Our Autumn Ball

This week has seen us book a venue for our very first Ball. 
None of us have ever done anything like this before and it feels a very daunting task but we are all so excited to now have somewhere to host it.

Our very first Charlies Angel Centre Autumn Ball is to be held at South Leeds Golf Club on Saturday September 17th 2016. 
The event is set to start at 6.30pm and will go on until around 11.30pm. 

We are also so pleased and excited to announce that we have also managed to get Tom Bleasby to come along and perform for us. 
He starred on X Factor 2015 and is a Leeds lad.

When we heard back from his management team saying he would be happy to come along and perform we actually began to realise that this event is really going to happen. 

Each year, since we set up the charity, we have wanted to arrange a Ball but have always found it a little overwhelming. 
Now we are into our 3rd year as a charity we are feeling a little more confident in our own abilities to make this happen. 

We have learnt so much over the last 3 years and whilst we still feel overwhelmed, we know that we are all so determined and motivated we will make it happen.

Our next task is to get as many businesses involved to help us with sponsorship for the event and to attend the night.

Out tickets went on sale yesterday and we cannot wait for the bookings to come in. 
Each ticket bought will build our confidence in our event and will go towards our funds to open up Charlies first support centre for bereaved families.

If you know someone who you think would be able to help us with sponsorship or auction items, please show them this blog. 

We will keep you all informed of all the developments as they occur.

I want to put out a big call for as many of you as possible to click and vote for Carrie in the Yorkshire Choice Awards 2016.

Carrie has been nominated for the Inspirational Individual of the Year.

Carrie and her brothers have always been an inspiration to us as a family throughout their lives, as all children are to their parents, but Carrie has become even more so since she became pregnant with Charlie.

Being just 19 at the time pregnancy can be tricky enough, but to then have to deal with the news that her baby was seriously ill, made it almost impossible to comprehend.

Carrie spent many hours researching Charlies condition and trying to get as much information as she could to enable her to deal with the situation and be prepared when she met with professionals to ask questions.

Each scan bought less hope as far as the medical profession were concerned, but Carrie never gave up hope. She gave Charlie every possible chance and opportunity to survive. She made sure she ate healthy and took on plenty of fluids, in the hope that it might have an effect on Charlies condition. She got as much rest as she could and tried to stay de-stressed, not easy at all going through a difficult pregnancy.

When it came time for Charlie to arrive Carrie yet again amazed us all with her strength and courage. I don't know if any of us could have been as strong as she was.

This strength has continued since Charlies birth and death. 

It has been her determination to ensure that no other parent or family should have to go through the lack of support she received upon discharge from hospital that has driven us all on, even when times have been hard or frustrating.

We know Carrie is Inspirational but we would love her to be recognised by others for the truly inspirational young lady she is.

Please ask all your family and friends to go along and vote for Carrie.

Thank You xx

Today we have made another big step forward with our charity.

We are now featured on Leeds Bereavement Forum, Directory of Bereavement Services

Leeds Bereavement Forum:directory of bereavement services.
"The Leeds Bereavement Forum is a city wide network of organisations and individuals who offer services to bereaved people. It holds twice yearly conferences and has several special interest groups. A small team have been appointed to develop and improve services in Leeds 

                    http://www.lbforum.org.uk/module_directory/view_entry.php?id=159


It means so much to us every time we make another step onto the ladder of  services available to support parents and families going through the loss of a baby/young child.

We feel like we are now being taken seriously by the authorities and that they now realise we are not going to go away. 

We may ruffle a few feathers on our journey but sometimes that is the only way to make people sit up and take notice. 

All of us at Charlies Angel Centre are passionate about campaigning for improvements to bereavement support and with providing a good quality service ourselves. 

This passion is what has driven us on even when we have had doors closed in our face and had numerous emails unanswered. 
Our stubborn determination is what has got us to the point we are now at and will continue to drive us until we open the doors to our first bereavement centre.

Please stay with us as we keep going on our journey, the support people have given us so far has been totally amazing. 

We have been following a page on Facebook for a while that provide families with beautiful clothes for their angel babies from peoples old wedding dresses. 

The site is called Angel Wings and Child Loss Support.

The little outfits they make look absolutely amazing, and what a beautiful idea to make these outfits for these angels to take their final journeys in.

We decided to contact them to ask if we could put a link to their site on our website as we feel it is a service that some of our families would like to use. 

Today we have heard back from them and they are happy for us to publicise their site on our website and social media. 

They also asked if we might know anyone who would be prepared to help them with sewing the dresses into the outfits. 

