Tag Archives: Charity

A great donation for a fabulous cause

September 23, 2014 by Peter · Leave a comment

Thank you to the fantastic Lancashire foundation who donated £3,400 to pay for an amazing piece of kit (http://www.accuvein.com/) that makes inserting cannulas (needles for blood) much less painful for children. We have bought four of these wonderful machines together with Samuel’s Charity.

Thank you to Adam King for putting The Christian Blandford Fund forward for this.

Martin, from Samuel’s charity, explained the need for these very well…

We are looking to buy two more infrared scanners that shows where veins are so injections are made first time, every time.This is huge. No one likes injections but it can take 2,3,4 or sometimes more attempts to find a vein, especially after weeks or months of treatment. This is not only painful but very distressing for many kids (and adults!). Some medicines make you more sensitive so an injection feels more like being stabbed than a ‘sharp scratch’. Very often prolonged medicine treatment like Chemotherapy does this. Not to mention the psychological impact of worrying about frequent and painful injections.Now, because of support and donations, we bought one of these amazing pieces of equipment, an Accuview. Being able to get the vein first time cuts down the amount of pain and upset hugely. But that’s not all. Small kids have small veins and often you have to ‘root around’ (a medical term, apparently!) to find the right position. The Accuview solves this – they can get in the vein first time and no rooting around, seriously reducing the pain down.I spoke to the nurses yesterday and they all loved the Accuview, even the most senior nurses were raving about it!

This one piece of equipment has already made many kids on the ward much happier, and their days will not be as overshadowed with the worry of painful, repeated attempts for injections.

This doesn’t just help the children, though. As a parent I hate to see my kids go through pain. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done asking Samuel to have repeated and painful procedures, knowing it would hurt, and not being able to take the pain away or protect him. With Accuview we can go some way to doing this and that means so much to me.

Each one costs a few thousand pounds so we still need help as we need two more of these amazing machines for the other childrens wards at St Georges Hospital.

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Sam Tanner – Bournemouth half marathon

October 6, 2013 by Peter · Leave a comment

Sam Tanner

Sam is Christian’s Aunty and is running a half Marathon at Bournemouth marathon festival for the Christian Blandford Fund.

Here she is with Christian the day after he was born. Like all the members of our large family, Sam was very supportive through Christian’s illness and we are very grateful that on top of that she is putting herself through a rigorous training schedule and 21km of pain for our charity!

Please support her below.

Please show give encouragement and support on Facebook here

If you can not see Virgin Money Giving page, here is a link to it

Sam with Christian

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Darren’s Iron Man

June 30, 2012 by Peter · Leave a comment

Darren Bowler, one of our trustees was once known as “the fat controller”. Amazingly, he is doing an incredible iron man event in Switzerland in a couple of weeks. It involves a 3.8k swim (in the lake with 2500 others) , 180km cycle (through the Alps) and finally he has to run a full marathon. He is doing this quite ridiculous event (which sounds to me like 12 hours of utter pain) all to Aid the Christian Blandford Fund.

Here he is with another Trustee Amy and Rachel from St George’s

Darren, Amy and Rachel

This is what Darren writes…

I’ve bored most of you before about my triathlons but this time the mid life lycra crisis has spiraled out of control !!! . On July 15th I’m attempting IRONMAN ZURICH . That’s a ridonkulus 3.8k swim (in the lake with 2500 other idiots!) , 180km cycle (apparently there are a few hills..ie the alps !) followed by the small matter of a marathon . My target is to complete it in 14 hours .
The good news is that I’m not asking for your hard earned cash to donate to some big charity where you are never really sure how/where your money is spent ….because I’m actually going to be spending the money myself ! . No not on a new spanking carbon bike . I am one of the trustees of the Christian Blandford fund and my focus has been spending the cash we have raised . The aim of the Christian Blandford fund is to improve the comfort of children and their families, particularly those affected by cancer, during prolonged stays in local NHS hospitals .


Over the last couple of years we have been able to make a real difference . A couple of months ago we saw the opening of a paediatric patients playground at St Georges hospital Tooting . The CBF contributed 30k to the cost of providing a real oasis for kids during their say in hospital . We have funded parents lounge , ultrasound machines to reduce the pain of frequent injections for kids , new sofabeds for parents who spend weeks…even months in hospital with there kids ,laptops and kindles for the kids to use ….the list goes on and on so please check out the site for all the details .

Please support me in my fundraising safe in the knowledge that every penny donated (we have NO costs) will be spent wisely and will make a real difference to kids and there parents during prolonged hospital visits .
Cheers,

Darren

The Virgin Money Giving page is here

Darren completed this grueling event in 14 hours ours, here is what he writes…

I just wanted to say a big thanks to each and every one of you for your support for my Ironman attempt on Sunday .

My day started at 7am with a gentle hour and a half swim . Then it got difficult ! …. The 7 1/2 hours on the bike was a
real slog . Hampered by rain ,wind and even hail, it was fair to say morale was fairly low at times . 180km later I was desperate
to get off the bike…. even if it did mean starting a marathon . I managed just over 2 hours for the first half but then ran out
of steam and finished the run in 4:45 . My target for completing the Ironman was 14 hours …..I finished in 14 hours and 40 seconds ! .

Your support and generosity helped keep me going on the day and thanks again from all of us at the Christian Blandford fund . So far
a staggering £12,500 has been raised . Mark my word every penny will be wisely spent ! .

