NEWS
2011 Christmas Raffle We are delighted (nay astonished ....) to announce that the Centre's dead classy 2011 Christmas Raffle (drawn at our Christmas Fair on the 26th of November) is up and runnings. Wonderful prizes - some of our best yet. Details HERE.
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2012 Centre Calendar We've chosen the images for our 2012 Calendar and it'll be shortly going off to the printers - and, with a bit of luck and a following wind, will be available (at a cost of £6.50 plus £1.00 postage and packing) from October. You can have a sneak preview of James Roberts' beautiful black and white images HERE:
-~~~:~~~ 20.5.11 Bees! The Centre is going into bee-keeping. Two hives have been delivered and the bees will follow shortly. We're all going to become Bee Bores. Don't say you weren't warned!
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Phyllida Gordon-Duff-Pennington We've lost a friend. Phyllida - a Trustee and loyal supporter from the very early days of the Centre - died peacefully at home on Tuesday the 10th of May after a short illness. We'll miss her.
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The Christmas Fair on December the 4th was a huge success, in spite of the snow and ice and bitter cold. We were genuinely touched by the massive efforts people made to get to us - commandeering four wheel drive vehicles, slogging up the lethal hill in hiking boots and snow chains, slithering to us from as far afield as Whitehaven and (amazingly) Lancaster. We had a wonderful day meeting old friends and a few new ones, and to top it all off, we made over £1,600. Howzat!? ---:oOo:--- 3.12.10 The 2010 Christmas Fair is going ahead on Saturday December the 4th. Irrespective of the weather, our doors will be open from 10.00am onwards.
LIVE MUSIC. REFRESHMENTS THROUGHOUT THE DAY. also:
+ On-the-day Raffle + Second hand books stall +Nearly New + £1.00 stall + + £2.00 stall + White Elephant + Home-made cakes + toys + gifts + + jewellery + trivia quizzes + Centre calendars + + Christmas and greetings cards +
Refreshments will be available throughout the day and the raffle will be drawn at around 3.00pm (depending on when they manage to nag me into it …)
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The Centre now has a Facebook page. At the moment, it's a baby Facebook page, but we have PLANS ... ------------------------------------:o:------------------------------------- Past News:
Tom Fool's Day Muncaster Castle Thursday, April 1st ~and~ Festival of Fools Muncaster Castle, Ravenglass. Thursday May 30th to Thursday June 3rd The Centre will be present at and benefiting from both events - for more details please visit the EVENTS page.
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SPRING 2010 RAFFLE The 2010 Raffle is up and running ... to admire the main prizes so far, and find out how you can buy tickets ... CLICK HERE. ---:o:--- CHRISTMAS FAIR 2009 It was wet. it was very wet. You can see the photos and read a very short report HERE: ---:o:---
Cumbria Women of the Year ... Gretchen and Moira have BOTH been nominated as Cumbria Women of the Year ...presumably so that they don't bicker ...
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20th Anniversary Celebrations August 22nd has come and gone and is already receding into the mists of time, but golly, weren't WE lucky bunnies, and don't we KNOW it? From Monday the 17th through to the morning of Friday the 21st , we were pounded by high winds, driving rain and general climatic grimness. Gazebos were erected on mud in the teeth of a gale and it was accounted a miracle when they were still standing the following morning having neither blown away, buckled nor slid downhill.
Then, on Friday afternoon, as we were wandering forlornly around the quagmire with tombola prizes, jumble, books and assorted junk antiques the wind dropped, the skies cleared and the sun came out.
If I was a person who believed in omens I'd be mentioning the moment on that Friday afternoon when someone walked past the buddleia outside the office window and a huge cloud of Painted Ladies, Peacocks, Fritillaries, Red Admirals and Tortoiseshells flew into the air …
Saturday, August 22nd dawned.
The sky was blue - except for the picturesque, fluffy white clouds. A light wind – of the variety usually referred to as a ‘zephyr' – was gently ruffling the leaves on the trees and the birds were tweeting away like anything.
The ground had dried out. The first visitors arrived. The Mayors arrived. The park-and-ride system up from the car park at Muncaster Castle was worked flawlessly. The outdoor service went without a hitch (even after we half-inched the power cable to rescue the ice cream van when its generator packed up … ).
