10 members of staff from the Four Pillars Hotel Group have entered into the Oxford Half Marathon on 14 October.  They are fitting in their training around their usual work schedule – come rain or sunshine, strong winds and wet roads, you name it!

Every penny raised will make a difference to Vale House. If you would like to lend your support to this intrepid team of 10, please visit their Just Giving page www.justgiving.com/FourPillarsRunners and make a donation.

Any support that you are able to give will be gratefully appreciated by all the runners who are training hard to make sure they  make it round the course in one piece!

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Lawyers from local law firm Morgan Cole have come together to form a choir as part of a fundraising initiative to raise money for Vale House, the charity dedicated to caring for people with severe dementia.

As Morgan Cole’s charity of the year, the new care home at Sandford on Thames has benefited from over £500 raised by lawyer James Greig and his colleagues who have entertained residents and their families with a fundraising concert.

James Greig and his 12-year-old son Alastair, a pupil at Magdalen College School, went further on their fundraising quest by undertaking a challenge of a different kind in aid of Vale House. Together, they took on a marathon climb of the highest mountains in Scotland, England and Wales within 24 hours and raised over £1,300.

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Oxford Thames Four Pillars Hotel held a Fun Day on Sunday September for an afternoon the whole family enjoyed. There were a range of activities and events including

• Falconry display
• Local arts and crafts
• Outdoor games
• Disco
• Ice cream van
• Tombola
• BBQ and refreshments
• Face painting
• Inflatable bouncy castle and activities for the children
• Oxfordshire Fire Brigade and Police Community Officer

And the best bit…………all profits raised go to Vale House

The Oxford Mail has run another article on our Strictly Oxford fundraising event

Click on the link to read the PDF: Oxford Mail Strictly Article

As part of their campaign, the committee applied to a range of grant making bodies that support projects such as the Vale House new care home development.

The campaign couldn’t have got off to a better start with their first application to the Sir Jules Thorn Trust. The Trust is dedicated to the prevention and treatment of disease and the care of the sick and the disadvantaged. The Charity makes grants to numerous charitable causes throughout the United Kingdom in support of medical research, medicine generally and charities engaged in humanitarian work.

“The Trust was very pleased to be able to assist with the fund-raising appeal and thus to help enable Vale House to continue its wonderful work in its superb new care home at Sandford”, David Richings, Director, The Sir Jules Thorn Charitable TrustThe result of the application was an amazing grant of £250,000 awarded by the trust to go towards the construction costs of the new home.

“We are delighted that the Sir Jules Thorn Charitable Trust has made such a significant grant to the Vale House development. Their support of this pioneering new care home will help hundreds of people in Oxfordshire receive the care and support they need at such a difficult time in their life. Living with dementia impacts not only the person but also their friends and family – the effect can be devastating and that is why it is so important that Vale House has the ability to go on and support more people now and into the future through the growth of their service. We thank the Sir Jules Thorn Trust for helping us to make great strides with our appeal for the new Vale House care home, “ Richard Dick, chair of the Vale House Appeal Committee.

Maxine Goble, Chair of the CSR committee in the Thames Valley says, ‘It was important to us that the charities that we put forward to the staff vote were local to us here in the Thames Valley as we want to be able to make a difference in our community. We also considered the size of the charities as we hope to make a real difference to a smaller charity. I am delighted that the staff chose Vale House to be our charity of the year.”

She adds, “We are already considering the ways in which we can assist Vale House, from volunteering to compete in their Strictly Oxford event to attending other events that they run.  We hope to organise a charity summer party for staff and we are also hoping to field a large team in the Oxford Half Marathon, which will take place in October, to raise money.”

Katherine Swingler, Human Resources Director for the group said: “In 2011 we had our first focussed year of fundraising for one national charity and we were overwhelmed by the support we had across the group, so for 2012 we decided to choose local charities in the Oxfordshire & Gloucestershire regions, so that more members of the team could get involved on a more local level. Supporting a local charity both through fundraising and being a member of the local community is something that is integral to the team here at Four Pillars Hotels and it is great to get so many people within the hotels joining in with events to raise monies for such good causes. We chose Vale House as our Oxfordshire Charity of the Year as it is such a worthwhile cause which will touch most people at some point in their life, and with the opening of the new Vale House being so local to our Oxford Thames Hotel it meant that in addition to fundraising we could also offer our support in other ways.”

There are many fundraising events planned for the year, details of which can be found on the Four Pillars website www.four-pillars.co.uk/charity.

Click on the link to read the PDF: Oxford Mail Strictly Article