Northampton School for Girls Assistant Heads Paul Parker, Paul Smith and Paul’s sister Sarah Parker cycled the 118 miles of the Devon Coast to Coast from Ilfracombe to Plymouth between 31 May and 2 June 2010, raising money for Thomas’s Fund. This is a montage of images and footage from their memorable trip.

Thomas’s Fund Ambassador Andy Dickson (in the red shirt) and Bryan Tillyer (in the blue shirt) are taking part in the Bolton Iron Man triathlon this Sunday, August 1, raising funds for us.

Bryan explains: “My name is Bryan. I am 44 years of age and I live in Northamptonshire.  I have been running half and full marathons for most of my life and have raised lots of money along the way for many charities. Due to suffering many injuries, I decided I needed to rethink my training. I learned how to swim with my coach Keith and took up cycling, to take the pressure off my aching knees and blistered feet, not to mention the nerve damage, shin splints etc. etc.

“This led me onto triathlons, which I found I was good at and thoroughly enjoyed. 
Last year I took part in the half Iron Man and despite my wife Tania’s apprehension, I applied to compete in the Iron Man in Bolton on August 1, 2010. I relish new challenges and following my Lands End to John O’Groats cycle ride last year, which I took part in with six other like minded ‘athletes’, there is no stopping me now!”

“Why am I doing this for Thomas’s Fund? My wife and I have four children; the eldest Lee is 25 years of age. Lee suffered irreversible brain damage at the age of one year.  He is quadriplegic, has learning difficulties, is registered blind and has numerous physical and medical problems, which impact on his quality of life. Despite these difficulties, Lee is happy and when well, his quality of life is very good. When Lee was younger he enjoyed and benefited greatly from music therapy both at school and at home. Today music is still very much a huge part of his life.

“We met Lucy and Harry, Thomas’s brother, whom this charity is in memory of, a
few years ago, and when Lucy told us about Thomas’s Fund, I decided that my next
challenge would be for this charity.  The work of this charity is so beneficial for children of all ages in many ways. Music therapy offers children sensory stimulation and introduces them to a range of musical instruments to help them develop their skills. In Lee’s case it also provided him with a way to communicate his feelings.  Tania and I believe this charity is a worthy cause and we would greatly appreciate your support.  Your donation will enable children in Northamptonshire who have a life limiting illness or disability and are unable to attend school for periods of time to benefit from music therapy.”

Thanks, Bryan! 

On February 25, Harry and Lucy Smith collected a cheque for £2,500 from Alumet Systems who chose Thomas’s Fund as their charity last year. This was achieved in a variety of ways including £1,200 corporate donations, Max Hastings completing the Devon Coast to Coast race, and not sending Xmas cards but giving a donation instead.

The Sporting Bears Motor Club have done some fundraising for Thomas’s Fund, both locally and nationally. If you’d like to find out more about them, their website is here.

Thomas’s Fund was chosen in November as one of the 12 charity finalists in the Chronicle & Echo/Barclaycard 2009 Community Awards scheme.

Staff at the Northampton head office of Nationwide Direct have chosen to support Thomas’s fund over the next year. The first event was on Tuesday 8 September: they decided to dress their desks to the theme of Carnivals. Each team chose a theme ranging from “Pirates” to “Miss World”, and Fund co-founder Lucy Smith had the difficult task of choosing a winner. The teams did other fundraising activities such as tombolas, selling hot dogs and popcorn, cakes and treasure hunts. Lucy is pictured with Clare Starmer, who introduced her to each team.

Northampton Town Football Club’s Charitable Foundation has appointed its official charity partners for the 2009/2010 season. Which includes Thomas’s Fund, as well as The Alzheimer’s Society, The Warwickshire and Northamptonshire Air Ambulance, MacMillan Cancer Support, Motor Neurone Disease Association, Northamptonshire branch, Northampton Samaritans, Noah’s Ark Play Group and Duston Kids Aid (all worthy causes, both local and national).

The newly formed Foundation will bring together the club’s extensive charity work and will see the club work with a selected number of charity partners on a season by season basis. The Northampton Town Football Club Charitable Foundation plans to harness local passion to make a major difference to charities in Northampton and beyond.

This entitles Thomas’s Fund to a bucket collection during the season as part of a themed home game in support of charity, use of the club badge for promotional purposes, and media coverage of charity events in club’s match programme and website. Each partner will be adopted by 2 or 3 players who will make at least 2 personal appearances on behalf of the charity each year (fantastic news!), and there will be a donation from the club’s fundraising proceeds.

“Choosing the charity partners was a very difficult decision,” said John Morris, Chairman of Northampton Town’s Charitable Foundation.

“We had over 30 applications and we could easily have said yes to them all, they were all such worthy causes. We hope we have got a good balance across the spectrum with the focus very much on helping local charities, or national charities who have a local base. The aim of the foundation is to help the community of Northampton.

More details on the the Cobblers website, which is here.

Thomas’s Fund will have a stand at the excellent Spratton Folk Festival, this weekend, July 10-12. More information on the festival and all the great bands playing here

Twitter is the social networking website that currently draws around 6 million visitors a day. Jonathan Ross is among the large number of celebrities who use it to announce what they are doing at any given time, in no more than 140 characters. On April 27, he announced that he had donated some money to Thomas’s Fund. This is what he wrote:

“www.thomassfund.org.uk. I just made a donation to this special cause. Every little helps…”

By providing a link, he advertised the Fund to his 360,000 “followers” (that is, those members who choose to view his “tweets”, or blog entries). Andrew Collins, also a member of Twitter, got in touch with Jonathan to ask why he chose Thomas’s Fund and it turns out that Lucy Smith had brought the charity to his attention. He was happy to help.

Read the full story in today’s Chronicle & Echo here.

Here is our new promotional film, which can also be viewed on YouTube. (Why not pay us a visit there and up the number of views for the film?)