The birthday cake was cut. The speeches were delivered. The photographs were taken (by Yours Truly, who is not, therefore, in ANY of them … ho-ho-ho). People basked in the sun, licked ice creams, drank wine, ate strawberries, wandered around the garden and greeted old friends. Then, after the raffle was drawn, all 300 or so magically melted away again.
Sunday, August 23rd dawned ...
High winds, driving rain and general climatic grimness.
I don't know about you – but WE find that slightly scary ...
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ST FRANCIS' FAIR 1st October 2008 There's this thing called 'An Indian Summer'. Back in the Good Old Days (remember them?) you could usually rely on a period of warm, sunny and settled weather at the beginning of October. So - when we rescheduled (and relabelled) our "Music for a Summer's Evening" for October 1st, we thought we were on reasonably safe turf. WRONG!! Gales, torrential rain, flooded roads ...
Amazingly, however, we still managed to make £1,400 on the day. We strongly suspect that this is because those few hardy souls who DID turn out, decided pretty much to stay put - digging themselves in with the food in the warm and the dry - instead of moving on to the other events that day (most of which had been cancelled anyway, on account of other people having the sense they were born with - unlike us).
Andy Winter and Steve Murphy provided the live music and were terrific. It was just a wonderful day - so ya boo sucks to the British climate.
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MUSIC FOR A SUMMER'S EVENING Saturday, July 19th. 4pm to 9pm
Didn't happen did it? Winter came to Eskdale. Wind, driving rain, more wind ... So we cancelled. Monday dawned and guess what? Yep. Perfect picnic weather.
---:oOo:--- Moira has started a Centre blog. She plainly has nothing better to do. If you want to encourage her frivolity, go and read it: From the Centre Manager's Desk ---:oOo:--- BEN BEN, the Centre Manager's dog, died on the 24th of December 2007. He was very old - about 14, she believes - and had been in gradually failing health for some time. During the Christmas holiday he let her know - in his own way - that he had lived long enough. He slipped away very peacefully and without distress. He was the Centre's mascot and client-greeter for over nine years, and The Chase seems strangely still and empty without him ...
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Our CHRISTMAS "AT HOME" was a huge success, in spite of the appalling weather forecast. From the moment we opened the doors at 10.00am to the time we forcibly ejected the last stragglers at 4.00pm, we had a continual stream of visitors. The event raised over £1,300 for the Centre and £450 worth of that was from the incredibly popular raffle. The most sought-after prizes were the hand-made quilt (donated by mavis Gaskell) and the autographed photograph of Richard Armitage (Guy of Gisborne in "Robin Hood - donated by the man himself and proving yet again that everyone loves a bad boy). Our thanks to everyone ... everyone who came, everyone who helped in whatever way, everyone who donated prizes, cakes and gifts. Unfortunately, the overwhelming success of the event means that we'll have to do it all again next year. Rats.
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2008 Calendars available now. Click HERE for further details.
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"THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD"
After a gestation period of something over 6 months, the Centre's long promised newsletter compilation – The Long and Winding Road has finally seen the light of day.
The 34 Newsletters (which over the years developed an idiosyncratic style and a small but vociferous fan base) were produced between 1993 and 2003 and are linked by a narrative written by the Centre Manager, Moira Briggs, who was also responsible (some would say criminally) for most of the newsletters.
Read together, the newsletters and the linking narrative tell the extraordinary tale of the ground-breaking Centre for Complementary Care – of the people and events that shaped it and of its survival, against all the odds, into the 21 st Century. Related not from the viewpoint of the therapists, but from that of a long-suffering and frequently bemused paper-pusher battling recalcitrant office equipment, unhelpful officialdom and the vagaries of the English weather, the story takes the reader on a gently humorous and occasionally poignant journey down a less-travelled road. For details on how to order, please click here
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VIRTUAL TOUR - A Virtual Tour has been added to the site - courtesy of Pulse Business Solutions of Thornhill. There are four 360° panoramas - two in the Centre and two in the garden. You'll find it on the "Muncaster Chase" page, under the link to "The Centre". Please take a look.
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