Review of 2019

2019 – What a Year!

As ever, it's been a busy year and we have welcomed many new members to our coffee mornings which are still at the heart of HIP and keep us all connected once a month.

The bowling event in February was as competitive as ever with Ellesmere Port taking the trophy. We had a great, informative trip to the Imperial War Museum at Salford Quays, and the sponsored walk at Walton Hall raised over £1,300 and was thoroughly enjoyable. Members were also invited to our AGM at The Crewe Arms in March with a talk from local young author and brain injury survivor, Ben Thexton, and the hotel also hosted our Christmas Party with it's new singalong – a tradition we will be carrying on next year!

We've had lots of support from different companies, notably the Co-op who donated £4,111 through their Local Causes project and joined in with lots of events and welcomed us in store. We also had donations from Clear Law who adopted us as their Charity of the Year, Asda, St James Place Wealth Management, Ellesmere Port Dart League, various trusts including The Williams Foundation and networking groups such as Chat run by Aaron & Partners and Howard Worth's Northwich Women in Business.

Great individual efforts were also made by our members and their friends and families raising money and awareness. Ian Skaithe ran the Tatton 10K, Conor Shaw completed the Chester Half Marathon, while Chris Baynham-Hughes tackled the toughest mountain race in the world, the Dragon Back across the spine of Wales from North to South.

Fundraising events have ranged from Tesco bag packs to our Golf Day sponsored by Birchall Blackburn, an Afternoon Tea at the Chester Grosvenor, a collection at Crewe Alexandra and culminated before Christmas in cycling to the North Pole!!!!! Our cycling event hosted by Starbucks at The Greyhound Retail Park and supported by Pure Gym, was a lovely way to end the year with so many members involved and having fun, and also seeing how generous the public can be.

So what next? We hope 2020 will be filled with even more opportunities to get together and have some fun and welcome any ideas from our members for trips, activities or courses. The constant challenge is fundraising so if anyone would like to run a marathon, climb a mountain or sky dive please let us know or suggest any other ideas and finally thank you to all our members, their friends and families and everyone who has supported HIP in the last year.