Tommys In Yorkshire

The Tommy’s Christmas Party 2005 was held on the 9th December at the Sporting Lodge, Idle near Bradford.

The event was attended by 65 guests who enjoyed a fun packed evening, which involved a meal, balloon raffle and live entertainment.

Diana Stenning, Community Fundraising Manager, from Tommy’s head office attended the evening and expressed her thanks to the Yorkshire branch for their commitment to fundraising and for their ‘Yorkshire Hospitality’!

The evening raised over £1600 pounds bringing the total raised by Yorkshire branch in excess of £28,000 over their 9 year span.





Christmas speech
Welcome everyone to this our Tommy’s Christmas Party 2005. We really value your support and hope that you have a wonderful evening with us tonight.

This year I have decided to tell you a little about our year as a branch, as Year on Year we give you the statistics of the occurrence of miscarriage, still birth and premature birth - and we all at the branch believe that the medical research departments are working extremely hard to reduce these statistics. Events such as this do make a difference. All proceeds made tonight go to Tommy’s – we are voluntary fundraisers, each keen to help make that difference.

This year has seen the Yorkshire branch grow from strength to strength. We have on-board several new members and we welcome them and their ideas and enthusiasm.

We have also in the last week launched our very own Yorkshire Branch Web-Site, and thanks go to a very special friend of David and me – Stuart Senior. The site is in it’s infancy but with Stuart’s technical support and wizardry we will develop it.

In March this year we had a branch outing which was very kindly organised by Diana Stenning at head office. We visited the research and development centre at St Mary’s Hospital in Manchester. This department is host to many of the research projects funded by Tommy’s and Diana will let us know after Dinner, how funds raised this evening will contribute to improving pregnancy and birth outcomes for many women across the country.

Our day began with a rendezvous with Jayne – our trusty treasurer. She was a chauffeur for the day – and one to be recommended.

On arrival we heard a presentation about the importance of community fund and awareness raising. We had a chance to talk to medics and researchers about the projects and question them about their preliminary findings.

After lunch we donned aprons and gloves and toured the labs and saw some amazing technical experiments with placentas, blood vessels and the use of Viagra in treating pre-eclampsia. We were made very welcome by the wonderfully enthusiastic and committed team of researchers.

We all left feeling that we need to do more in terms of fund-raising - as these people were really in the position to discover the reasons why many of us have had endured problems in pregnancy or at birth.

As a result we have been an active bunch this year – we have hosted pamper evenings and raffles, quizzes, trail in the park – participated in press releases and important awareness raising events such as the one at Shibden Park. In total we have managed to raise £4,000 this year, making our total fundraising as a group to a staggering £26,950.

Much of our success is attributed to you are supporters, but these events would not take place without the wonderful team of enthusiastic ladies, their husbands & families which work hard behind the scenes.

So I would like to say a big thank you to Elaine, Jayne, Wendy, Diane, Claire, Melanie & Sarah.

As I am sure you can imagine a lot of organisation and co ordination is required in the arrangements for an event such as this evening. Without the support of our devoted secretary Elaine – we would not get them off the ground. So Elaine – thank you for all you do, and Dave thanks for your storage arrangements!

Next year sees us celebrate our 10th birthday as a branch. When we started out in 1996 – we were strangers…but as you can see we have grown as a branch and developed a strong bond of friendship. We will be organising a birthday party next September – along a similar line to our Christmas party. However this will be a family occasion.

Despite our problems, we all have children and want to organise an extra special celebration. We will of course let you know the details next year.

So onto tonight - I would like to draw your attention to the programme of events for this evening which is located on each table – we have a fun packed programme and hope we have catered for all budgets. A Tommy’s teddy is also there for each of you as thanks for your support. Others are available for a small donation – just see one of the Tommy’s Team during the evening.

As we dine, we will be serenaded by Fiona Pearson and her accompaniment – Darren and Paul. All have kindly donated their time this evening - thank you

All that remains for me to say is – Dig deep in your pockets and warm up the cheque book.
Enjoy your evening - Dinner is served!