We saw this in a Sunday paper recently and thought we would share this beautiful piece of architecture with you….

Half went to the Disaster relief fund (The Red Cross and Save the Children) who were quick to respond to the heartbreaking news of the Japanese Tsunami and East Africa famine.

We also made a bursary available to the charity Twilight Children who provide an outreach service to vulnerable street Children in Jonhannesburg. The centre provide refuge, support and education to children who have no adult or family support, in the longer term they aim to teach life skills and give vocational training so the children can become independent citizens within the community. When we became involved, the charity had just opened a library and had received a valuable donation of 200 pairs of shoes. We were asked if our bursary could be used to buy winter clothing for each student, an essential for the coming winter where temperatures can dip to -5. Of course we were delighted to be able to assist and plan to provide an annual bursary for essentials like reading glasses, clothing and teaching aids.

We were really moved by our local Christmas appeal for gifts and financial donations. The thought of anyone, especially children, going without a gift or food at Christmas (or any time of year) is heartbreaking and unnecessary when there is abundance elsewhere in the community. This charity works with local Health visitors and Homestart to identify people who could do with a helping hand and our contribution bought children’s gifts (direct from Santa himself!), yummy food parcels and hopefully made the festive period a bit brighter all round. Last year over 5,000 families benefitted from the appeal and we plan to continue our support on an annual basis.

Finally, a sporting donation to paralympian Tim Prendergast who won gold in the T13 800m at the Athens games. A team mate of David’s at Woodford Green running club, the New Zealand athlete began losing his vision aged eight and currently only has 5% vision. He is hoping to qualify for the London 2012 games which requires return visits to New Zealand for qualifying races, training equipment and various other expenses.

So all in all, we made a few peoples’ day to day lives a little bit better thanks to your patronage and in the future we hope to spread the love far and wide. Thanks again, it sincerely means a lot.