Your inspirational stories

London marathon 2013

A huge thank you and well done to all our marathon runners, Sarah Tiffin, Gavin Anderson, Paul Kingdon, Alistair Jones and Lucinda Stirton!

It was quite a hot day in the end so we hope you all coped ok. Great fundraising efforts from each of our runners, thank you on behalf of everyone at Voice and the children and young people we help. Great music from the Hooray Tabascos and support from hosts the Rose of Denmark as well. For enquiries about running for Voice in 2014 please contact fundraising@voiceyp.org or call 020 7014 9586.

Sarah!

Alistair!

 

Paul!

Gavin!

Raising Voices for Voice

Thanks to the wonderful Melanie Cavanagh for her Raising Voices for Voice concert in March. Taking place at St Augustine’s Church in Luton, the event raised over £1,700 for Voice! The concert featured the talents of vocal group Peculi8 and Luton Youth Cantores. Well done Mel!

You can view highlights of the concert on Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ7ptCmbg6Q

Charity auction and 'pop-up shop'

A huge thank you to Sarah Tiffin for organizing a fantastic charity auction and pop-up shop for Voice, raising over £1,700. Sarah was assisted by TV presenter Amanda Lamb - thanks Amanda! - as auctioneer, and a number of hard-working friends and family, to make the event happen. Sarah is one of our 2013 marathon runners and runs her own estate agency. Sarah is also making great progress on her Justgiving page which you can view - or even donate to! - here: http://www.justgiving.com/Sarah-Tiffin). We wish her all the best for the marathon on 21st April. Sarah and Amanda are pictured below:

Clapham Common 10k

Thanks to Jason Hill who raised £110 for Voice in the Clapham Common 10k in August. Jason is Marketing and Communications Officer at Volunteer Reading Help. You can Tweet Jason at @wandletrout or view his donation page here: http://www.justgiving.com/Jason-Hill13

Olympic quiz

The Voice Quiz Team came a very credible 8^th of 16 in July's Olympic-themed quiz organised by international legal firm Holman Fenwick Willan Quiz. In a close contest quiz we were only 4 points away from the eventual winners! The event raised more than £1,000 for Voice. Thank you HFW!

British 10k London Run

 On a rainy Sunday in July Wendy Banks, Voice’s Director of Policy, raised £250 for Voice in the 2012 British 10k. Wendy told us that she last ran this event in the year 2000 and improved on her time by 10 minutes! Wendy would like to thank all her supporters for helping her reach this total. Well done Wendy!

___________!!!!______________________Corelogic Charity Football Tournament

After a series of six closely contested matches at their annual six-a-side tournament in July, Voice was crowned the 2012 Core-logic 6 a-side Football tournament champion, netting a prize of £5,000 for our work with young people!

According to Corelogic, “this year saw the biggest turnout yet with 10 teams battling for the coveted prize; after the group stage Brent and Haringey were knocked out of the semi-finals by young person’s charity Voice and The Corelogic Celts, it was Voice however who would eventually go on to clinch the win and claim the cup – well done to them!

Voice ‘Tweet-up’

Voice raised over £95.00 and had a lot of fun at it’s first ever ‘tweet-up.’ A tweet-up is a gathering of friends organised via the social networking site Twitter. Voice’s Jenny McMaster says, “Thanks so much to everyone who contributed to the tweet up today, whether by providing us with a tombola prize, baking a cake, helping us to set up or simply turning up and buying some tickets!”

London Legal Walk

Thank you to Katie Shuttlewood, Lucy Conoboy, Stephen Jahans, Suzanne Scruton, Emma Vine, Camelia Borg, Carly Maguire, Sara Gomes, Phyllis Sochall, Muharrem Maloku, Andrew Dickie , Andrew Radford, Nicola Wyld , Carolyn Borgatti, Melanie Cavanagh, Maurizio Borgatti, Shireen Davy, Jane Chevous, Rachel Levy and Wendy Banks! They all walked to raise funds for the essential legal back up to Voice's advocates, bringing in over £1,500!

