Midnight ladies make it a Night to Remember!

Twelve hundred ladies tramped 13.1 miles through the streets of Worthing on Saturday 19th June, raising a staggering £167,000 for St Barnabas at the hospice's third 'Night to Remember' midnight walk. This amazing total was pledged on the night and we will know the final total once all the sponsorship monies are in.

The women walkers started arriving at Worthing Leisure Centre around two hours before the walk to register and pledge their sponsorship totals. While waiting to start, the ladies were kept entertained by music from Splash FM, face-painting by Ace Faces, massages by Mirage Beauty Therapists, a pamper tombola, stalls, an appearance by the 'Buff Builders' and the opportunity to have their photographs professionally taken by Helen Tinner Photography.

This year's event was generously sponsored by Thomas Eggar LLP, one of the South's leading law firms, and the walk was started by Mayor of Worthing, Councillor Ann Sayers. Fit 4 Instructor, Jo Clarke, led the warm-up and was the lead walker, accompanied by her colleague, Sally Brown. Jo and Sally set a cracking pace from the Leisure Centre, through Goring, along Worthing seafront to the turning point just beyond the Half Brick pub and back again. The first ladies arrived back in a blistering 3 hours 10 minutes and the rest were soon streaming back in their droves.

As part of their registration pack, all the ladies had special pink 'Night to Remember' t-shirts, goodie bags and torches. Many of the women customised their outfits and there were some eye-catching costumes, including wigs, angel wings, tutus and light-up bunny ears!

There were some great stories on the night:

Emma Bashford gathered a group of her girlfriends to help celebrate her 30th birthday at 23.55h on Saturday.

Jo Barnard, her sister, Nicky Hampshire, and four friends were walking in memory of their Mum, Jackie Barnard who passed away at St Barnabas in November, a day after her 67th birthday.

Theresa Hall and her friends, Wendy, Holly and Sarah, walked in memory of Theresa's Dad, Frank.

Sheila Price and The Pacemakers - friends and colleagues from Victoria Road Surgery - donned pink wigs to walk the walk.

Plucky Pauline Cox, accompanied by friends from her fitness classes at the David Lloyd gym, propelled herself along the whole 13.1 mile route in her wheelchair, completely unaided and using only her hands.

Helen Beale's group of girlfriends dubbed themselves 'Edie's Angels' and walked in memory of her Mum.

Sponsor, Thomas Eggar, entered a team of nine ladies from their various offices across the region.

Claire Coltherd and her friends walked in memory of her daughter, Hannah, who spent the last six weeks of her life at Chestnut Tree House children's hospice.

There were also many other groups, including Davison High School for Girls, Sainsbury's Lyons Farm, the Inland Revenue and Unimer, plus a team from Morrisons, who very kindly supplied the bananas for the refreshment stops along the route.

'It was a fantastic sight to see so many ladies walking together - it was a real sea of pink!' said Event Organiser, Joanna Carden. 'We would like to say a massive thank you to all our ladies for taking on the challenge of walking through the night and raising such an incredible amount. The money raised is the equivalent of providing a 24 hour stay in our In-patient Unit for 350 patients so this really will make a huge difference to everyone at the hospice. We are also extremely grateful to all our volunteers - around 150 people - who gave up their Saturday night to make sure our ladies stayed safe on the roads and were looked after both before and after the event. It really was a 'Night to Remember'!'

You can view more photos of the Night to Remember on Flikr and Facebook.

Click here to see the list of all the wonderful ladies that took part in Night to Remember 2010