At 5pm we drew the Raffle. We got the children to take it in turns to pull out the tickets and the people that won prizes seemed very happy with their prizes.

To end the day we had a balloon release. Throughout the afternoon there had been red hearts for people to write a message to someone they had lost. We then attached them to the balloons. we all stood outside and let the balloons of together.

We had so many people that helped us either by donating their time and energy or by donating their service for free. 

After everyone had gone we gathered together to find out how much we had managed to raise. 

At the end of Saturday we had raised an amazing £509.78.

What a brilliant amount. We feel very proud at what we have achieved and for the continued support we have received from our supporters.

Thank You to everyone who was involved with the day, be that by spending your pennies to donating your services. Without all of you we couldn't have come closer to achieving our goal.

O....................................M...................................G

There are now only 5 full days before our 2015 Family Fun Day, raising funds for our centre and our Cuddle Cot Campaign.

Where have all those weeks gone.

This week is going to be one filled with lots of last minute arrangements and checking.

We have been very lucky to have had so many people help us and donate prizes for us to use both on the Raffle and the Tombola.

There has been businesses that have given us the use of their equipment for free, local emergency services have agreed to come along and superheroes have promised guest appearances.

It always amazes us how generous people can be both with their time and their gifts. 

When we are having a bit of a blip and start to think 'what are we doing' it is these people that motivate us to keep going. 

We will receive a message or an email from a family going through a loss and it makes us realise just why we are continuing our fight for better services.

I'm sure this week will fly by and that next Saturday afternoon will be an amazing event. 

At the end of the Fun Day we are going to be having a balloon release for people who would like to write a message and attach to their balloon in remembrance of their 'angels'.
If any of you would like to have a balloon included for one of your loved ones please get in touch. 

You can contact us through our website, Charlies-angel-centre.org.uk, email: charliesangelcentre@hotmail.com, our facebook or twitter pages or on here.  

We cant wait to see everyone at the event and are determined to make it a brilliant, fun packed, money raising Fun Day.

We have been really lucky to be able to start our journey towards providing a support centre for bereaved parents.

From August 20th we will be providing our very first Community Support Group for bereaved parents and families.

Our local church has allowed us free use of one of their rooms to enable us to begin our meetings,(initially fortnightly but with ability to increase to weekly if demand requires), giving bereaved families somewhere to come to find support and friendship.

The group will be on from 7 - 8.30pm at St Cross Vicarage, Middeton Park Avenue, Middleton, Leeds. LS10 4HT. 

There will be refreshments available such as Tea, Coffee or Cold drinks.   

                        

We want to provide an environment where people feel comfortable to come along to and share their experiences.

The group will be an informal meeting and there will be no pressure on anyone to talk..

There will be opportunities to sit and share a cup of tea with other families going through their  grief, or just to be around people.

We are hoping to have Alison  Bowes (Lead Bereavement Midwife for  LGI and St James) attend  some of the meetings to offer her professional support and advice.

Please come along and join us and let us help you with your journey through grief.

We feel that this is a really positive step forward for Charlies-Angel-Centre and we hope you are able to join us.

We now have 3 weeks until our 2015 Family Fun Day.

We are all getting pretty excited now and things are really coming together. There are lots of stalls arranged and loads of activities for both young and old.

There will be appearances from our local Fire Station, Super Heroes and stars from Frozen.

However, we still have time for any of our followers to offer us support either by providing goods for our tombola and toy stall, or by baking us some yummy cakes to sell.

If you know anyone else that might like to help us please direct them to our website to contact us.

If you know you won't be able to join us on the day you can still purchase your raffle tickets by messaging us at charliesangelcentre@hotmail.com

There are some amazing prizes and every penny we raise goes towards the opening of our support centre and the purchase of our 1st Cuddle Cot for the LGI Rosemary Suite.

We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on the day and thank you for your continued support. 

I have been seeing so many posts recently about friends or acquaintances having lovely bouncing babies. I am always so happy for them and love to see the pictures with all the happy faces.

However, it does also always make me think of those other families still in the hospitals with their 'Angel' babies, and the time we all spent in hospital with Charlie following his birth and death.

