Christmas Film Night
On 14th December we held a Christmas film night at Whitchurch Community Centre where we showed 2 Christmas films and gratefully received donations. We sold homemade brownies, popcorn and gift bags of sweets.
Events
Christmas Market
A huge thank you to the Earl Haig Memorial Club for hosting the Christmas Market, we had an opportunity to sell some of our donated crafts and homemade food. The event was a success and we were able to publicise our work.
Miss Jones
On 17th November we held a meal and entertainment night at Miss Jones Cocktail Lounge in Whitchurch, Cardiff. It was a fantastic night, with special thanks to all those who came to show their support, to the staff at Miss Jones for hosting us and to all those who donated their time and raffle prizes; you all helped us to raise a fantastic £736.78
Summer 2014!
This summer marked the ninth year that The 5Cs have sent volunteers to the Belarusian Children's Hospice summer camp in Zabrodia.
This summer our chair person, Bethan Powell stayed for the whole 10 weeks and two other supervisors, Zachary Thomas and Dafydd Gape, joined her for half the time each. Whereas in the past few years, the supervisors have stayed off the camp and joined in where needed, this all three of them stayed on the camp and were part of the team for each group. This gave us a fantastic overview of the project from beginning to end and we feel it was beneficial in knowing how to further support the camp and volunteers in the future. Beth says “As exhausting as it was, it was very useful from a 5Cs point of view, I saw all the children, all the volunteers, all the problems we faced and was able to really review in what ways we can further develop the project and support everyone better. I was a volunteer on the team, assigned to a child, on the cleaning rotas and up all night preparing games and activities along with the other volunteers for all the groups- it was the biggest challenge of my life but also one of the best decisions I have made so far- I had the time of my life!”
We saw over 70 children and over 100 volunteers, coordinators, nurses, leaders, cooks, ambassadors, film crews, interviewers, translators, sponsors, builders, clowns and tri-athletes as well as countless other visitors over the course of ten weeks and five sessions. As ever, both the 5Cs volunteers and the rest of the volunteer team were fantastic in helping to care for the children and preparing brilliant activities and games for them. We had themed days including underwater, Olympic, business, Spa, talent show, Eco, Christmas, even time travel! As well as the favourite National Days of the volunteers- this year ranging from Welsh (of course!) to Romanian, German and Belarusian. Some of the children that visit the camp need 24 hour care with many aspects of their lives, including showering, toileting and eating. All the volunteers do a great job- adapting to their role very quickly- most of them with no previous experience. Bearing in mind the 5Cs volunteers don’t speak Russian and not many of the children speak English, the way that they find creative ways of communicating and take everything in their stride never fails to amaze us. All of the groups were so close by the end that there were always lots of tears when the bus came to collect everyone to go home!
Garden Party
On Saturday 19th April we held an excellent and extremely successful Garden Party themed cocktail party raising over £700. As always a huge thank you to all the members that made the event the success that it was.
Thank you to everyone who came and supported us, we hope you had a good time and that you will come to the next one!
This £700 will go a long way when we donate it for the opening of the Summer Camp that so many of you lovely people will be volunteering at in the summer.
We look forward to seeing you all again soon.
University of Manchester Volunteer of the Year Award
A huge congratulation to trustee Thomas Pacey for winning the award! He was chosen out of a huge number of exceptional nominees to receive the award along with the University Medal for Social Responsibility.
Due to him winning this award he was also awarded £300 as a donation for the charity.
So from all here at the Five C's congratulations and thank you for all your hard work!
Manchester 10km Run
On May 18th trustee Thomas Pacey ran the Manchester 10km Run. Huge thanks to everyone who donated to his worthwhile cause and helped him raise £260 towards our Belarusian Children’s Camp.
A massive thank you to Thomas Pacey for running such a testing feat!
GwirVol
We are proud to announce that we have been awarded the International Youth Volunteering Grant for 2014-15. We feel extremely lucky to be able to develop our volunteering project in Belarus for the coming year and we look forward to sharing our progress with you! Thank You to our amazing team- this really is a group achievement and we are so grateful to all our supporters!
