Photos by Stella Gooch
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Email: heachaminbloom@btinternet.com
Posted by Arthur Nicholls
I would like to start by thanking everyone who helped me raise so much for the Norfolk Hospice, Tapping House when I ran the London Marathon for them in 2008 – achieving a time of 4:33:03. In April 2011 I am running my second London Marathon, once again for our local hospice: the Norfolk Hospice Tapping House.
I train around the local area in Hunstanton, Heacham and Snettisham.
Thousands of visitors flocked to Norfolk Lavender on what was a gloriously sunny weekend to enjoy the additional attractions of the annual Lavender Festival which celebrates the first weekend of harvest. People travelled for miles to visit Heacham and see the Lavender in all its glory. The line up for the weekend included a craft fair, live music, performances by the well known Lavender Hill Mob, face painting and an owl display, birds of prey demonstrations and food tastings at the newly opened Walsingham Farms Shop. Norfolk Lavender also had a new distillery in operation for the weekend.
Once again Norfolk Lavender provided their chosen local charity, The Norfolk Hospice Tapping House, the opportunity to raise awareness of their services and support groups and raise vital funds. Dianne Rowe, Director of Fundraising at the Norfolk Hospice said, “We had a fantastic weekend raising over £1000. The weather was superb and the new businesses and attractions at Norfolk Lavender make it a great place for an enjoyable day out for all the family. We are very grateful to them for their continued support.”
Lesley Clark from the West Norfolk Lympheodema Support Group, who attended on the Saturday said “This is the first time we have attended such an event and thoroughly enjoyed it. We raised £154, provided people with lots of information and collected many signatures for our petition to obtain funding for a specially trained Lympheodema nurse in this area.
Complementary therapy plays an important part of the holistic service the Norfolk Hospice offers to patients and members of the Hospice’s complementary therapy team offered visitors the opportunity to experience taster sessions of reflexology, reiki and ‘M’ treatment on Sunday which, as always, were very popular.
Well known Heacham resident, Terry Clay (62) has been running for at least 13 yrs and entered many running events.
Terry has run the Great North Run no less than six times and thought it was about time he went for the marathon so he is running in this year’s London Marathon as he says “they don’t come any bigger than this”. Terry is running alongside his good friend Leesa Espley who is running to raise funds for the RNLI whilst Terry will raise funds for Parkinson’s UK (the new name for the Parkinson’s Disease Society). He hopes to complete the London Marathon in a very respectable 5 hours.
Terry would love to thank everyone who has sponsored him and he particularly appreciates the generosity of the people of Heacham over the years as they have helped him to raise more than £7.000.00 for his cause (including the amount raised for from this year’s London Marathon – to date around £2,000.00).
Although Terry is concerned that the weather looks set to be a little too warm for running he feels that he has waited long enough for some warm sunshine so will make the most of it and enjoy the run.
Phil Davies, a member of the Discover West Norfolk group, is seeking sponsorship for cycling over 1,000 miles from Lands End to John O’Groats this summer in aid of Park House, the Leonard Cheshire Disability hotel located at Sandringham, near Kings Lynn.
Phil, part of the Pensthorpe bird reserve team in Norfolk, also works as a volunteer minibus driver for Park House, and is spearheading an appeal to raise £38,000 for a much-needed new minibus. The bike ride will cover over 1,000 miles in 12 days at an average of 85 miles a day and will raise funds for Leonard Cheshire Disability, in memory of Phil’s dad, who was paralysed and wheelchair bound in a car accident. He used to visit Park House, the only Leonard Cheshire hotel for the disabled in the country, and Phil now works there once or twice a week as a volunteer, taking guests and their carers out in their (very old) minibus.
If you would like to follow Phil’s training and fundraising progress, you can visit his blog on http://www.lcdisability.org/eventsblog, or to sponsor him go to www.justgiving.com/PhilBobGerry-LEJOG.
So please give generously - these are tough rides and it’s a very worthwhile cause!
Two local ladies, Michele Rudd and Carole Hall, are bucking the recession to launch an exciting new business. Shazarele offer – for sale or hire – a range of exquisite ball gowns and prom dresses. A charity fashion show, in aid of Campaign Care 94, launched the new business on 11 March 2010 at the Le Strange Hotel in Hunstanton. Campaign Care 94 was formed to raise funds to fight against cancer and Tapping House Hospital (now Norfolk Hospice, Tapping House) became associated with Campaign Care. Michele and Carole were very keen to support such a worthy cause and launch their new business at the same time.
As a result, a glittering evening of glamour was created and it was a resounding success. (More tickets had to be printed to try and accommodate the over-subscription!) The Barn Hair & Beauty Salon from Dersingham styled the hair and make up for the models and Jazzy Gems provided the jewellery accessories and Nick from Scent With Love in Hunstanton provided floral displays and a silk flower for each show goer. Each of these local businesses had stalls for show patrons to visit during the interval alongside The Hat Shop from Burnham Market and the sumptuous Cherry Hill Chocolates from Hunstanton.
Michele and Carole were also assisted in pulling off this wonderful event by 17 local ladies who consented to be models for an evening. Our would be “Claudia Schiffers” were: Kerry, Jamie, Susan, Holly, Tiffany, Sian, Paulette, Beth, Wendy, Sharon, Kelly, Antonia, Jackie, Sinead, Tanya, Michele and Julie. The male models included Alan, Jim (Race), Leon, Morty, Chris and Simon. The evening was relaxed and fun filled with some of the male models (particularly Jim Race) providing the laughs by seizing numerous opportunities to show off whilst walking the catwalk to the tunes of hotel pianist, Jim Rock. All the models looked the business – the guys were dapper and the dolls were stunning to say the least.
There was a high quality range of raffle prizes from numerous local businesses and friends. Among them were lovely meals for two courtesy of the West Norfolk Pub and Heacham Manor Hotel (both in Heacham), the Le Strange Hotel in Hunstanton and the Coach & Horses in Dersingham.
Carole closed the evening by thanking everybody involved. Bob and Ann Willey and Carl and other staff at the Le Strange Hotel made sure everything was right on the night at the venue and Carl had even given up his holiday to put in many hours in the week prior to the event. Gloria Hurn from Pentney House provided fascinators and lovely goody bags for show goers, Nicola and Alice from Active Hands of Heacham did the nails, Theresa Rudd steamed and pressed all the dresses and Julie Flegg did the necessary alterations. Carole also thanked Gary Tillet from Goddards of Kings Lynn who assisted the male models with their dress and Goddards also provided the male outfits for the evening. And last, but by no means least, Rob Topliss did them proud with their advertising and photographs on the night and Charlie videoed proceedings.
Let’s not forget that the event was designed to raise funds for Campaign Care 94 and Carole and Michele were delighted to learn that they had raised in excess of £900 which is a fantastic result for everyone who participated.
The evening certainly had a lot of hard work put into it and boy did it show. Well done girls. No doubt Shazarele will go from strength to strength with all this drive behind it.
Have a look at our Gallery page for more pictures.