All the very best Darren

Please feel free to give Darren encouragement with Facebook Comments here and like this page on facebook.

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Blondes On Bikes

June 26, 2011 by Peter · Leave a comment

Blondes on Bikes

Caroline Watt

Rachael Morgan

Fiona Spencer

Caroline Chalkley

378 Kilometres, 3 days, 4 blondes!

Blondes on Bikes – for one weekend only!

16th – 19th June 2011

Who would have thought any good could ever come from a mid-life crisis?? Turning 40 years can make people do the strangest of things – we have a bought a lot of lycra and decided to cycle from London to Paris – for one weekend only “Blondes on Bikes” go on tour!

The “Blondes on Bikes” team is a small collection of 40ish year old mums with a total of 10 children between us.  We all live Wandsworth, so our local hospital is St Georges.  It is no surprise that St Georges provides a full range of General Paediatric Medicine inpatient and outpatient services.  There are five children’s wards including eight Paediatric Intensive Care Unit beds for critically ill children.  The BoB team feels lucky that it has not had to use any of these services, but being in the heart of “nappy valley” there are plenty of families that have and the wonderful resources available are stretched to their limit.

Here is the fundraising page

The Take That tickets raised an amazing £1300. Even better, Mark Owen and his lovely wife, Emma, donated a second set of tickets for the people who came second in the auction and offered £1350 for another set. This brings the total raised by the blondes on bikes to over an incredible £7000. Thank you so much!

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Blondes On Bikes

June 8, 2011 by Peter · Leave a comment

Four mum’s from Clapham are taking part in an amazing cycle ride to Paris. These are their words not mine…

Who would have thought any good could ever come from a mid-life crisis?? Turning 40 years can make people do the strangest of things – we have bought a lot of lycra and decided to cycle from London to Paris – for one weekend only “Blondes on Bikes” go on tour! 

The “Blondes on Bikes” team is a small collection of 40ish year old mums with a total of 10 children between us.  We all live Wandsworth, so our local hospital is St Georges.  It is no surprise that St Georges provides a full range of General Paediatric Medicine inpatient and outpatient services.  There are five children’s wards including eight Paediatric Intensive Care Unit beds for critically ill children.  The BoB team feels lucky that it has not had to use any of these services, but being in the heart of “nappy valley” there are plenty of families that have and the wonderful resources available are stretched to their limit. 

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February 2011

February 21, 2011 by Peter · Leave a comment

21st February 2011

Christian has been very keen to have some input into the site and has written the following…

Thank you for coming to my website. The Christian blandford fund needs LOTS of money to make the children with cancer more happier. We need even more money for the St Georges hospital. If you like making children feel better then you definitely need to raise some money!

Well there you go! 😉

February 2011

The New Logo!!!

You have probably noticed that we now have a fantastic new logo. It was designed by Simon Brown of Shiny Brown Design. Simon gave up his time and expertise and refused payment for his services for which we are very grateful!

The other exciting item of news for the fund is that we are now a registered charity with the registered charity number 1139614. You can see it’s listing on the Charity Commission website.

January 2011

Christian’s Nanny, June Arthur, performed a demonstration of preparing Spanish tapas to the ladies of the NWR in Wimborne, the ladies generously donated £67 to the Christian Blandford Fund.

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Claudia’s 10km run

September 21, 2010 by Peter · Leave a comment

Claudia and Christian

Christian’s mum, Claudia has decided to run 10km to raise money for the Christian Blandford Fund, she writes…

Hi, thanks for visiting my page.  For those of you who know me, I am not a runner.  I may attempt to jog a little bit but I am rubbish – I don’t “do” speed, I constantly need to pee, and I always sprain my ankle.  Not the right ingredients really to attempt a 10k!  However, I am raising money for The Christian Blandford Fund.  Christian is my son and he has been through cancer twice.  As a family we have spent a huge amount of time in hospitals where we could see that they were crying out for basic things such as sofa beds for parents, curtains, high chairs, toys, electronic games etc.  We managed to raise enough money to buy these things, and much more, but we need to continue to raise funds – sofa beds break, curtains rip, toys don’t last forever.  Please help me to be able to continue to help the lives of sick children and their families in hospitals.  

Through Virgin Money Giving, you can sponsor me and donations will be quickly processed and passed to charities. Virgin Money Giving is a not for profit organisation and will claim gift aid on a charity’s behalf where the donor is eligible for this. I really appreciate all your support and thank you for any donations.

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Pete Radford ( not Blandford!)

June 3, 2010 by Peter · Leave a comment

Peter Radford has entered the grueling Etape du Tour bike ride and will raise money for two charities, Chase Hospice Care and The Christian Blandford Fund.

Pete is trying to raise £8,604 which is somehow relevant to the event. If you sponsor him you can guess what the link is and win a mystery prize!

He writes, “It is 112 miles and 3 mountain climbs in the Pyrennes. Given that I weigh twice as much as a pro-rider and prefer a G&T to protein shakes, this is a major challenge for me. Last year over 20% of the riders taking part did not finish – this must not be confused with a bike ride you can just turn up and get through on the day. We will be riding for around 10 hours on the day in 30 degrees heat. I am doing this ride with my mate Rob Lucas and we have been training since January, lost some weight and put a lot of miles on the bike. We are funding the ride ourselves with all the money from this site going straight to two charities.”

Peter Radford

Peter’s sponsorship page is here

Sponsor me on Virgin Money Giving

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