2019 Charity Night

I must start by saying thank you to every single person who helped make our second ever Auction of Promises, Quiz, and Raffle Night, the huge success that it was. I absolutely could not have pulled this off on my own.

We had a fantastic night! We had 15 teams turn up to pit their knowledge against each other, all in the name of charity. The atmosphere was fantastic – shouts of annoyance when someone could picture the answer in their mind but couldn’t find the right word, to cheers of excitement when a confident team member thought they knew the answer straight away.

Quiz topics included sports, celebrities, history, geography, general knowledge, and food & drink. For those who couldn’t make it, here’s a couple examples to test you:

• What would you be doing if you ‘shuck’ an oyster?
• In 1867, what did the United States purchase from Russia for $7.2 million?
• What year was the first iPhone (iPhone 2G) released?

In the end, the top two teams both featured a number of Academics (at least two Historians on each team!) so the competition was tough! But we could only have one winner and one team of local teachers stormed home to victory in the end.

The raffle proved popular, and all prizes were snapped up as the night progressed and more numbers were called. The winning quiz team proved extra lucky on the night, with at least 3 of the 5 team members holding winning raffle tickets too! Quiz team members also logged onto our online auction and bidding quickly jumped up by over £300 on top of the significant amount already raised in advance.

At the end of the night it was lovely to be able to go home together: a contrast to last year where I went back to the hospital where I had a room in the Ronald McDonald accommodation to give me a break from the hospital ward. Clara hadn’t been able to attend the event at all last year as she was tied to her intravenous feeding pumps, but this year she made it and was tucking into lots of gingerbread snacks before she fell asleep for the night in her pushchair. What a difference a year can make.

In total, this year, we raised £506 from the quiz and the raffle, and £1,001 on the Auction of Promises. That’s a combined total of £1,507- a truly fantastic amount that will be a huge support to SSNAP (Support for sick newborns and their parents) at the Neonatal Critical Care Unit, at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

In addition, £605 was raised last week by our 8k charity race at Blenheim Palace, with all funds going direct to the Children’s Hospital Charity.

To date, we have raised £10,600.

Thank you doesn’t seem to express our gratitude for your support enough.