Led by the Lord Chief Justice, the Master of the Rolls, The Chairman of the Bar Council and the Presidents of the Law Society and ILEX the London Legal sponsored walk raises funds for London's legal advice centres. It is a 10km "after work" walk from the RCJ to Vauxhall Bridge along the Thames South Bank and back to the Law Society along the North Bank. The event was organised by the London Legal Support Trust.

Body Shop Covent Garden

Thank you to new Voice supporters the Body Shop Covent Garden! Voice leaflets and materials were given out in Body Shop goody bags at the grand re-opening on Saturday 5th May and we have a permanent spot on the in-store community board. The Body Shop in Covent Garden is now supporting Voice as a community charity.

Comedy night

A big thank you to Carly Maguire and David Allison for raising £75 at an innovative comedy night. This event, piloted with Voice’s staff, was a mixture of live court trial, ‘this is your life’-style television show and stand-up comedy. To find out more go to www.thisisyourlaugh.co.uk or email David at davallison@googlemail.com.

 Arts and crafts fundraiser

Voice would like to thank Yueyue Li, Yu He, Qi Chen and Yafei Wang for raising £135 for Voice through their ‘Art and Love’ project. Students of business at Hertfordshire University, Yueyue Li and her fellow students designed and ran a event sourcing and selling art works and crafts made by Hertfordshire students at the Galleria shopping centre.

This is the second time Voice has been lucky enough to benefit from the fundraising efforts of Yueyue Li and her fellow students; they ran a craft stall in 2011 as well. She told us:“We are really happy and honoured to support Voice’s work again.” Thank you all, great effort!

London Marathon 2012

A huge thank you to Anna Turner, Emma Jones, Steve Carr, Rosie Carr, Ashley Burton, Sean Ryan and Emma Breckenridge for running the 2012 London marathon for Voice!

The marathon took place on Sunday 22^nd April. Over 37,000 runners took part, and the sunny start to the morning was a welcome surprise. Voice had seven runners in total, including two with their own ballot places. All completed the course which is great news. Voice staff and friends and family of runners gathered at the Rose of Denmark pub in Charlton and were entertained by swing band Goosebumps. Thanks to all those who could join us on the day, your presence really helped to make the atmosphere special!

Runners mostly fundraised in pairs to boost their fundraising results. Simply finishing the race in good shape is most people’s target and, what with fundraising demands as well as training, this is a huge achievement. Money raised so far totals over £7,000!

Please get in touch if you would like to apply for a 2013 golden bond place - decisions will be announed in October - and if you have a ballot place and would like to consider fundraising for Voice, we’d love to hear from you. We can provide a fundraising pack and running vest, and great support and musical entertainment on the day! We are partnered with the Rose of Denmark pub in Charlton, about 5 miles into the route, so your supporters can gather there if you wish, with a good view of the race, and tea/coffee, beer, and bacon sandwiches on sale from 9-9.30am!

Pantomime fundraiser

Audiences at the Griffin Players pantomime in Luton, Snow White & The Seven Dwarves, collected £147.75 for Voice in December 2011. Many thanks to members of the children’s cast who rattled their buckets at the end of each performance to collect the money from the festive theatregoers!

Tandem skydive from 10,000 feet

Camelia Borg recently completed her impressive fundraising effort for Voice, involving a car boot sale and culminating in a skydive. The jump took place in Cambridge - unfortunately bad weather caused the original July 2011 jump to be postponed, but Camelia hung on and the weather permitted her jump on the 4th attempt!

Raising nearly £600 for Voice, Camelia told us: "I finally got to do my skydive for Voice today on the 4th attempt, it was absolutely amazing!!! I was 4th time lucky on the 4th December with 4 weeks to go until the start of 2012. I've never experienced anything like it, it completely blew me away I'm so lucky to have been able to experience it. I'm over the moon, it was such an amazing experience and all fundraising for a great cause."

Camelia was interviewed by the Hertfordshire Mercury and you can read her article here: http://www.hertfordshiremercury.co.uk/Health-and-Beauty/Fitness-and-Sport/Taking-the-plunge-26082011.htm

Dance lesson fundraiser

Well done to Vanya Cunningham and friends; together they raised over £100 for Voice through 'Rhythm and Fusion', offering workshops in salsa, belly dance and street dance. Over 40 people took part in the event at the Islington Arts Factory in May 2011.

