Vale House

A concert by the Oxford Brass Players – with special guests – was held on the evening of 1 January 2012 in the Cowley Conservative Club with the proceeds all going to Vale House.

In the picture below, Frank Wolff (who organised concert, was master of ceremonies and conducted the band) presents the cheque for over £800 to Evelyn Wilks, one of our directors (with Nurse Val Watchorn)
ad John Williams, Chairman). Evelyn will give Nina the details including the exact amount raised for the website.

The concert included Diane Elliott who danced ‘For the love of a Princess’, Marilyn Elliott, soprano, who sang ‘As long as I have Music’ and the Scottish Piper Jim Pearson who played several tunes.

Vale House was nominated for the 2011 Charity of the Year to the OCVA (Oxfordshire Community and Voluntary Action).  At the awards presentation in October at Oxford Town Hall, we were delighted that Vale House received a Special Mention.

Competition for the awards was intense and the judges said that they had had a challenging task.  The winner of the Charity of the year was Restore.

Tim Stevenson, The Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire, announced and presented the Charity Awards and when announcing Charity of the Year he specifically mentioned Vale House, what we did and our move in the near future to a new building in Sandford on Thames.

Training started back in September last year, when evening temperatures in Dubai were 46 deg C, and ended with a week of sub-zero runs around the UK coast line in the snow and ice.

After 20 weeks, and over 1,000km of training, it is all over at last! I set out to do just the one marathon and to tick the box, rather than take up running as a sport, as I think I have enough of others. My target had always been firstly to finish and, secondly, to be under four hours – so 3hrs 29mins 0sec is much better than I had ever dreamed.

Firstly, my thanks must go to Mattias Wallentin, my Swedish training partner and fellow marathon runner. Working as a team helped motivate us to keep the training on track and drove us through the highs and lows of achievement, injury, monotony and pain!

Many thanks to Marilyn Oakey who organised the Justgiving website and the publicity for me.

Many thanks to all of you who have donated so generously towards Vale House, a very valuable cause providing palliative care to many people suffering from Alzheimer’s. Vale House is located in Botley which is a suburb of Oxford and very close to the original Lucy Factory site. It was nice to run the Dubai Marathon, where Lucy’s is based, and to do so for a charity which is back in Lucy’s home city of Oxford.

Finally, thanks to Rosemarie (my wife) for putting up with me disappearing for hours on end, even when we had only short periods together.

Director, Evelyn Wilks, said: “A big thank you to everyone who supported our Bazaar with donations for stalls and wonderful raffle prizes, manned stalls or came along on the day.
It was a great success and to date we have raised nearly £2,400 and there is more to come. The remaining items will be kept for our Abingdon stall in the New Year.”

The group of 26 hardy walkers took on the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge in July. This was an extremely demanding challenge hiking the summits of Pen-y-ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough all in one circular 26 mile route with over 1,600m of climbing. The challenge was not only to complete the walk, but to do it in under 12 hours! The fantastic news is all but two of the group finished in under 12 hours, with the speediest making it back in a staggering 9 hours and 15 minutes.

The team were delighted to raise over £8,000 to share between two charities: Vale House and Help For Heroes. Team leader, strategic director Matt Prosser, said:

“I’m proud to say our team rose to the challenge, walking the equivalent of a marathon over steep terrain in under 12 hours. I’m delighted we’ve managed to raise over £8,000 for two really good causes.

“We’d like to say a big thanks to all the friends, family and collegues who sponsored us, and thanks also for the generous donations we received from our contractors Nexus Community, Capita, SOL Leisure and Verdant.”

I wanted to raise money for Vale House instead of having birthday pressies because there is only so much bubble bath a girl can use and, more importantly, because I know what wonderful work the staff at Vale House do. I have spent 30 years working with people with dementia and recognise a special care home when I see one. If you are person with dementia you may not be able to remember what has been, what is to come, who the people around you are or even who you are. But you will know and experience what is happening in this moment now. Vale House make that moment matter. They make the moment warm and loving and fun and secure and when the moment is confusing and frightening offer comfort and clarity. They know that difficult behaviour is a natural response to disorientation and confusion that it needs sensitive understanding and containing. That is not always easy. Your donation will help them to continue being brilliant and develop their new home.

The total raised was £1025.12