WENDY'S DIARY
Wendy Simpson is one of the original trustees for River Kids.
October 2008
We held our first ladies night with fun and games played all night long and raised more than we thought possible. Our thanks go to Lesley Baird for organising this event and we plan to run more in the near future.
September 2008
We have our first bowling event on Thursday 18th September and currently have eight teams entered. This is intended as a fun night and a way of raising the profile of River Kids, I will let you know who won soon.
July and August 2008
We have spent some time during July and August filling out grant applications for core costs and salaries. We are now getting requests from the physiotherapy department and parents alike for help with equipment for disabled children and I need to spend more time in the office planning and organising events. Hopefully we will get some positive responses and will be able to help more and more children in the coming months.
June 2008
We held a parachute jump in June with five people from ASDA jumping out of a very scary plane with no doors! The first time we went through the weather changed and we spent most of the day waiting for the cloud to break so only two people jumped. We went back at the end of June and the other three all jumped on the 27th and have raised almost £2,000 for River Kids.
May 2008
We held our third golf day sponsored again by Bank of Scotland and teams entries were up again this year. The trophy was won by the team from Centrex House. This was another successful event and enabled us to buy a specialised bike for a local child.
16th April 2008
Our new website (though still under construction) went live today. All the important stuff is in place but we still need to post our photographs for all to see.
11th February 2008
Glennis Gibson from The Virtual Eye has agreed to make us a new website (free of charge).
It's great we can rely on businesses in the community to support our organisation.
We went back to Edinburgh Dungeons for a sleepover another successful event. I really don’t know why these events capture everyone’s imagination, but they do, and if you want to join us at our next one then give me a call.
January 2008
We had another ghost event with Ghost Events Scotland and this time it was a venue in Queensferry. This time we had lots of activity and the group that went can’t wait to go back there.
December 2007
Christmas time again and this year the party was held at the Hilcroft Hotel in Whitburn. I can’t believe this is the third Christmas Party and numbers have grown again. The steady growth we see for the charity is incredible and we have more and more businesses wanting to get involved with us. The charity is starting to become what we hoped for 2 ½ years ago.
November 2007
We received a call asking why we had returned a donation. We hadn’t returned the donation and this call brought to light an issue with River Kids post. We were very concerned about this and contacted the post office. The mix up was resolved very quickly and we started getting post again.
Five people were sponsored to jump out of a very scary plane. I stood on the ground and watched!
September 2007
Another ghost hunt with the ghost events team....these have captured peoples imagination... this time we went to Chillingham castle in Northumberland, and although there wasn’t much activity, everyone came back anxious to go again.
May 2007
Our second golf day arrived along with sponsorship from Bank of Scotland Business Banking. We had 10 teams this year which is a great improvement on last year and another successful event helping us move even closer to our target.
April 2007
After the success of the dungeon overnight stay the group were eager for more and we organised our first ghost hunting event. We spent the night on the Frigate Unicorn in Dundee. We were fortunate to be the first group taken on board by Ghost Events Scotland and we found some very strange things there. The group had a great time, even if we did have to drive home in the early hours of the morning.
March 2007
One year since we gained charitable status and we are still here and helping children in West Lothian. We have had many changes in trustees as 4 of the7 were related to River FM. We now have trustees from the business community and we are starting to see growth of the charity.
1st February 2007
We moved into our new office in Stadium House today and this is now our home for the
foreseeable future. Having a base that is secure has enabled us to
continue the work we started and we are now growing with more and more
people choosing River Kids as the charity they want to support.
Now we have an office, we have to tell everyone where we are,
fortunately, having the same address means the post doesn’t need to be
redirected and this meant that donations still get to where they are
intended, everyone else has been informed by phone or email.
January 2007
2007 started off with River FM closing in January. Since the closure
of River FM, River Kids has moved office, changed trustees and has been
very well supported by the business community in West Lothian.
The
initial reaction was....where do we go now? How do we continue? The
answer came from Livingston Stadia Management, who offered us an office
(free of charge)
2006 was very hectic for River Kids, we held a Jail and Bail in April, A Golf Day in June, World Cup matches were shown on the big screens at VUE Cinemas and the donations from that were given to River Kids. At the end of the year we held our Christmas party which was a great success and the raffle raised over £800.
Since then we have had many donations from many people and been supported by large and small businesses alike, please take a look at our sponsors page, you never know the company you work for may already be supporting us.
We are now have £8,000 left to raise for St. John’s Children’s Department and we are inviting requests for donations from individuals/groups that are involved with children and would like some help or support to reach a target. We recently donated to Broxburn Colts to help them with the cost of football strips.
December 2006
Christmas already. The Christmas party was held at Houston House and we had Madison entertain us along with the River FM presenters.
November 2006
A group of 20 people went to Edinburgh Dungeons and stayed overnight. We raised in excess of over £2,000 with this one event and plan to run more of this in the future.
October 2006
Woohoo, we are one year old. Happy birthday to us.....
Jim Devine asked if we would like to raise some money by having photographs taken with the SPL Trophy. We of course said YES. We approached ASDA and they gave us space in their foyer to have the photos taken. ASDA donated the development of the photos and we had photographers from West Lothian College taking the photos.
The Federation of small business held their annual dinner and donated the proceeds to River Kids. Alex Salmond was the key speaker on the night and I remember a very interesting story about a trip to China. Alex kindly agreed at that dinner to donate a signed bottle of whisky to River Kids. It ended up being one of the first given out with Alex as First Minister.
June 2006
River Kids first Golf event. I don’t play golf so I was lead by the staff at Deer Park Golf and Country Club. They made the day go smoothly and although there were only 5 teams , we still raised some much needed money for the play area at St. John’s.
Throughout June and July, Vue Cinemas were showing the World Cup games on a cinema screen. They charged £1 per person and donated the money raised to River Kids. They gave us a cheque for over £1,000.
April 2006
We held a Jail and Bail and with the help of the community police force, we arrested James Russell from River FM and Ros Deward from SKY. When fundraising to get Ros released, someone was very upset as she thought Rod Stewart had been arrested.
31st March 2006
We decided to apply for charitable status and this arrived today. We also felt we needed to have a focus for the first 12 months and because we were going to concentrate on children, we felt the Children’s department at St. John’s was a good place to start. We approached them and asked them that if money was no object, what would they like? The response was a play-area for the children to use, and also for use in the waiting area in outpatients. This has been our main focus and continues to be the major project we support.
February 2006
Race Night held by Chamber of Commerce at the Cairn Hotel in Bathgate. Met lots of people there and had a great time betting on the races.
Vue Cinemas held a screening of Chicken Little and the proceeds were donated to River Kids. This was our first event with Vue Cinemas.
December 2005
River Kids had their own Christmas party, and this was held at Livingston FC. We had a Robbie Williams Tribute and the challenge was thrown down to Donny by ‘Robbie’ to tap dance if we raised £100. Someone offered to double the amount if he did it without his trousers. Not one to shy away from a challenge, Donny accepted…….unfortunately we don’t have pictures….but if you do, please get in touch!
3rd November 2005
Our first fund raising event was held today and we held a bucket collection at the Annual Christmas light switch on at the Almondvale Centre in Livingston. We raised over £400 that night and along with other donations received, we gave the Children’s Department at St. John’s Hospital £600 to enable them to hold a Christmas party for the children that had used their service in the previous 12 months.
3rd October 2005
River Kids was set up today when I was approached by Donny Hughes to set up a charity for the West Lothian area.