So if you or anyone you know would like to do this please get in touch with them as this service is so unique and special. 

The ability for bereaved parents and their families to be able to have such a special final outfit for their babies can mean so much. They will never have the opportunity to choose any other outfits for their child so to be given the chance to have a one off hand made dress or suit is irreplaceable.

https://www.facebook.com/Foreverdressedinlove/

We have started to confirm some fund raising events for this year. 

Our first event is one I am really looking forward to. 

Leeds Rhino's have been very supportive to us over the last 2 years and have donated tickets to a match and a signed rugby ball for us to use to raise funds.

They have now agreed to let us go along to one of their home games with our charity buckets to have a bucket collection evening. 
We know that the fans of Leeds Rhino's are very loyal and very supportive of their team, we are hoping that they will take our charity under their wing and show their support for the bereaved families of Leeds.

We would love it if some of you came to say hello to us if you are at the game. We love to chat and we love to spread the story of our beautiful angel Charlie.

Our Cuddle Cot Campaign has been really successful and we are currently in the process of organising our first delivery of one that will be donated to the Leeds General Infirmary, Rosemary Suite. 

We are really excited about being able to hand over the Cuddle Cot to the staff and plan to have an engraved plaque on it in memory of Charlie. His life will be forever remembered within the unit that cared for him and his family. This will be a bitter sweet moment for us as we would much prefer to have Charlie here with us but we are also very proud of what we have been able to achieve n his memory.

Our aim is to continue to raise funds to provide further Cuddle Cots to local hospitals and eventually be able to spread that out to other areas where Cuddle Cots are not available. 

We cannot do that without your continued support and hope that as many of you can attend some if not all of our future events. 

Recently we received our winners cheque from Asda Living at Crown Point Shopping Centre, through their green token scheme. Asda have been great supporters of us and we are going to be having a bag packing and bucket collection day at Asda Middleton sometime this year. As soon as we have dates we will let you all know.

The support we receive from people and companies continues to amaze us and we are so grateful for all the help we receive.

Lets make 2016 another amazing year for our charity, with some fantastic events to raise vital funds and with continued campaigning for improvements to bereavement support.

Over the last week we have seen a sudden increase in the number of people signing our petition to the department of health asking for a coordinated package of aftercare for families following the loss of a baby. 

Whilst it makes us really positive to see the figures increase it is tinged with sadness because most of the people signing have either been through the loss of a baby or child, or knows someone. 

We have had some amazing comments added when people have signed, and the message we are getting is that there has been a real deficit in the provision of bereavement support for many many years. 
There appears to have been acknowledgement that there has been some improvements but these have been very small and not in  all areas of the UK.

It is very sad and annoying that the government and NHS has not already looked at this area of inadequacy in previous years. Part of me thinks that it is maybe because now it has become more acceptable to talk openly about the death of a child. 
In years gone it has always been seen as a taboo subject and something that people didn't want to know about.

Since starting Charlies Angel Centre I think we have all been shocked by the stories of inadequate care we have heard from other families. We had hoped we were an exception and had been unlucky to have had the experiences we had but we are hearing from families that have recently lost a child and are still being given sub standard support.

We will not give up our campaign to get improvements across the UK. We are determined to see a change to the support families receive and are actually starting to see small changes happening in our local area.

Please keep signing and sharing our petition to everyone you know. The more people talking about the subject the sooner we can see changes.


https://www.change.org/p/department-of-health-to-ensure-a-coordinated-package-of-aftercare-for-all-families-following-the-loss-of-a-baby-child-which-will-involve-midwives-gps-and-full-support-networks?recruiter=96559660&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink

2015 was a fantastic year for us and we achieved so much 
We now provide...
Telephone & Email Support
A Community Support Group
Information & Support
Bereavement Counselling 
2016 is going to be even better, here are a few of our plans.
1..Purchasing a cuddle cot
2..Charity registration
3. Continued work with the bereavement liaison team
4..Development of our community support group
5..Fundraising ventures though the year 
6..Continue fighting for better aftercare for bereaved parents and families

Thank you for your support in 2015 and we hope this will continue in 2016 as always our website provides you with information and support plus much more

 http://www.charlies-angel-centre.org.uk/

We need you..
We need fundraisers whether you run, walk,swim, hold coffee mornings, anything to help us raise funds, we are a non funded charity and all the services we provide we have to fund ourselves, you can find out more on how you can help us at  http://www.charlies-angel-centre.org.uk/#!projects/c21kz

              

                23/4/2018

               sign here

               Charity Autumn Ball

               17/9/2016