This makes it more and more important for us to not only raise enough funds to open our own support centre but in the short term to raise funds to purchase a Cuddle Cot for the Leeds General Infirmary, Rosemary Suite.
This specialist unit is where we were allowed to spend precious time with Charlie as a family.

We want to initially purchase Cuddle Cots for both of the Leeds hospitals but would love to be able to then look at purchasing them for units across the UK.

Please take a look at our campaign and find it in your hearts to make a donation. It doesn't matter how big or small the donation is, every penny counts.



http://www.gofundme.com/Charlie-sCuddleCot

Things are really starting to hot up with our plans for our Family Fun Day on August 1st 2015. 

We are getting more people requesting to have a stall at the event, bringing in money towards our funds. 

If you or someone you know would like to have a stall at the event please contact us via the website.

We now have a full list of raffle prizes which have been donated to us by many different people and companies.

We are so grateful to all these people, without them we wouldn't be able to hold a raffle, which usually raises plenty of money.

Prizes are:

• 2 tickets to Flamingo Land during 2015 
• Family sledging session at Snozone at Castleford Xscape
• 2 tickets to Yorkshire Cricket
• 2 x £50 vouchers at Ink Religion Tattoo shop
• 2 complimentary gift cards (valid for 1 year from 1st August) for a regular screening at any Everyman Cinema
• Bird Table, Handmade by Leslie Pankhurst
• Sal's Cupcakes has donated a voucher for 1 fully decorated cake or cupcakes
• Signed Warwick Davis book with Certificate of Authenticity
• 2 paintings by the late Pauline Wherrell kindy donated by her daughter Tanya
• Pamper Day and Champagne lunch for 2
• Signed book by goalkeeper Neville Southall 
• A 2 hour Bentley chauffeur driven experience donated by Hoss-Amo cars
• Work Pro Tool kit
• 4 Bottles of wine
• Bradford Bulls Family Ticket (2 adults, 2 children) for home games the coming season
• Pamper Day and Champagne Lunch for 2 at The Chevin Country Park, Leeds.
• Shellac Nails by Amanda Howes
• 3 tickets for Cadburys World

I am amazed at what people and companies have donated and think that there are some amazing prizes.

We are still looking for items to be donated to us to use for our tombola ( toiletries, ornaments, toys etc)  and book stall, both adult and children, so if any of you have anything please let us know. 

We have got confirmed visits from a few children's characters, Ironman, Olaf, Elsa, Spiderman  and Sponge Bob.

There will be 2 face painters available to decorate both kids and the adults.

We have a 9 hole Crazy Golf course, Candy Floss Stall, Sweets Stall, Tombola, Lucky Dip, Book Stall, Balloons, Bouncy Castle and Slide and a visit from our local Fire Station Engine.

Endeavour Disco will be providing the music for the day and staff from The New Middleton will be providing food (donating 30% to us ).

I think it is going to be an amazing Family Day where everyone can have lots of fun whilst raising vital funds for us.

I hope that you can all come along to support us and tell all your friends to come along too.

 

I love the fact that on every post recently I have been able to say that we have had a really positive week.

Well yet again I can say that we have had another good week for our charity.

Sam has had an interview this week with South Leeds monthly paper and they are hoping to run our story in their July edition, getting us even more publicity for our cause.

I have had a meeting this week with 2 lovely ladies who work for the adult bereavement services for South Leeds CCG. 
The meeting was to introduce ourselves to each other and to talk about what we are hoping to achieve through our push for improved bereavement services. 

Although I am not able to say too much about the meeting, I can say that they have asked us to become involved, later in the year, with their review of the current services available. 

They also asked that when we meet again they would like to get a full history of the care we received and the issues that we encountered, both in hospital and in the community. 

They commended us on our commitment to improving the current bereavement services and assured us that they will try to address all of the concerns we have.

There has also been a meeting this week that Sam and Clive went to with our local Councillor and patron of our charity, Kim Groves, which has given us a few avenues to look into to help us get our support centre up and running quicker. 

As we get more details we will let everyone know, but we are feeling quite positive at the moment.