Member’s Fundraising Ideas

ME Fly-in and Funday

Our daughter Laura has suffered from severe M.E. for 12 years. During that time, along with our friend Roger Southwell, we have raised modest amounts of money for some of the various M.E. charities.

Last year Roger and his wife Maureen suggested doing something a little more ambitious to raise money for a M.E. charity of Laura's choice. Roger suggested a 'Fly-in’ – both he and Clint hold a private pilots licence. We had a meeting in November 2004 and decided to hold a ‘Fly-in and BBQ' in July. However, as discussions proceeded, the event became bigger and more ambitious, eventually becoming known as the 'Fly-in and Fun Day' to be held on July 10^th 2005.

Laura was by now a staunch supporter of The 25% M.E. Group and thus had no hesitation in nominating them to benefit from the day.

Fellow pilot Rod Herbert, and his wife Georgie, had kindly offered their airstrip and hangar as a venue and joined the organising group. We decided to set a target of £5,000 profit from the day. Soon we had organised caterers, a bar, 6 piece jazz band, face painter, children's entertainer, parachute display, first aid cover, public liability insurance, portable toilets and most important of all, invitations. We also planned a tombola, auction of promises and a raffle.

By now we had committed to £4,000 of expenditure. Our aim was to provide a really good value for money family day out with much of the money coming from the raffle, donations, auction and sponsorship. 400 invitations were sent out, each with 2 books of raffle tickets to family, friends and business associates. Clint and Roger posted flyers at local airstrips to encourage visitors to fly-in.

By the middle of June it looked as if we would exceed our target with 200+ tickets sold and we were beginning to get overwhelmed with peoples generosity, donations and letters of support. The raffle was particularly well supported, with over 3,000 tickets sold

Saturday July 9^th arrived overcast, cloudy and with poor visibility, certainly impossible for visitors to fly in. However, we were all too busy to worry too much, except for Laura who was at home quite concerned that something would go wrong! We cleared out the hangar, set up tables, cleaned toilets (the portable toilets were kindly loaned free of charge by a local farm, but the cleaning contractors failed to turn up on Saturday morning!) put up an information board, made 26 activity and goodie bags for the children, put up direction signs etc, etc and hoped for better weather on Sunday.

Sunday dawned a bit misty but cleared to be the hottest day of the year. At 9.30am the first 6 of 38 planes arrived (from Yorkshire) and by 1pm we had over 250 guests. Two aerobatic planes gave an impromptu air display. The smell of a wonderful barbecue wafted over the fens and the jazz band played on in the intense heat.

About a dozen hardy souls went aerobatic flying, whilst children and adults alike had their faces, arms, legs and hands painted. The auction of promises was wonderfully successful (raising almost £3,000) and was followed by the parachutists who provided a fantastic finale to the day.

By 6pm most people had drifted home and we were all tired but happy. We'd made lots of new friends and reacquainted ourselves with old friends. We had been overwhelmed with the success of the day, had exceeded our target and had hopefully raised awareness of M.E., and The 25% M.E. Group in particular.

That evening Laura’s face was wreathed in smiles when Maureen rang to say we had exceeded £12,000 profit. On July 27^th, after the final count up, a cheque for £15,000 was presented to the Countess of Mar at Troon.

Our thanks are due to Simon and his team for all their support; 25% members for supporting the raffle; Graham for producing the invites, tickets, and DVD of the day; all the volunteer helpers; company and private donations and sponsorship; free loans of tables, chairs, toilets etc from local business, village halls etc and of course all the guests who flew or drove to the fens from as far as Cornwall and York to support the event.

A special thanks to Rod and Georgie Herbert for allowing us to use their facilities, and to Roger and Maureen for all their time, dedication and hard work. Without them the day could not have taken place.

By Clint, Lesley and Laura Judd