Supporting charities with funding

Posted by Ellee on Jan 6, 2011 in Blog, Headway | 6 comments One of the new professional services I am offering this year is assisting charities by completing their funding applications to various trusts and the lottery. As many charities struggle in the present economic downturn, there are potential pots of gold which I could help charities access by filling in their application forms, some of which are complex. As a journalist and academic researcher, I...
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Rooting for Johnson Beharry VC

Posted by Ellee on Jan 4, 2011 in Blog, Headway | 0 comments I  must admit I have never watched Dancing on Ice before, but I shall tune in for latest series starting this weekend as one of the celebrities include war hero Johnson Beharry VC, who is an ambassador for Headway, the charity I support which provides rehabilitation for brain injured adults. The decorated war hero hopes to inspire other soldiers and  brain injury sufferers by beating off stiff...
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Awaiting a cheque from Waitrose

Posted by Ellee on Dec 12, 2010 in Blog, Headway | 2 comments I had a phone call from Waitrose yesterday asking me who they should make the cheque payable to. I had no idea what the caller was talking about, until she informed me that we were one of their Ely store’s nominated Community Matters charities of the month. It was about six months ago that I had filled in the application form on behalf of Headway Cambridgeshire – we have strong...
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Bitter sweet victory for Rosie Wilson’s fight against suicide internet sites

Posted by Ellee on Dec 10, 2010 in Blog, Headway | 4 comments I had the pleasure of joining Rosie Wilson yesterday at The Dorchester where she won a national Headway Campaigner of the Year award for her determined fight to stamp out suicide internet sites. Her lovely daughter Ziggy had tried to commit suicide in June 2007 aged 23 after scanning a number of internet sites that provide detailed instructions to young people about how to kill themselves, even...
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The Media Trust and the Big Society

Posted by Ellee on Nov 9, 2010 in Headway | 2 comments I’m attending a conference in London today entitled “Communications for a Big Society” organised by the MediaTrust with speakers from the BBC, Guardian and Google. Do let me know if you have any questions on this topic and I will try and raise them. I’m interested to hear the panel discussion, “A Big Digital Society: how can digital media give power to the...
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Rosie Wilson’s brave stand against suicide internet sites

Posted by Ellee on Nov 4, 2010 in Headway | 14 comments The mother of a beautiful young woman who tried to commit suicide has been nominated for a national Headway award for her dedicated campaign to warn others against the dangers of sickening internet sites that provide encouragement about how vulnerable people can kill themselves. I will be joining Rosie Wilson, mother of Ziggy, who is one of our lovely service users at Headway Cambridgeshire, for...
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The day I met Simon MacCorkindale at Headway Cambridgeshire

Posted by Ellee on Oct 15, 2010 in Headway | 5 comments I was stunned to learn of the death of actor Simon MacCorkindale of cancer, aged only 58. He was a great supporter of Headway and was truly fabulous when he visited us at our Cambridge centre two years ago. Simon also had a local connection as he was born in Ely and retained close ties with his mother who lived outside Cambridge. At the time Simon was on tour with a theatre group performing in...
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James Cracknell and Headway

Posted by Ellee on Oct 11, 2010 in Headway | 3 comments All charities are very grateful for any celebrity endorsement they can get, though we do not seek it from such tragic circumstances as this. Olympic gold medallist James Cracknell sustained a devastating brain injury this July while cycling in America, and I am pleased to learn that the champion rower has been making good progress since his return to the UK. His stunning wife Beverley Turner, a...
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Between Life and Death, have you made a living will?

Posted by Ellee on Jul 14, 2010 in Headway, updates | 7 comments I’ve just watched last night’s harrowing BBC documentary Between Life and Death, which tracked the fate of three seriously brain injured people at the Neurosciences Critical Care Unit in Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, following terrible road accidents. No wonder it is a world famous hospital. I thought Neuro Intensive Care expert Prof David Menon was astounding in the way he...
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A weekend in Warwick and Hull

Posted by Ellee on Jul 9, 2010 in Headway | 10 comments I’m heading to Warwick University today (pic) to attend a national conference for the brain injury charity Headway this weekend. I last went two years ago and was really impressed by the campus. Up until then, my only recent experience of student digs was at Hull University where my son David was studying. If I explain that his was the last block to get a facelift, you might understand why...
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An evening at the Masonic Lodge, and charity shops

Posted by Ellee on May 27, 2010 in Headway | 7 comments I spent an evening at the gracious Cambridge Masonic Lodge this week where I was presented with a cheque for £1,250 on behalf of Headway Cambridgeshire, one of many local charities to benefit from the generosity of City & University of Cambridge Masonic Charitable Trust Donations totaling £58,250. They are keen to let the wider world knew of their philanthropic spirit, denying any secrecy...
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Should cycle helmets be made compulsory?

