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Newsletter 41
Before I launch myself into the fun stuff (fun for me, I mean – any fun anyone else gets out of this is purely accidental) … PLEASE WOULD YOU NOTE that the OPEN DAY we had originally scheduled for Saturday the 9 th of September has been CANCELLED . We realized – a little late in the day, admittedly – that we'd managed to schedule three labour-intensive fundraising events in two months. Not only that, but the Open Day was scheduled for BEFORE the Autumn Newsletter (this one) was normally due out … thus giving us no real opportunity to trumpet its charms and generally round up support. So in the interests of many things (you know – financial prudence, not working our volunteers into the ground, preventing the Centre Manager from throwing a hissy fit – that sort of stuff) we decided to postpone the Open Day and turn it into …. (pause for fanfare) …. THE MARTINMAS FAIR …. of which, more anon.
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Firstly , however, a quick round-up of what's happened since the Spring.
Most importantly – many congratulations to Andrea and Sam, who help us out around the Centre and the garden respectively, on the birth of Keiran Sebastian , probably one of the most beautiful babies in the world.
Financial situation: Thank you to everyone who has enquired about our finances recently. We're a lot healthier than we were at this time last year, and actually managed to break even – or something very close to it – in our last financial year, the first time we've been more or less in the black for about 4 years. The need to continue raising money will never go away, though. If we don't keep on plugging at it we'll be in the selfsame place another 8 months down the road …. so if you hear of any funding possibilities, would like to run a fundraiser for us or can help financially in any way at all, please let us know.
Paw Trek: Kitsa and Ben yomped dogfully around Keswick one sunny Sunday morning, failed dismally to rendezvous with each other as arranged (blame the time-keeping of Ben's half-witted owner for that one) and raised over £450.00 for the Centre in the process. What's more they have the certificates to prove it. Many thanks to Maureen Holroyd for suggesting it in the first place and to everyone who thought it was a wizard wheeze to sponsor dogs for doing what they like doing best in the whole world, next to eating …
St Nicholas' Church Tower : This event was organized and run entirely by friends and raised a perfectly splendid £300.00. My one contribution to the day was to ferry some cakes and prizes through to Whitehaven, before crying merrily “Can't stay. Must go. Have a wonderful day”, and vanishing in a cloud of dust down Lowther Street . Our sincere thanks to those kindly souls.
The Festival of Fools: Thanks entirely to our (aforementioned) volunteers we maintained a presence at all five days of the Festival at Muncaster Castle, managed to avoid wearing any silly hats (although I took a few photographs that'll come in jolly useful for blackmail) and raised some very useful dosh in the process. The weather – after a dismal early Spring – was amazingly kind.
Egremont Car Boot Sale : A word to the wise. Before scheduling a car boot sale, first check with the Met Office that they're not expecting a heatwave. I don't know what the temperature actually WAS in Egremont Market Hall, but we should have been charging people for the use of the sauna. Our volunteers (see above) worked like demented (not to mention glowing and pink-faced) pixies transporting most of the saleable contents of the Centre to Egremont, setting it up, flogging it, and then returning the remainder to the Centre again before taking their poor wilted bodies home to a shower and a good stiff drink. In the process, we made over £400.00 – which, given the fact that everybody more or less gave it up as an insane occupation after two hours – was a miracle of near biblical proportions.
Music for a Summer's Evening: Only the British would think it was sensible to schedule an outdoor event in the summer in this country. On the other hand, only the British are programmed to eat sandwiches in the drizzle … In the days leading up to the concert, most of the UK enjoyed (or suffered, depending on your viewpoint) the hottest July in living memory. Come August, naturally, the clouds returned, the temperature dropped and the wind and drizzle arrived. Right up to the morning of the event, we didn't know whether we had a “goer” or not. The gazebos (courtesy of Muncaster Castle ) were erected in a north-easterly wind that could only be described as frisky. Encore told us that if the wind was too powerful, they'd have to sing in the church because otherwise their voices would be lost. Saturday dawned – and to our total astonishment it was dry, sunny and calm. The picnickers started arriving at 3.50pm . By the time the concert started at 6.00pm there were upwards of 30 people lounging around in the garden, feeding the birds, watching the butterflies on the buddleia and waiting to be entertained. Some of them came from as far afield as the East Lakes . We made £530.00 on the evening in a thoroughly civilized manner. Thanks are due to Encore , to Muncaster Castle for the loan of the gazebos, to poor, long-suffering and (mostly) uncomplaining Stuart who both put them up and took them down virtually single-handedly, to Cleator Moor Co-op for help with the strawberries and sparkling wine and to those self-same volunteers again (bless ‘em) for giving up a Saturday afternoon and evening for us.
Coming attractions:
THE GREAT CUMBRIAN RUN – Sunday, October 15 th .
David Nicholson, who has quietly supported the Centre for years, has heroically offered to take part in the Great Cumbrian Run to raise money for us. The half-marathon starts in Bitts Park , heads out over Eden Bridge , into Rickerby Park and from there out to just beyond Crosby-on-Eden before coming back the same way. The record for the run is just a hiccup over an hour (63.34 minutes to be precise) set by the Kenyan runner Francis Bowen in 2004 … but all we want David to do is get back alive. If you would like to sponsor him, you'll find the usual multi-purpose-and-horribly-confusing form enclosed with this letter.
