Another successful party!

The lovely Sherry Secker has written this blog about her very successful Cake Time Party in Claygate.  I'm sure it will inspire many to consider hosting a party.  Thank you Sherry for your enthusiasm, energy and hard work!

Thanks so much for asking me to post on your Cake Time blog about our Cake Time event, although truth be told, it nearly didn't happen! I'd been emailing my editor friend at Essential Esher about putting the article in her magazine which has a reach throughout Claygate and Esher, and hadn't heard back from her and was beginning to think "actually, maybe we won't do it", when I heard the post arrive and it was the Essential Esher with a fantastic spread about the Cake Time event. That was it - I was confirmed!

My husband, William's godfather, encouraged me to get on with it and with a few brilliant sparks from him, I was off!! Vistaprint kindly offered to print 1,000 invites for me at a very good rate, how could I refuse - we were going BIG!

The aim of the day was going to be more of a family fun day where we could appreciate time together as families, but also help make time for Harrison. As the word spread, the generosity of people was overwhelming. People were offering cakes and help, left, right and centre and the day would not have been even half as successful without them. I really felt like the community came together so beautifully and were really touched by Harrison's story and of course the bravery of Alex and Donna (Harrison's mum and dad).


I hoped to raise £500, but through the generosity of everyone who came along, raised £700! I was so nervous on the day, not knowing how many to expect, so as people started rolling in, I was so pleased and relieved!! I loved organising it and will definitely organise one again next year! My biggest laugh, having my husband and 2 friends on face painting duties! My biggest fear, the outcome of three 4 year olds bidding on a box of cup cakes which eventually sold for £15! There were two very unhappy children!

A brilliant day, and we are looking forward to organising the next one (not over half term though please!!). For now, however, we're onto the next big fundraiser for Harrison - recycling!! Yes - your old toothpaste tubes, tooth brushes and baby food pouches are worth money to Harrison's Fund - and it won't even cost you a penny! See our Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/RecyclingForHarrisonsFund) for more details or email me at recycleforharrison@gmail.com. And while we're at it, collecting empty baby wet wipe packets for Ellie's Fund too (http://www.facebook.com/elliesfundbabywipecollection) - because we're friendly like that and it helps save the planet ;-) !

See you next year!

Sherry

x

We're loving the recycling project, so come on get involved, help save the planet and Duchenne boys  maketime.........

And another party!

Another party in Salisbury, lasting the whole day, did fantastically well.  This is the write up and photo, thank you Di and Nicki, Harrison's Great Auntie and Granny, Amah, spreading awareness and raising a brilliant amount too.  We all appreciate the enthusiasm and effort needed to make these parties a success!

"My sister Di, put on a cake time party last Saturday in her home near Salisbury. She had a coffee and cake in the morning and tea and cake in the afternoon. I took all my crafty bits down as well. We had a steady stream of people come through all day and while the total wasn't as big as some of the cake time parties, I think we did quite well. Di took over £150.00 and I took £147.00, so nearly £300.00. She had worked very hard to make it a good day and even had her laptop set up for people to see Alex and Donna's video at home telling them about Harrison which I thought was brilliant, so the people knew exactly what it was all about.  I did take a photo, but unfortunately it was only my stall, but I have still attached it for you. I didn't think to take photos of the cake time parties. It was a most enjoyable day."

From an autumnal Salisbury we are jetting off to the balmy warmth of Dubai where Harrison's Auntie Kate hosted an outdoor cake time party with the Dubai Netball League at the Emirates Sevens Stadium on the 7th November . (Please blow some of the warm air this way)

Auntie Kate is amazing, she has set herself the challenge of swimming around "The World" islands in Dubai to raise £20,000 for Harrison's Fund.  That is a swim of 25km, an ultra marathon which will take at least 10 hours to complete in jelly fish infested waters!  She is now ready, fully trained and fit to take on the challenge which will start at dawn on the 21st November, a week today!  Please read all about her challenge here . You can also see a map of her route here  If you use Twitter please follow her, @swimaroundworld, and give her lots of support before her epic and very scary challenge.  Don't forget, you can sponsor her here

More parties and photos tomorrow, don't forget it's not too late to have a party, nobody wants to be a party pooper!!

