Page 10 - Police World Edition 1 2014

Article
10 POLICE WORLD Vol 59 No. 1, 2014
The
Event
Birmingham, West Midlands branch recently organised a ‘Black Tie’ affair called The Big Charity Event.
Branch Vice-Chair, Adrian Mills, came up with the idea and the rest of the committee, Martin Sewell, Andy
Gregory and Brian Baston helped arrange and coordinate the evening.
Four charities were chosen as benefactors
from the event:- Marie Curie Hospice,
Solihull; Birmingham Children’s Hospital;
Parkinsons UK and The Brain Tumour Charity.
In the preceding months, a number of local and
national businesses were approached and the
branch received numerous donations of raffle and
auction prizes. The PMAS kindly offered some
sponsorship money and a few weeks before the
event, local business Cherish Properties offered a
substantial amount of sponsorship.
Cherish Properties is owned by former Sergeant
and IPA member, Steve Wright, and his wife Jill.
They offered to pay for the band and the tickets
for the charity representatives. Due to Jill and
Steve’s generosity, all four charities were able to
send two representatives to enjoy the evening
and give a short presentation about the work of
their organisations.
The Big Charity Event took place at Hogarths
Hotel, Dorridge, Solihull and the rooms and
conservatory were decorated beautifully. Over
100 guests attended and they were entertained
by a brilliant eight-piece soul-band ‘Junction 2’, as
well as being treated to a fantastic 3 course meal,
auction, ‘silent-auction’ and raffle.
On arrival, the guests were able to have
photographs taken whilst dressed in their finery,
by Phil Millership of Complete Photography.
At the recent Emergency Services show at the
National Exhibition Centre branch
Chair, Andy Gregory, met with Bryn
Hughes and Rob Stapleton who
were promoting the North Pole Run.
Serving Prison Officer Bryn Hughes
is the father of Nicola Hughes,
who was murdered along with her
colleague Fiona Bone in 2012 in
Manchester. Rob Stapleton and his
wife (serving police officers) were
colleagues of both Nicola and Fiona and were
also affected by the tragedy. Andy discussed
the IPA with Rob and he immediately joined at
the stand, electing to join his local Rochdale
branch. Bryn and his wife Natalie have recently
started a charity in Nicola’s memory; the charity
will raise funds for children who have lost a
family member or parent through an act of
murder. Bryn and Rob were telling Andy that they
have secured two spaces to run the North Pole
Marathon in April 2014. Andy was so impressed
by their story that he invited them to The Big
Charity Event to promote their cause: www.
pchughesnorthpolerun.co.uk
The Big Charity Event was a huge success with
loads of raffle tickets being purchased and lots
of bids in the auction. Each of the four charities
have received just over £1000 (one thousand)
each and Bryn Hughes received a donation of
£5000 from a local business to give Nicola’s
charity a kick-start.
During the evening a number of presentations
were made by Andy Gregory; Ade Mills received
a Chair’s Award, to recognise all of his charity
work in recent years and his wife Cat received
a bouquet of flowers for her help in arranging
the event.
Martin and Clair Sewell received a pen set and
flowers from 5-Region, for all of their help and
support while Martin was the Regional Chair prior
to Andy.
The final presentation was a bouquet of flowers
to Jill and Steve Wright, to thank them for the
sponsorship, enabling the charity ball to take
place.
Andy said, “A huge amount of work went into
organising the evening and without the efforts
of Ade Mills and Martin Sewell, we would never
have managed it. We are already discussing
organising the next event for Spring 2014”.
Rob Hughes, Steve Wright, Andy Gregory and Rob Stapleton
(photo by Complete Photography)
Andy thanks sponsors Steve and Jill Wright
Guests enjoying the evening