UPDATE - Issue 40 - Spring 2010
My charity challenge – 'Ten for twenty-ten'
by Jackie Lee
Sitting up in bed on 30 December 2009, I announced I would raise £10,000 in 2010 for Prostate UK! Head in hands, my husband groaned 'another of her mad schemes!' But here we are, three months later, living the dream and we've already raised over £3,000 and it’s only March. We had a fantastic time with our first event: seven piano recitals held in our own home (with six in one week... phew!). It was incredibly rewarding using my classically trained piano skills to raise so much money and entertain people at the same time and I loved every minute of the hard work practising (though my husband wasn’t quite so keen on the endless scales and exercises!). 133 people sampled my skills as a musician and my husband’s skills as catering manager, chef, frontof- house, stage manager, and most importantly, money extractor. We had amazing support, not just from concert-goers, but also from kitchen-helpers, cake bakers, dessert makers, donators of raffle prizes, group organisers (one friend bought 12 tickets!) and assistant money-extractors.
Dave 'Gimme Yer Money' Lee
In addition to raising money, our aim is also to raise awareness of prostate disease and Prostate UK. We’ve already spoken at a Rotary evening (with similar evenings in the pipeline) and my husband is speaking at a Lion’s Dinner in April. Becoming ill with advanced metastatic prostate cancer in 2004, aged only 53, he’s as keen as I am to spread the word while he is still well enough to be able to do so and Prostate UK’s mission to stop prostate disease ruining lives has become a driving force in both our lives.