I just want to say to everyone on the Glitz and Glamour Ball Committee what an excellent job they are all doing and although at times it may seem time consuming and hard work we must never forget the reason behind the Ball and the satisfaction we will get when our guests on November 17th have a fantastic night and we reach our £10,000 target. Having recently joined the committee I feel honoured to be part of this team and am encouraged by the enthusiam of everyone. Liz.

It's all starting to get exciting now, last week I sent out letters to friends and family to tell them all about the Glitz and Glamour ball, and to date have got at least five tables full. So today at the school gates everyone was talking about who was going on who's table and how many rooms do we need to book. It seems along way off but it will be here before we know it. So hurry up and get your tickets bought!!

Fundraising Fun

Launch of Sam’s Campaign
It was with some misgivings that Tony and I accepted an invitation to the launch of Sam’s Campaign, a reception held at the House of Commons on Tuesday 6th March. We were uncertain if the event would prove too emotional being less than 8 months since Claire died. However, we are glad that we decided to go as it was a privilege to be present and feel the strength of emotion that will carry SDBTT on to even greater achievements. We were also very pleased the Philip Hollobone, MP for Kettering, was able to join us for the reception and to lend his support.
The event received good publicity; it was covered by Channel 4. Our local paper, Kettering Evening Telegraph, also ran an article.

Tea Party
To tie in with Tumour Awareness Month in March, SDBTT invited everyone to ‘Put the kettle on for Sam’s Campaign’. I am not known for my organisational abilities, but I thought that even I could manage cups of tea and cakes. So, having roped in some willing helpers, I invited friends and neighbours to join me one Saturday afternoon to help raise money for SDBTT.
We were blessed with a lovely spring day, which meant that the younger (livelier!) visitors were encouraged to be outside. A steady stream of people arrived bearing a marvellous selection of delicious cakes for the cake stall and an amazing array of books for the book stall.
Helen organised a quiz for those with a sweet tooth – all the answers being types of confectionery- with a delicious edible prize donated by Marks & Spencer.
It was wonderful to see local friends, school friends, work friends and friends of friends! As we are usually rushing around most of the time it was great to catch up with people over a cup of tea. Also, it was lovely to see Peter and Claire’s friends joining in the fun.
Over 60 people visited during the afternoon and between us we raised over £370. As someone said: not bad for tea and cakes!
So a huge thank-you to everyone who joined in and helped to make it such a successful afternoon.

London Marathon
Philip Greenfield, a colleague of Tony’s, is preparing to run the London Marathon on Sunday 22nd April to raise money for SDBTT.
He is running in memory of Claire and is therefore running dressed as a pink pig as shown in this very fetching photo of him on his Justgiving web page : www.justgiving.com/phil-londonmarathon07
We can’t make it to London, but we shall be watching the coverage to see if we can catch a glimpse of this special pink piggy.

Publicity

There has been lots going on over the months that Natalie got us together and we formed the Glitz and the Glamour Ball Committee to raise awareness and much needed funds for the SDBTT. I was put in charge of press and publicity.
I was delighted when the Evening Telegraph took up the gauntlet and travelled to London with Tony and Julie Rowland to cover the 10th anniversary story of the Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust. The ET reporter has become great friends of Julie and Tony and we are grateful to the newspaper for their regular articles.

Our next fund raiser is the Waendel Walk which takes place over the weekend of 11th, 12th and 13th May. We are hoping to get as many of Claire's friends as we can to get themselves sponsored and take part in the event. We have hit a bit of a brick wall with this at the moment mainly due to the school holidays, but they are all back to school on Monday 16th April so we must now go for the big push.
I get a real thrill when I see articles in the local press but then feel guilty. I find the only way I can help is by treating the fund raising as a job otherwise its just all too sad. When I have a quiet moment, I sit and listen to one of the hymns that was sung at Claire's funeral, Here I Am Lord. I downloaded it after the funeral. I am not that religious but it is such a lovely song and the words say it all I think I have a few tears and think of Claire and then I can carry on because if something good can come out of something so terribly sad then I must do something to help raise awareness and funds. Claire was such a lovely little girl who had so much to live for. She also had a loving and supportive family and how they bear their loss with such dignity and carry on with their day to day life needs such strength of character.
Anyway thats the sad stuff done and my heart on my sleeve, moving swiftly on. I was over the moon that the Wellingborough Carnival agreed to support the SDBTT - Claire Rowland Fund as their 2007 Charity. Carnival Day is on Saturday 7th July so lets hope for a good day.
Other success stories so far have been an article in the Barton Today so thanks to Colin for that.
I intend to keep drip feeding the press on a monthly basis with articles until the summer months when I will go into overdrive to push the ticket sales.
I have bombarded the local websites with information on the Glitz and Glamour Ball and hope to get some articles in the local glossy magazines. So watch this space!
My next task is to spread the word about the Glitz and Glamour Ball outside Northamptonshire.
Just before I sign off I am thrilled that Stephanie Benson who is an International Cabaret star will be performing at the Ball. I heard her sing at a Convention I went to with work she is fantastic. I thought it was Diana Ross walking in she sang and looked just like her in her early years. I can't wait!We are listening to a band on the 18th April so fingers crossed they will fit the bill and we will have our line up for the night. Sue B. 14.4.07

Wow We Made The Front Page!