Party, Party, Party....

There have been some brilliant parties happening around the globe, so this week we're going to give you a little flavour of them. As you'll probably soon be thinking why didn't I hold one, we'll just remind you it's not too late and all the information is here and a fundraisers' pack can be on it's way to you in a flash! 
 
Pearlfisher, an award winning design company that created the branding for Harrison's Fund, held the first fundraiser when the charity launched at the beginning of the year in their own inimitable style. Having produced a brilliant cake time party fundraiser's pack that many of you have received, they, of course, decided to hold their own style of party!  Have a look at the pics below...
Big thank you to Pearlfisher, doing it in style, as always.
 

 

 
 
 

 

Another great party held last week was in Essendon, Hertfordshire.  Christabel, has known Harrison's Dad, Alex, since he was 4 and we're sure can tell a few interesting tales.  Of course, she was very keen to support Harrison's Fund and loved the idea of holding a Cake Time Party and inviting both  her friends and the local community.  She raised an absolutely amazing £1030 and really enjoyed the morning, these are her words below although the part that really made us giggle has been put in italics.

 

Essendon Harrison's Cake Time Party

I am so excited to let you know that we raised £1030, including donations from people who could not attend, for my Cake Time Party, held at my home in Essendon, Hertfordshire.

It was so lovely to open my home to friends and neighbours who all entered into the spirit of things fantastically making such a fun morning. People arrived armed with all sorts of cakes and biscuits, items for the bring and buy and presents for the raffle. I had so many generous donations for the raffle including a voucher from our local beauty salon and even a two tickets for a Buddy Holly tribute evening at our local nursery. Those who arrived early were given jobs and I had two brilliant helpers on the coffee side of things and the washing up afterwards! How could you ever manage without such willing volunteers.

Lots of chatter and laughter filled my home and we even had two very brave men arrive late, during the raffle draw, who I managed to pull inside, fleece them of their money, give them some cake and they quickly gave their best wishes and left much to the dismay of my naughty ladies who thought I had provided entertainment!!

I am so grateful to all who came to support Harrison's Fund, for their generosity and spirit, it was a lovely, happy morning.

 

Thank you, Christabel, and your lovely helpers and visitors, sounds like a fabulous fun morning.

 

There will be more about the parties in the next few days so look out for new posts.

 

Make Time for Cake Time or Cake Time to Make Time....

Thame & Claygate... This is your chance to get involved

So who's missing the Great British Bake Off already? Have you been inspired to do some baking? Why not join 'Harrison's Cake Time Party' from the 1st-8th November?

We have a great fundraiser's pack full of useful resources and fun ideas available. From posters and invites to cake stencils and recipes we've got it covered. Whatever you need to hold a Cake Time Party at home or work or for a Cake Sale in a hall we've got everything you need apart from the cake!

If you would like a pack please send us an email via www.harrisonsfund.org, tweet us on Twitter, @harrisonsfund or @jennijjs, and we'll email one out to you.

If you don't have time to host your own Cake Time Party, and haven't been able to persuade a friend to do so for you then we'd like to tell you about two great Cake Time Parties because I know that if you live locally you are just going to want to get involved, if you'd like to bake a cake that would be fabulous, otherwise you can go along and enjoy buying and eating cake, and don't forget that there will be lots of activities for children too.

So here's the details:

10 -12 am 2nd November             John Hampden Primary School, Thame, Oxon
Organiser: Liz Smailes

10.30 - 1pm 3rd November          Holy Trinity Church Hall, Claygate, Surrey
Organiser: Sherry Secker

Katie's cupcakes sales a hit at school...

Earlier in the summer we ran a big awareness campaign supported by the launch of a video featuring Harrison and his family discussing the impact of Harrison's Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy diagnosis.  Since that time we have had so many contacts, donations, and offers to take on a challenge to fundraise for Harrison's Fund that it has really touched everyone close to Harrison and his family.

