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At the first Manchester City home match of the 2004/5 season on 14th August, over 4,000 balloons will be released by former City player, Mike Summerbee to mark the start of the 5th annual St Ann’s Hospice Balloon Race. The race raises nearly £35,000 every year for St Ann’s Hospice and the money raised goes directly towards the costs of patient care to ensure the future of St Ann’s.
St Ann’s Hospice aims to improve the quality of life of people living with life-threatening illnesses in Greater Manchester, whilst supporting their families and carers. As an independent local charity, care is provided free of charge by St Ann’s Hospice to over 3,000 people each year across three sites. St Ann’s Hospice needs to raise £15,500 every day through voluntary contributions to offer its wide range of services. In total it costs £8.5 million each year to run the Hospice, of which only 33% is received from government funding. It is the support of the local community that enables St Ann’s Hospice to continue providing the highest standards of care to patients, families and carers.
The balloons are tracked across the UK to see which travels the furthest, and if you are the lucky winner, you will be jetting off on a Thomas Cook family holiday to a Mediterranean destination of your choice.
If you would like to take part in the race and buy a balloon for only £1, please contact Pauline Hodkinson at St Ann’s Hospice on 0161 498 3631 or by email at phodkinson@sah.org.uk.
ENDS
Photo-call: Photo-call at Manchester City’s training ground with Mike Summerbee on Monday 26th July at 12pm. For further details, contact Cathy Elliott on 07866 437 153.
Photo from previous year: Shot 6 (attached) shows (left to right), John Twigg
(Manchester Airport), Judith Keppel (‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’
Winner) and Steve Howie (ex-MCFC player)
Coronation Street have shown themselves to be health-conscious recently, with a storyline showing the employees of the Rover’s Return trying to clock up their steps on the pedometer at work, and in a coincidental ‘real life storyline’, St Ann’s Hospice has been doing exactly the same with employees on their Heald Green site.
The idea came about when a nurse wearing a pedometer discovered that she often did over 4 kilometres on a day shift at work. Following this, several different departments were measured for their daily exercise ‘just doing their job’ on an average day. The results were astounding and show that working in a hospice could be the healthiest job anyone could have.
The scores below show different members of staff and the exercise that they
did over the course of a normal working day:
Name Title Distance
Derrick Asquith Social Worker 2.93km
Debbie Keay Assistant Housekeeper 5.76km
Jeni Matthewman Communications Manager 2.51km
Julie Hillaby Social Work Secretary 3.53km
Donna Robinson Auxiliary Nurse 4.65km
Wynn Dolan Inpatient Services Administrator 3.70km
Assistant Housekeeper Debbie Keay said: ‘I was absolutely amazed at the distance I was clocking up. On the news you hear so often that hardly anyone does enough exercise to keep healthy anymore, but I just don’t think that people realise how much they actually do over the course of a day’.
Jeni Matthewman, Communications Manager said: ‘The experiment was designed to raise awareness here of how healthy and active people can be without even realising it. As a charity in the health sector, we care about the health of our staff and this is a simple and fun way of making people more conscious of the way they work. My score shows that although I can travel 100 miles a day in the car, I really need to make more effort on foot, and it can be as simple as walking to another office to ask a question of someone instead of emailing them’.
ENDS
St Ann’s Hospice is expanding its trading potential, with a new warehouse that will allow it to accept donations of furniture.
The warehouse, at Spaces Personal Storage on Wellington Road North, will mean the Hospice will no longer have to turn down offers of large furniture or house clearances. Trading Company Manager Anthony Lord says being able to sell donated furniture will be a big boost to the money raised for St Ann’s.
“People have always been very generous and we have had lots of furniture offered to us, such as pianos, tables, 3-piece suites, beds and even a walk-in bath but we have never had the room to store them.
“Now we will gratefully take all furniture because the more we can sell, the more money is raised for the patients at the Hospice, and people will soon be able to visit the warehouse directly to pick up top quality furniture at a bargain price.”
The warehouse is already being used to sort through 100,000 items of clothing donated by a local business. The shirts, fleeces, shorts and trousers will then be distributed to the Hospice’s six charity shops.
However, the new warehouse does present a problem in that more volunteers are desperately needed to help steam and sort donated goods ready for distribution to the shops. Drivers are also needed to help with collections and distribution. If anyone can help give a few hours a week, please contact Anthony Lord on 0161 498 3645 or alord@sah.org.uk
St Ann’s Hospice aims to improve the quality of life of people living
with life-threatening illnesses in Greater Manchester, while supporting their
families and carers. All care is provided free of charge. St Ann’s Hospice
needs over £8.5 million to offer its wide range of services each year,
of which £5.7 million – that is £15,500 a day – must
be raised through voluntary contributions.
International Basketball Star John Amaechi slam-dunked his way into the St Ann’s Hospice Garden Party yesterday to officially open the event.
And the kids were thrilled when he decided to stay and shoot hoops with them to help them practice on their ball-skills.
Amaechi has only recently returned to his home town of Stockport after spending 8 years in America playing in the NBA. He also received special recognition in the NBA’s Hall of Fame for scoring first points in the new millennium.
He has worked on a number of charitable projects since returning to the UK and is also studying for his doctorate in child psychology. As a firm supporter of local charities, Amaechi was thrilled to be able to visit St Ann’s Hospice in person for the Annual Summer Fair.
Despite rain on the day, thanks to our special guest and the hard work of the staff involved, the Garden Party was a huge success and raised over £4,500 towards patient care at St Ann’s Hospice.
The Annual Garden Party held by St Ann’s Hospice at its Little Hulton site was a huge success yesterday, thanks to a mixture of the great weather, the hard work of everyone involved, and most importantly, a star visit from Jonathan Wrather (Joe Carter from Coronation Street), who came along to officially open the fair and chat with patients, families and staff.
Jonathan said: “It’s great to come along, not only to support the charity, but to talk with patients and discover the extent of the services and care offered here at St Ann’s.”
Over £4,500 was raised over the course of the afternoon, and entertainment was provided by folk band, The Houghton Weavers, as well as Salford City Reds Firestarters, junior cheerleaders who shook their stuff to the tune of the Cheeky Girls. Everyone had a great time, with the bouncy castles and ice cream stalls as particular favourites with the children.
The event brings our national annual Hospice Care Campaign awareness month to a close, which has been a great success this year. The Hospice Care Campaign is aimed at raising awareness about the vital role that hospices have to play in the local community, and is going from strength to strength with each passing year.
