Thursday 10 June 2010

The story of organizing a charity event.

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I think I may have been a little remiss over the past couple of month by not updating my blog as much as I should be. I see posts by other great bloggers appearing every week or two but mine appear about once a month. I thought I would take time away from testing issues and blog the reason why I have not been as actively involved in the testing community as I would like to have been. This is a subject close to my heart and some may read and feel it is a little self indulgent however the cause IMO is more than worthwhile.

On Saturday 5th of June 2010 my wife and I organized in conjunction with the Amateur Poker Players League Europe (APPLE)

a poker tournament at the Prince of Wales Pub, Bishopstoke, Eastleigh to raise money for the Help for Heroes Charity.


Apart from running the main poker tournament we had a pool tournament, a raffle and various other fun events. The support of local business was outstanding and overwhelming they could not do enough to help and given the current economic climate it was extremely humbling It was a different story with the large companies who I shall not name here who were not interested at all so when you think you need to pop out to get a pint of milk or buy something try to think of your local community businesses first rather than the big uninterested corporations.

The reasoning behind this is that our son-in-law (Lance Corporal Matthew Wellington) who is in the Royal Engineers returned from his tour of Afghanistan. His role with the Royal Engineers is with the EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal,) which as you can imagine is a highly dangerous and stressful job. He has a daughter who is now 2 years old and unfortunately has only seen her daddy for about 1 year of her life since this is Matthews’s second six month tour of Afghanistan within two years.

He has done his duty whilst the family at home, apart from the natural worry, felt helpless, so organized this day to help provide something back to those who are serving and the unfortunate ones who return injured. During his current tour he had to go through the trauma of losing some colleagues and a few who came back suffering from horrific injuries.

So you can imagine my wife Tracy and I had lots to organize and do, which took our minds away from the worry of our son-in-law whilst he was on tour, dreading watching the news and of hearing another member of the armed forces had been injured or killed. It has been a very stressful time and to be able to do something good has helped a great deal. At the end of the day the final amount we raised for this cause was over £1500.00 not bad for a single day event.

Part of this blog is to raise awareness of Help for Heroes and all that they do. They are not politically motivated and are doing a wonderful job and ensuring members of the UK armed forces are rehabilitated in an environment suitable for such heroes. SO if nothing else after reading this blog please visit the Help for Heroes website and maybe just maybe make a small donation.

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