Yesterday we heard about Katie who has been making cupcakes - and we mean lots of cupcakes! She is selling them at her school to raise money for Harrison's Fund.  Katie is a gorgeous 15 year old from London who attends the Sacred Heart School in Hammersmith.  Katie watched the Harrison's Fund awareness video with her dad Michael and decided she wanted to do something to help. 



Katie loves baking cakes, her speciality is a lovely chocolate one that her Dad is rather partial to, and she is now quite an experienced baker, and decided that this was the way to raise money.  She's teamed up with her friend Louise who also loves to bake and they've raised over £40 on their first day with more days to come.

Here's the 70 cupcakes on their way into school today, don't they look delicious!

From everyone at Harrison's Fund and especially Harrison who always send a big smile to a pretty lady, a big thank you to Katie and her Dad for making time to watch the video together.

If you would like to help Harrison's Fund and join the Cake Time Party, we now have a great support pack complete with invitations, cut out bunting, recipes and lots more that we can email to you. Just send an email to Cake Time and we'll do the rest, and as Mel and Sue say, 1,2,3 let's bake!

Make Time for Cake Time...

Great British Bake Off Darlings support Cake Time Party

It's Tuesday or more precisely it's Great British Bake Off Tuesday, WooHoo!

We're planning to make some Soda Bread using Old Blue Eye's perfect recipe, never fails and then we're going to make some three fruits marmalade, grapefruit, orange, lemon to sell at the weekend at my local producers market, followed by Millionaire's Shortbread which We've never made before but want to try to see if it might also be on the list of bakes for the market.  We will have to try the shortbread so that could just possibly be when we settle down to watch the semis this evening, you've got to have a little something to watch, haven't you, and it is for a good cause, isn't it?

So while We're thinking about my baking we want to also thank Cathryn Dresser and Sarah-Jane Willis, everyones darlings and the great british public's star bakers from this series of Great British Bake Off for supporting Harrison's Cake Time Party with a fabulous recipe for Rhubarb Upside Down Cake, which we think may well be next on our baking list!  Lovely to have fruit in cake, makes it so easy to be sure they are virtuous, healthy and calorie free as they must be part of your five a day, don't you agree?

So do have a look at their recipe here and don't forget to let us know about your party so that we can add it to the news and we can cover the country in cake.

Make Time for Cake Time....

Holding a Harrison's Cake Time Party at work

I thought that you might be interested to see this great idea for running a Cake Time Party in the workplace. One of our lovely fundraisers, Anna, came up with this idea to hold in her team, SITSS, which is part of Children's Services, Herts CC. 

1. Set a convenient date for your Harrison's Cake Time Party.
2. Send out an invitation email to everyone asking for them to take part in a Cake Time Challenge by baking and bringing to work a cake on the Cake Time Party day. Ask for confirmation back of those willing to bake a cake so you know how many cakes you have on the party day, they can of course make more than one! Make a small charge, perhaps £1, for entering the challenge.
3. Include in the email that if they cannot/don't want to make a cake, not to worry as all the cakes entered will be sold on the day and so they can make their donation by buying a slice or more of the cakes.
4. Do tell everyone why you are raising money for Harrison's Fund, take a look at www.harrisonsfund.org for more information about the charity.
5. Send me an email to let me know you are holding a party and I'll send you the fundraisers pack to download.
6. Put up posters to remind everyone about your Cake Time Party.
7. Maybe persuade the bosses to donate a couple of small prizes for the winner and runner up of the challenge.
8. On the day set up a table for all the bakes, with plates, napkins etc, and enjoy!

Make Time for Cake Time

Do you need a fundraiser's pack for your Cake Time Party?

We now have a great fundraiser's pack full of useful resources and fun ideas available.  From posters and invites to cake stencils and recipes we've got it covered, whatever you need to hold a Cake Time Party at home or work or for a Cake Sale in a hall we've got everything you need apart from the cake!

Please send me an email via www.harrisonsfund.org, leave a comment on this blog, tweet me on Twitter, @jennijjs, I'm here and can email you a pack in a flash!

Make Time for Cake Time.....