MARTINMAS FAIR – Saturday, November 11 th .
Did you know that – apart from being Armistice Day, November the 11 th is also Martinmas – the feast day of St Martin of Tours? St Martin was subject of a beautiful painting by El Greco portraying his most famous moment – dividing his military cloak with a beggar. As St Martin is, not surprisingly, the patron saint of beggars, we thought his feast day was a particularly appropriate choice for us. Martinmas Fairs used to be a common occurrence across Europe , signifying the end of the farming year, and while we don't think we'll be selling any geese, cows or horses, we might manage to provide a few sheep, which regularly escape from the neighbouring fields to lay waste to our herbaceous borders. They'll never miss them. Because it IS also Armistice Day, we'll be observing the two minutes' silence at 11.00am , and everyone is welcome to join us. Doors open at 10.00am and all the usual attractions will be in place …cakes, raffles, tombola, cakes, gifts, books, white elephant, Christmas and greetings cards, cakes and music. Refreshments (including cakes) will be available throughout the day. Did I mention cakes? All and any help would be gratefully received. We need cakes, raffle and tombola prizes, white elephant and cakes. We also need people to help on stalls, serve tea and coffee (and cakes) and generally surge about being helpful and friendly. If you can spare just an hour, it would be a huge help. Please. Thank you. If you have a convenient window – in your house, a caravan or a car – could you please display the enclosed (and perfectly spiffy, even though I DO say so myself) poster – unless of course you live somewhere where to do so would bring scorn and derision down on your head. Hemel Hempstead , for instance. (PS: There's no prize for pointing out that the poster is short one letter and one apostrophe. I only spotted it after I'd printed about 1,500 of them and decided it could rotten well stay like it.)
Garden: The Garden at the Chase is coming on beautifully. Somewhere along the line, Wednesdays seem to have morphed into “Gardening Day” here … if you'd like to come along for a spot of gentle weeding in friendly company we'd be delighted to see you. We'll also take all of your cast-off plants and cuttings. We have no grand plan … but somehow it all seems to work out quite well. Gertrude Jekyll would have been proud of us. Not a straight line in the place. We'd like to thank everyone who has helped so far – either with labour or tools or plants. The garden is an important part of the atmosphere at the Chase and everyone seems to understand what we need without having to be told. It must just be something natural-born gardeners do instinctively. On the subject of gardens and gardening - We really could use a three- or (preferably) four-wheeled motorised scooter so that people who aren't too steady on their legs can get around at least the lower reaches of the garden. One of our gardeners has that problem and finds reaching the flower beds in the sunken garden a bit of a struggle. It needs fairly big wheels and suspension, in order to tackle uneven ground. A good reconditioned one would be fine. Suggestions, anyone?
FOR SALE :
2007 Calendars – We're about to leap into production on the 2007 Calendar, so get in your orders now. This year I thought I'd take the opportunity to go down a slightly different road with them. The basic layout remains unchanged – because everyone seems to like it – but instead of local views, the illustrations will be a set of beautiful botanical watercolours done for us many years ago by Jo Froggatt. We had plans for a ring-bound diary or birthday book which had to be shelved for various reasons, and the paintings have languished between our bookcase and our stationery cupboard ever since. I've never forgotten that we had them, though … and their moment has finally come.
Trivia Quizzes: I don't know why I volunteer for this aggro every year, I really don't. I mean, I KNOW what's going to happen. I'm going to produce a list of perfectly straight forward questions like “How long is the Panama Canal ?” – the answer to which any schoolchild can tell you is “100 miles” – and the next thing you know you find out that some under-employed clown has gone and measured it with an atomic doodah and discovered it's 3 micrometers longer than previously believed. Nevertheless I will, as ever, be producing two quizzes. One – the “Abandon Hope” – a creation of unbelievable viciousness for those who enjoy nothing better than having their brains boiled and mashed, and the other – the “ordinary” one, for the vast majority of kindly souls out there who don't want it all to end in tears. Both can be ordered for £1.00 apiece on the enclosed form.
PLEASE NOTE that the Calendars and quizzes will not be ready until the end of October at the earliest. Please be patient if you pre-order them.
Legacies: All right, I know that you all intend to live forever, or die trying, but this year we've received a couple of lovely legacies from friends and clients who remembered us in their wills and we know that for other charities, far more brazen than we, legacies in wills are an important source of income. Could we – as tactfully as possible, of course – ask that when you have your will drawn up (just in case Plan A mentioned above should fail), you include a small bequest to the Centre? Thank you.
Finally, because we're never averse to blowing our own trumpet, we're pleased to be able to say that another research paper based on the Outcomes Project is about to be published. Oxford Journals are publishing our Mental Health paper in “eCAM: Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine”. It's in the final stages at the moment and when it's in the public domain, we'll let you know.
That's it.
I'm not even going to wish you Season's Greetings, because it's W-A-Y too early for that. But I just did , sort of …. didn't I?
MKB/1.9.06
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