We amazed ourselves this week. We issued our first press release on Friday 23rd February and as a result had our first newspaper article published on Wednesday 28th February in the Northants Evening Telegraph. Claire's story made the front page with an additional piece on page 4. It was a beautiful article, which started with the headline: £10,000 TO REMEMBER CLAIRE. There were a couple of smiley pictures of Claire, one in winter pink. We have received a good response as a result and the orders for ball tickets are mounting.

March is Brain Tumour Awareness Month

March has been designated Brain Tumour Awareness Month - join or hold a tea party to raise money

Tea Parties are being held throughout the month to raise money for the SDBTT charity. You could help by organising a tea party yourself. Even if you've never organised a fundraising event, you can be assured of success because the Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust have put together a pack of information, ideas and support material to make everything easy! All you have to do is register your tea party by either downloading the registration form or contacting Maria on 0845 130 9733.
Once registered you can dowload additional supplies of fundraising materials by clicking here.
We are delighted to announce that Barclays Bank has agreed to hold Tea Parties in 12 of their Buckinghamshire branches and YOU ARE INVITED! Please check the list here to see if a Tea Party is to be held in a branch near you. Barclays has also said they will match £ for £ the money raised. Thank you to everyone involved.

Ball Logo

We now have a corporate identity thanks to the kind help of the people at The Creative Tribe. They have designed our logo, based on our Contemporary Art Deco theme and are getting to grips with leaflets, tickets and posters, all necessary for our 9 month campaign. We have asked for pink spot colour in the designs, as pink was Claire's favourite colour. We hope you like it.

The Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust Claire Rowland Fund

Claire Rowland died aged 11 from a brain tumour. Her parents, Tony and Julie met many wonderful people along their painful journey with Claire last year. They came from many organisations and charities, so many worthy of financial help. CLIC Sargent provided a specialist oncology nurse, the Make-a-Wish Charity converted Tony's study into an in-house art studio for Claire, with mint and pink decor and the carers at Rainbow's Children's Hospice in Loughborough where Claire had a few peaceful days on a respite visit. We would love to be able to give money to them all. However our committee decided to raise money for The Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust Charity (The SDBTT) as they aim to find a cure for childhood and adult brain tumours, by funding research. Julie and Tony Rowland have set up their own fund within this charity The SDBTT Claire Rowland fund to define the money that we and others raise in memory of this happy, fun-loving, helpful, pig-loving little girl.

The Venue

We looked at a number of places nearby that could hold a ball and after a rejecting a couple of places on the basis of layout and size, we have chosen Hangar One, Sywell Aerodrome, Sywell, Northampton. It's an incredible space, and as the name suggests built out of an old aircraft hangar. Ideal for a ball, the hangar can hold up to 500 people and so this has then set us the target for tickets that we must sell and the money we aim to raise. We have set this target at £10,000.

Alongside the hangar is Sywell aerodrome, a fully functional local airport. On the day that we visited to view Hangar One and its facilities, a stunt flyer was practising his breath-taking performance. Somehow we will have to find a way of incorporating this excitement into our event.

Hangar One adjoins the Aviator Hotel, built in the 1930s with a resplendent Art Deco interior. The decor set the theme of the night the glitz and glamour of the 1920s Art Deco period easily gave us the name for the event, and The Glitz and The Glamour Ball was born.

The Start of it All

At the beginning of the summer holidays a little girl, 11 years old, died. She was in my son’s year at school and had been fighting against her illness for about a year. Many of her school friends attended her funeral. It was a very emotional time. It was heart-wrenching to watch her family that day, going through the formal ceremony to say good-bye to their beloved daughter, sister and grandchild. I have two children of my own. I cannot imagine what it would be like to loose either of them. It would be like, like………. watching your innards being removed. Many of the mothers present at C’s funeral were struggling to hold it together.

That night I thought something must be done to harness the emotion that welled up in the church that day. Something must be done to help those families that are going through what C and her family have been through. I decided to raise some money for a suitable charity. I searched the web and found http://www.charitychallenge.com/ . I would support a charity associated with the treatment of brain tumours.

Walking up Kilimanjaro, or trekking up to Everest Base Camp would be exciting, but a huge, huge challenge. The trouble is, I am a bit of a blob. I’d have to work exceedingly hard to get myself fit enough to do such a feat. It would take 18 months to 2 years to loose the necessary weight and get fit enough for the challenge. But this wouldn’t raise much money in the meantime, so with the advice from a friend who thought such challenges were mighty too adventurous, I have set about organising a charity ball. I have gathered together a committee of friends with all sorts of experience behind them and we meet in September to start planning the event.

This blog will log our progress in planning and executing the ball and our personal progress towards our goal of raising £10,000. You are welcome to keep coming back to this page to see how I and my friends get on with our task. If it helps you with your own charity fundraising I am glad. It will also show, probably, what not to do. If you can give us some advice on how to organise a ball, do contact me. If you can give us some encouragement, that would be good too.

Natalie Miller, whose ideas it was.