The support from our members and fundraisers has been phenomenal. All of us at CLL Support are in awe of your achievements and would like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you for supporting us and all the things you did on our behalf.
Thanks to all your efforts, we’ve raised an amazing £33,557!! Here are some of the incredible things you’ve been doing:
Have a look at our Anniversary Animation:
Watch our launch video here:
Earlier this year one of our members, Angela Ramsell held a Raffle on Facebook for some of her amazing paintings. She donated the proceeds of over £100 to CLL Support.
Following our conference in Poole at the RNLI College, we kicked off with a ‘Check-in and Chat’ webinar on Monday 25th March and set up our Challenge 20 which was a range of physical and mental health well-being activities. It was lovely to see all the different activities that took place.
David Warner started his Guinness Book of Records Challenge on Monday 1st April to be the oldest male making the journey on foot from John O’Groats to Land’s End. He raised a spectacular £7,236.64 plus £1,336.25 in Gift Aid. David completed his walk on 10th July on a beautiful sunny day.
In South Yorkshire, 129 members of Bawtry Golf Club took part in the “Captain’s Inaugural Event 2024” on Sunday 21st April. They raised £850.
Our Vice-Chairman, John Greensmyth set off on 8th May from Land’s End to cycle on his recumbent bike all the way up to John O’Groats. He arrived at his destination on 30th May and has raised £3,737.33 plus Gift Aid of £745.20.
One of our members, Ian McLaren, took part in MOKRUN – the Mull of Kintyre 10k – on 26th May. Ian completed the run in 1hr 13m which was a personal best. He was 26th in the over 60s category – in his words “Not bad for a 70 year old with CLL – living well with CLL”. Ian raised £460 plus £115 in Gift Aid.
Early in June we held our first CLL Support Coffee morning at the RNLI College in Poole. This was an opportunity for some of our members to meet face-to-face and set up support groups.
Rachel Edden swam 20K over the summer at her local lido. She raised £598 plus £134.50 in Gift Aid. Laura Fix who also swam 20K during the Summer, swimming with Rachel on many occasions. During the Summer Rachel also did a night-time swim.
Our Donor Engagement Officer, Cherry set herself a few challenges. She had her very long hair cut off – 17 inches – in June. She donated her hair to a children’s wig-making charity. Cherry and her husband Malcolm, love their garden. They planted over 20 new plants this year. One of their grandson’s helped by planting 20 sunflower seeds which looked beautiful when they bloomed.
Sunday 23rd June was indeed a busy day with the Grafham Water 20th Anniversary Walk, Weston Arboretum Half Marathon and the Leeds 10K all taking place on what turned out to be a very warm and sunny day.
Grafham was attended by a small group consisting of CLL Support Trustee’s/staff and some of our members. Everyone had a really good day and it was great to be able to chat along the route and at lunch. Some chose to do the short walk and others the long walk while others joined us for a chat at lunchtime.
Hannah White completed the Westonbirt Arboretum Half Marathon and has raised an amazing £1,176 plus £258.13 Gift Aid. She wanted to show support for her dad and give something back.
Also running for her dad, Katie Savino completed the Leeds 10K and raised an amazing £602 plus £150.50 Gift Aid.
Our lovely co-ordinator, Sarah, took on our Challenge 20 this Summer with her family. Sarah had always wanted to do the coastal walk between Appledore and Clovelly. The walk ended up being around 24 km and took them around 7 hours to complete. Parts of the walk were very challenging with some very steep paths to negotiate.
Debbie Yates, one of the Trustees, set herself a Challenge 20 to complete 20 Agility competitions with her gorgeous Welsh Springer Spaniel Saith. Saith completed her 20 competitions on World CLL Day, Sunday 1st September. Saith also achieved her first Grade 6 win. Debbie has added up her steps and she has completed an amazing 512,656 steps during the Challenge.
Rachel Warwick made 20 bookmarks to give to children to hopefully encourage them to pick up and read a book. The idea came from when Rachel made a bookmark for her grandson which he used at school. The bookmarks had a space for the child’s name and also room for them to decorate them further.
On 11th September Heather Troke, one of our Associates held a Street Collection in her local town. Heather raised £144 on what turned out to be possibly the coldest day of the year. She was accompanied by Cherry.
You may remember Bourne to Sing did some fundraising for us at Christmas last year. They held a Summer Concert on 13 September at Polegate Community Centre and raised an amazing £530.
Our Chair, Hilary Lindsay and her husband Colin set themselves a challenge to go out for 20 Afternoon Tea’s between them. It was a way of making sure they took time out from their often very busy lives giving them the chance to recharge their batteries. Hilary and Colin donated £20 for each of the 10 places they visited.
Molly Wilkinson, one of our members, put together a list of tips for “Living with CLL”. We chose 10 of these to appear on one of our Conference posters. These included “Be your own advocate”, “Volunteer, helping others will help you too” and “Find what makes you happy and ring fence it”.
Our London Conference took place on Tuesday 24th September at the King’s Fund to commemorate our 20th Anniversary. It was a wonderful day and it was inspiring to see so many of our members make the journey to join us. Thank you for the donations we received amounting to £1,597.
Helen Paterson and the team at the Cherry Tree Inn, Wishaw fundraise every year for a cause that has affected their community. One of their regulars, Gerry Friary, was diagnosed with Leukaemia and when asked who this year’s Charity should be, he immediately said CLL Support. Gerry is a big music fan so the decision was made to have a full day music event at on Saturday 28th September. One of The Cherry Tree’s regulars, Alastair Loudon, ran in the Loch Ness marathon. Alistair put a sponsor form behind the bar and raised a whopping £733. In total (at the time of writing) the staff and customers had raised a fantastic amount of £5,181.95 for us.
Kate Willett swam 20.5 miles, equivalent to swimming the English Channel, over the month of September at her University’s pool. To date she has raised a fantastic £630.50 plus £105.13 Gift Aid.
Eloise and Euan ran in the Bournemouth Run on Saturday 12th October. Their dad, Ian, was diagnosed with CLL in February this year. He has started his treatment and is now starting to feel much better. Ian has been helped by information provided by CLL Support. Both the children wanted to show their support for their dad by raising awareness at the same time as fundraising. At the time of writing, they had raised £1,360 plus £277.50 in Gift Aid. If you would like to contribute to their fundraising, please visit their JustGiving page.
On behalf of the Trustees and members of CLL Support, thank you so much Eloise and Euan.
Finally, a massive thank you so much to all our fundraisers and to those who have donated and to those of you who have helped to raise awareness of CLL/SLL. Your support is really appreciated by all of us at CLL Support and our members.
At the start we set ourselves a target of raising £20,000 in celebration of our 20th Anniversary.
At the time of writing the total raised was an amazing £31,191.47 plus Gift Aid of £2,365.33.
We will publish the final total in our Winter newsletter.
Your donations and fundraising really help to make a difference to those with CLL/SLL and their loved ones. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
If we’ve missed anyone out, please let us have your details and we’ll gladly include you in our thanks.
John’s amazing ride has finished! He’s completed the Land’s End to John O’Groats challenge. Click on the title for more details of this epic journey in support of CLL Support.
David Warner has completed his amazing record walk from John O’Groats to Land’s End! For full details, click on the title.
