Serendipity Ball raises over £4,000 for St Barnabas

Organisers of the Serendipity Ball visit St Barnabas to present their cheque to the hospice's Chief Executive Hugh Lowson, and the Fundraising Team

The organisers visit St Barnabas in the run up to the ball

A night full of glitz and glamour has helped to raise an amazing £4,100 for St Barnabas House, thanks to members of Singers Rechoired.

The Serendipity Ball, held at the Hilton Avisford Park on Saturday 22 October, was organised by choir members Tina Olliver, Jo Pocock, Miranda Coleman, Ryan Lainchbury and Mike Belton. The Ball's unusual name came about when organisers happened to mention the idea in passing to St Barnabas House Fundraisers. From then on, Serendipity, the act of making fortunate discoveries by accident, seemed like the natural choice of name for the special event.

More than 140 guests gathered for the black and gold themed event, which was a highlight of the social calendar and featured a delicious three course meal, dancing to a live band and charity raffle.

The evening culminated in a special Grand Auction, with a selection of prizes kindly donated by local businesses and individuals.

Said the organisers: 'We would like say a huge thank you to all the local businesses who so generously donated prizes and to everyone who came along on the evening and helped to make it such a wonderful and memorable success. It was a fantastic community effort for such an incredible cause. We will be working hard to organise another event in 2012.'

Said Sloane Vaughan, Fundraising Manager at St Barnabas House: 'On behalf of everyone at the hospice I would like to say thank you so much to everyone involved with the Serendipity Ball. To raise £4,000 in one evening is an amazing result and is testament to the hard work and dedication that went into organising the event.

'At St Barnabas we offer specialist palliative care to patients with advanced progressive life-limiting illnesses and our patients are never charged for their care. The total cost of providing all of our care services is approximately £4 million per year, and with less than one third of these costs funded by the government, we rely on people like Tina, Jo, Miranda, Ryan and Mike to help us raise the shortfall. Their efforts will help us to continue supporting local people and their families at a very difficult time in their lives.'