2011 Round the Island yacht race, Isle of Wight

Thank you to Martin Gillate who braved the tempestuous seas around the Isle of Wight for Voice in June!

Enduring the worst weather in the event's 80-year history, with 20-foot waves and winds of up to 30 knots, Martin's team placed 527th out of 1,300 - an incredible achievement given that an additional 600 boats had to retire in the perilous conditions. Three-time Olympic gold medalist Ben Ainslie was among the competitors, referring to the conditions as "pretty extreme"; also in the line-up was world-famous solo long-distance yachtswoman Dame Ellen Macarthur. Footage of Martin's olympic achievement is on You Tube here (link to http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA3FD73B9DE9720F6.)

Martin raised £360 for Voice. You can still donate on his justgiving page at http://www.justgiving.com/martin-gillate/.
"Well we did it, albeit black and blue with bruises… I am so pleased we achieved it and I feel a sense of satisfaction. I certainly want to do it again; the tension at the start and finish was electric. To see so many yachts in the Solent at one time is amazing, and seeing people coming out especially to watch from the shore was fantastic. I certainly felt we had earned the donations for Voice in this tough environment."

Martin adds:
"As a Magistrate sitting in the Family Proceedings Court, I am, along with my colleagues, responsible and instrumental in placing some young people into local authority or foster care, and this is my attempt at helping them while in their care residency. I had not realised the need for advocacy in this situation until I delved further."

Hertfordshire business students’ charity event

A big thank you to students at the University of Hertfordshire who planned a film screening on 10th March in aid of Voice. The group of overseas students, who come from China, were tasked with holding a charity event as part of their business course and chose to raise money for Voice because they connected with the idea of 'living away from home.'

The group ran a stall selling traditional Chinese handcrafts and homemade sushi (made by the students) and raised £136.22 in total for Voice. Well done to all of the budding entrepreneurs involved with the event! Thanks to Hui Zhang, Bo Pang, YueYue Li, Xia Chen and Lin Wang. 

London Marathon 2011

The sun came out in all its glory on Sunday 17 April 2011, bringing many people out in support of friends, family and colleagues who were taking on this prestigious challenge. Voice supporters gathered at our long term partner pub, the Rose of Denmark in Charlton, where landlady Cathy Kelly and her staff and patrons served bacon sandwiches, tea, coffee and beer to an appreciative crowd! They also held a raffle and collection which raised £150 for Voice so well done to them.

We had five runners this year who entered using Voice's sought after golden bond places. They endured the heat admirably and all enjoyed themselves - hopefully by now the pain will be just a distant memory! So far they've raised well over £5,500 for Voice and this total is still growing. A big thank you to our marathon supporters:

• Matthew Toms
• April Rawling
• Jake Steadman
• Ferdinand Hall
• Daniel Smith

A final thank you to the swing, jive and jump blues band Goosebumps who provided wonderful music on the day. The crowd and runners loved it. For more information or to hire the band for your event go to www.goosebumpsmusic.co.uk.

Schools Fundraising

Challenged to design and run a charity fundraiser in the final year of their A-levels, Emily and Katheryn of Manshead School took the idea and ran with it! Aiming high but with initial budget limitations, the girls hit upon the idea of a series of progressively larger events, each one funded by the one before. A cake sale kick-started the project, with all ingredients donated and a team of volunteer bakers! A bigger team were then recruited for the next event, a Car Wash. The penultimate event was bigger still: a charity dance, with venue and DJ donated and all marketing organised by the girls themselves. Yet this was not the finale. Meetings with the council and headmaster, and many hours of form-filling to insure and transport 40 students, were required for the main event: the 'Aerial Extreme' high ropes adventure trail in Milton Keynes. Again, the girls solved their financial challenges, getting participants to raise their own sponsorship.

Other schools which have supported Voice include:

• Blackheath High Junior School
• Garden Suburb Infant School
• Swavesey Village College

We have also had support from undergraduates at Magdalen College, Oxford.