Police World Edition 1 2014

Article

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.

Andy thanks sponsors Steve and Jill Wright

Rob Hughes, Steve Wright, Andy Gregory and Rob Stapleton (photo by Complete Photography)

F our 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

Guests enjoying the evening

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” .

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POLICE WORLD Vol 59 No. 1, 2014