A BIG Big Give thank you!

Last Tuesday at noon, we gratefully put down our phones and went offline as soon as the Big Give Christmas Campaign closed. An amazing grand total of £39,211.62 was raised, including the additional outside match funding and Gift Aid. What a great result - much more than our original target, making even more of a difference than we had aimed for. 

It is hard to put into words how thankful and appreciative we are to everyone who took part. And we can't emphasis enough the real difference it wil make to the students at WTA, the patients at The Rock and the literally thousands of children who will be affected through the Connect Education Centres.

The focus of the Rise Up campaign came after many meetings with Charles and his senior team - where they shared ideas, dreams and suggestions about how to best develop the different areas across the projects. These ideas shared over many months, will now become reality in 2026, thanks to so many of you.

It was really encouraging that the number of donations increased this year - 86 in total, up from 77 last year, with new people taking part. Social media this year was much harder to navigate - as the algorithms are focussed on making money, rather than allowing the spreading of news. Frustrating to say the least. 'Old-school' personal contact seems to always be the most effective, which is interesting in this digital age.

We will put together a short film with a selection of the various clips and pictures from the campaign - including a heartfelt thank you from Charles who is amazed and delighted at everything that has been achieved.

Thank you so much again to all who took part (including donations and sharing) and to all of you for contending with the week-long deluge of communications!

We will endeavour to resume normal service from now on ....!