Here Come the Girls…

Everyone was so very generous at our charity vintage tea party. Over £4,000 was raised.

This is a post about a little boy who attends the same school as my boys, his lovely Mum, fundraising for the hospital where Scott is being treated and the amazing ladies who supported our Vintage Tea Party on 2nd March.

If , after reading this post, you want to contibute then please follow the Just Giving link….

Scott is being treated for Leukemia & he & his lovely family are spending a lot of time at the Day Care Unit

in the Oncology Department at the QMC.The department are looking to raise much needed funds to

redecorate & improve the unit, to refresh & replace toys, bedding, family facilities & to make the unit a

more restful & modern place to be.

This is just as important as new equipment & research & will make an enormously positive impact on

the time that families spend there.

Lots of us wanted to show our support by helping to raise funds for the ward where Scott is being helped.

A small group of us at school got together and our idea was simple – ladies, fizz, shopping, fun, cake,

good old fashioned Bingo & lots of laughs.

A vintage tea party for 100 at a local village hall. Canapes, cakes, fizz & £4,000 raised for QMC Children's Oncology Department.

We asked that guests contributed £15, brought a bottle, maybe a cake (more on that later) & some

pennies to spend on our raffle.

No suprises that the theme of the afternoon was a traditional village hall vintage tea party -

guests were greeted with a glass of fizz and canapes, entertained by our fabulous singer, served afternoon

tea from vintage china & got the chance to play Bingo.

Emma Cleveley from Emma Clevleley Photography and Ms Honey kindly took these photographs for us and donated her time and expertise free of charge. Thanks a million Emma.

We asked the girls to dust off their oven gloves as we held a Great Darley Abbey Bake Off Competition.

Guests were invited to bake their most favourite cake and we had two prizes – the best looking

and the best tasting.

We were overwhelmed with entires! Tickets were limited to 100 and we sold out within days.

Together with a generous donation from Boots, we raised an AMAZING £4056.

Scott’s parents were overwhelmed and Scott is really excited about presenting this,

along with an additional £1071 raised at a previous fundraiser to the staff on the ward.

Just a few people to thank…

… Sarah, Sally, Kirsty & Roberta who did a fab job of organising the day and to Tracy for supporting us.
…Jay, Clare & Jackie for making the sandwiches and just being fab

…Liz from the WI for doing an amazing and very professional job of judging the wonderful cakes….she

even has her own set of tasting knives…I’m in awe!!

…Mr Lydon for his super bingo calling – the loss of golden time cards for chatting will be distributed next week
…Ruth for her brilliant singing

…Harry & Joe, our handsome waiters….they survived & offered to give half their wages to the charity

…The singing washer uppers….the waiters were a little scared at that point!!

And last but by no means least to the ladies of Darley Abbey who astounded us with their generosity,

good will and high spirits.

11:29 20 March 2013

I love cake, I love corsets and I love being involved in a charity event.

Astra from Timeless Couture has a close friend, Robyn, who has recently been diagnosed with cervical cancer. She is only in her mid 20′s. One of the charities who has been very supportive and helpful to Robyn is The Mercedes Curnow Foundation who promote awareness of the early detection of cervical cancer in young women and funding private screening & hpv tests. They are fighting to lower the age of cervical screening in England from 25-20. This is something Robyn feels passionately about.

To show support and love for Robyn, Astra decided to organise an event that would involve her family and friends and to hopefully raise funds for The Mercedes Cunrow Foundation. Corset design is a love of Astra’s and her exquisite, bespoke pieces combine vintage inspired details and modern contempoary shapes. She partners Rachel at Timeless Couture and together they create beautiful bespoke wedding dresses, two of which you can see in the main photograph above . Robyn was one of the models in our photoshoot with Timeless Couture earlier in the year, see the gorgeous girl on the telephone above…so it seemed perfect to combine a corset photoshoot with afternoon tea at a special venue.

It was a ladies only day (for obvious reasons!, as Astra put it “no smelly boys”) and all the guests had the opportunity to be involved in the photoshoot.

This idea grew into producing a corset calendar which would be sold to raise further funds.

Stancliffe Hall in Darley Dale offered us the use of their venue, completely free of charge, which was an incredibly generous gesture. It is an outstandingly beautiful privately owned Hall, set in over 50 acres of stunning parkland in the heart of the Peak District.

The photography and styling for the shoot was left in the hands of Emma from Ms Honey Boudoir, who also owns Emma Cleveley Photography. She donated her time, talent, sexy props & experience for the day.

Tineke kindly supplied all the flowers for the day and there were lots of raffle prizes donated by local businesses.

Darby & Joan provided the afternoon tea for the ladies and we donated two days to set up the venue and supplied our vintage china.

Some of the ladies were hesitant about stripping off and posing, but before Emma knew it there was a queue of ladies desperate to be transformed into a sexy siren for a couple of hours. It was credit to Emma’s skill and easy going presence that made the shoot such a success, guiding the girls through poses to flatter their figures and enhanced their best bits. Hopefully we can share some of these photographs with you soon.

Another charity who had been tremendously supportive of Robyn was MacMillan Cancer Support. Most people are familiar with the amazing work they do on a daily basis, providing practical, medical and financial support and push for better cancer care. A spokesperson from the charity attended to talk about their role in helping cancer patients and their families. Some of the funds raised on the day were donated to MacMillan.

Pimms, afternoon tea, a room full of great ladies having a well earned sunny Sunday afternoon to themselves, a beautiful venue, pants and bras flying around everywhere, laughs and tears and raising money for two amazing charities.

A good day.

Photography on the day – Emma Cleveley Photography, Ms Honey

Photograph of Robyn – Yvonne Lishman Photography

Main image – Emma Case Photography

17:51 11 September 2012

Second blog post in two days…I am supposed to be doing very boring jobs this week to keep on top of everything, but I am easily distracted!

Last Saturday we were involved with a charity tea party (vintage styled of course!) which took place at a lovely little village hall round the corner from me in Derby.

The event was held to raise money & awareness for a project that two very dear friends are involved with. Along with eleven other volunteers from Derby, Stacey Meyer & Anna Haynes are flying out to Kenya in May for their Rams Kenyan Adventure.

The project they are supporting is to help to build two new classrooms at St Trizah School in Nakuru. They will be there for two weeks.

One in five children in Kenya die before their fifth birthday & 20% of school age children are orphans due to HIV. Over 40% of the children in Kenya don’t have access to a school & these children who are not in education are three times more likely to contract HIV in later life.

The tea party raised an amazing £960 & this money will go towards resources & manpower to build two much needed new classrooms, which in real terms means that an additional 100 children can access education.

We had a fantastic afternoon, lots of laughs, friends, gorgeous food, fizz & entertainment.

We are so very proud of you girls – there are many people who say they would love to do something like this, but very few people do it for real.

Thank you to everyone who came along & supported this event. Here are a few pics from the day..

If you wanted to make a contribution to this charity or learn more about the project, please click on this link to their Just Giving page..http://www.justgiving.com/stacey-anna