We’re preparing for our final gig in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support. After five years, £22,000 raised (I’m confident we’ll reach £25,000 this year), our Riverbank Relatives Room finally officially opened, it feels like the right time to finish on a high note.
Organising an annual fundraiser is wonderful because you know you’re making a difference in your own wee way, but it’s also absolutely exhausting. Every year I feel like Oliver, with my begging bowl out…….please will you play our gig? please will you donate a prize for our raffle? Inevitably it’s the same people that get involved. If I had a pound for every ‘pat on the back’ we receive, virtual or face-to-face, we’d have raised ten times as much as we have done!
This year’s event is at the end of September and already we have our musicians confirmed, and some crackin raffle prizes in hand or promised. We will end on a high and bow out gracefully in order to give us some ‘down time’.
Some people have already asked if we’ll do it again in future. The honest response is that we don’t know. Maybe we’ll be like The Eagles and go on hiatus, maybe we’ll be like Ross and Rachel and go on a break. Maybe we’ll be like James Bond and never say never, maybe we’ll be like Michael Myers and just keep coming back…… we can’t say because we just don’t know.
What we do know is that we will forever be amazed and grateful to the wonderful people in our lives who have selflessly supported us over the years…….not just with the fundraising, but with helping us deal with something so overwhelming and life changing. The ones that have stuck have stuck fast…..like a blister plaster….. and we love them for it.
My name might be attached to our fundraising, but it’s a huge team and they’re splendiforous!!
As we step ever closer to Spring, I promise we’ll keep fighting the battles in a bid to win the war once and for all.
Living with xx
