July 2022 marks the start of a new financial year which means that as 2021/22 comes to a close, regretfully, so does our charity partnership with the Motor Neurone Disease Association.
There were some very personal reasons why this charity was nominated for selection with at least 3 members of our team and their families being affected by this disease.
With no cure and very limited government funding available, we got in touch with our local branch covering Colchester and North-East Essex and asked how we could help. It wasn’t long before we had a plan in place and our year of fundraising and raising awareness began…
Charity Quiz Night
We kicked-off the year with our annual charity quiz night. Hosted by our in-house quizmasters Richard Hamilton and Mike Carabine, we were joined by 12 teams and plenty of familiar faces at Braintree Golf Club.
As with most events this past couple of years, we were hit with a spike in local Covid cases and a few late table cancellations meant that attendance was lower than usual, but we still had a fantastic night and raised a total of £2,250.
Members from our local MNDA branch joined us on the night and featured an article in their ‘Castle to Coast’ Newsletter, which you can read here.
Our friends at Optimum IFA took home the trophy and we look forward to hosting this event again later in the year.
December Dip
This is a relatively new event in the MNDA diary and turned out to be a real highlight for us.
As the name suggests, the challenge involved getting into the North Sea at Frinton in December with a disclaimer that it might ‘be a bit chilly’.
When we tentatively circulated the invitation to our staff, we had no idea that it would generate the interest that it did and before long, we had 18 names on the list and the sponsorship money stated pouring in, along with heart-warming messages of support along the lines of ‘rather you than me’.
Well, we all got in (to varying depths and lengths of time) and were able to donate a rather marvellous £2,709.
We can confirm that the warm towels, mulled wine and mince pies that were waiting for us afterwards were very well received.
Staff Poker Night
We are very grateful to Accounts Senior Matt Gagie, who organised a charity poker night for staff at our neighbouring venue– Legends Sports and Pool Bar in Braintree.
In addition to takings from the table, Legends also made a further donation on the night and our total donation totalled £130.
Christmas Hamper Raffles
We ran two raffles at Christmas – one for our staff and one for the guests at our Professional Networking Breakfast.
Raffle ticket sales raised £505 and our lucky winners took home 2 huge Christmas hampers and plenty of festive treats.
Personal Donations
We would like to extend our thanks to Wendy Eveling for nominating MNDA as her Facebook birthday fundraiser and Mike Carabine and Pip Trowles who each made a personal donation to the charity.
Motor Neurone Disease Awareness Day – June 21st
As our final fundraiser, we decided to mark Motor Neurone Disease Awareness Day on June 21st with some smaller, in-house challenges with a ‘21’ theme.
Run 21 or Walk 21 – Covering 21miles between 1 and 21 June.
Run 2.1 – Special shout-out to Senior Manager Mark Pearson who extended the Run 21 challenge and pledged to run a total of 2.1 miles every day between 1 and 21 June – which he smashed.
Bike 21 – On 21st June, Partner Graham McNeill took his bike out and covered 21 miles in one session (and a couple of pub stops) around Chelmsford.
21k all in a day for MNDA – We worked out that there are 21km between our two Essex offices in Braintree and Maldon and so a team of walkers will take on this walking challenge one evening after work. We had originally hoped to complete this in June, however another spike in Covid cases and some staff holidays scuppered our plans, but this will be rearranged very soon.
All of these challenges combined raised another £297.
Fundraising Total
Totalling everything up from the year and with an additional Gift Aid boost – we can proudly announce that we have been able to donate £6,541.50 to this wonderful charity.
We sincerely hope that this will support the work of the charity across their three priority areas of improving care, funding research and raising awareness.
We would like to thank everybody who has supported our fundraising for this charity, whether that’s a donation to our JustGiving page, taking part in an event, buying a raffle ticket or volunteering your time – it is so appreciated by us and everybody at the Colchester and NE Essex local MNDA branch.
If you would like any more information about this charity or the services they provide, please vist: www.mndassociation.org/
Voting is underway to select our next Charity partner and we will be able to share our plans for the coming year in the very near future.
Disclaimer
The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the Author and other professionals may express different views. They may not be the views of Lambert Chapman LLP. The material in the article cannot and should not be considered as exhaustive. Professional advice should be sought in connection with any of the issues contained in the article and the implementation of any actions.