Posted by Ellee on May 19, 2010 in Headway | 11 comments This week is Headway’s national Action for Brain Injury Week and one of the visitors to our stall at Addenbrooke’s Hospital was Dr Mary Archer, chairman of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. I was so impressed. She has wonderful people skills and took great interest in our work, thanking everybody personally for their involvement. We all thought she was terrific. She...
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Our Headway ball

Posted by Ellee on Mar 1, 2010 in Headway | 7 comments I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who supported our Headway Cambridgeshire ball at the weekend and made it such an outstanding success, raising more than £2,000 on the night. Any charity will tell you how tough it is to keep the money rolling in when there are so many worthy causes competing for it. I ended up buying the stunning painting of Madonna for my sister Rosalind...
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My Headway update

Posted by Ellee on Feb 5, 2010 in Headway | 4 comments We have recruited four excellent new trustees at Headway Cambridgeshire and I look forward to working with them to strengthen the board and take forward our exciting new plans  in the pipeline, including opening centres in Peterborough and Fenland. I am strongly urging them to attend an excellent training course for new trustees to fully understand their roles and responsibilities, and four...
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Join Headway and Abba Queens next month

Posted by Ellee on Jan 26, 2010 in Headway | 1 comment If, like me, you are an Abba fan, you won’t want to miss the chance to boogie along to Dancing Queen and Waterloo at our Headway Cambridgeshire ball next month. The Abba Queens tribute band will be topping the bill at Chilford Hall, near Cambridge on Saturday 27, February during our night of glitter and glamour. There will also be a casino and charity auction led by my husband who has the...
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Trustees – the unsung heroes of charities

Posted by Ellee on Jan 16, 2010 in Headway | 1 comment Because this is a subject close to my heart as chair of trustees for Headway Cambridgeshire, I am republishing this article in full. We are currently recruiting new trustees and are extremely fortunate to have had applicants from very skilled, professionals who are willing to give up some of their free time to volunteer their services. Being a trustee is an extremely rewarding role and I strongly...
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Is Helen the UK’s top fundraiser?

Posted by Ellee on Dec 20, 2009 in Headway | 2 comments At a time when fundraising is close to crisis levels for some charities due to the credit crunch, Helen Bearfield- Smith has raised a staggering £1 million in two years in East Anglia for Teenage Cancer Trust. It means that a new specialist unit at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge which started this month can open in December 2010 and will treat patients aged 13 to 24 from across East...
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Describing life after a head injury

Posted by Ellee on Nov 23, 2009 in Headway | 2 comments This is one tragic example of how an acquired head injury can dramatically change your life for ever.  Felicity Aston, the polar adventurer and Antarctica scientist, has described the terrible events which followed after her younger brother Spencer, now 21, was in a car crash while at grammar school and predicted good GCSE grades. This is an extract from her moving account in yesterday’s...
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Headway Cambs seeks new trustees

Posted by Ellee on Oct 29, 2009 in Headway | 3 comments We are very fortunate at Headway Cambridgeshire in having a young board of savvy trustees with interesting jobs. At the same time, being a trustee requires time and commitment and sometimes it has to give way for career moves. That’s the situation we find ourselves in at the moment which is why we are currently seeking a new Company Secretary and board members with financial skills and...
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How charities can attract philanthropists.

Posted by Ellee on Oct 15, 2009 in Headway | 9 comments It was reassuring to hear at yesterday’s conference about raising funds from the rich that there are many millionaire philanthropists with spare money to give away. I was just one of 1,848 delegates from the third sector keen to discover the key to this. And after hearing from the speakers, it all made very good sense. Firstly, it is most important to develop a relationship with the intended...
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How to ask for a million pound gift

Posted by Ellee on Oct 14, 2009 in Headway | 9 comments “How to ask for a million pound gift” is the title of one of the eye catching presentations which will be given today at a conference I am attending entitled Raising Funds From The Rich. It is aimed at the third sector and I am hoping to pick up some tips as chair of trustees. We will be told how to turn a “no” into a “yes” when asking for donor fundraising, and how to turn a...
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