Dear TEDF supporters,
Thank you for signing up to our newsletter, we are aiming to send 4 or 5 a year to keep you up to date. We thought we’d mix it up and from now on different Trustees will be taking the lead to give you a more personal insight into what we are up to, explaining the difference the Foundation is making and sharing our own experience of being part of the TEDF team.
Trustee Spotlight
Simon Hagger
I’ve known Howard and Katie for 30 years, we first all met working at SAGA holidays. Howard became a firm friend and then we worked together for over 20 years at Holiday Extras. Our families have always enjoyed a close connection, my two daughters spending time with Evie and Ted in pre school years and with many happy memories from shared trips and holidays. The loss of Evie affected us all deeply and still does everyday. It has been a real honour to be part of creating her legacy and trying to be as positive as we can to make a difference to other families in similar positions.
It’s too easy to take health for granted, especially of our precious children, and I can think of no better purpose in life than helping to improve the quality of paediatric care in the UK. Our Heroes are also truly inspiring and it’s a privilege to meet more of these amazing individuals on this new journey.
To have raised over £350,000 so far and have sponsored the careers of over 170 Heroes is incredible, way beyond our original plan and most importantly has proven the real need for a charitable Foundation such as ours to ensure our most talented and committed paediatric professionals reach their full potential and in turn make the most positive impact possible on the lives of sick children.
It’s my pleasure to update you on the momentum and the force of good this endeavour has become.
Recent highlights
There is always so much on now with the Foundation, from events we are leading to other organisations helping us and the efforts of many kind individuals taking on their own fundraising missions for us. Here’s a few notable updates from recent weeks.
Radnor Arms, quiz nights
We are so lucky to have support from local businesses, a special thank you to the Radnor Arms who dedicate their monthly quiz night proceeds to the Foundation.
We recently fielded our own team, and it was a pleasure to have Trustee Matt Paxton say a few words to thank the Radnor team and their regular attendees. So far we have funded 3 Heroes purely from this fun local quiz night. We were especially grateful to the winning team for donating their winnings that night, a lovely spontaneous and generous action.
Rocksalt – Lunch with Phil Tuffnell
From the same Group of pubs/restaurants, our thanks to Josh De Haan, Jack and Helen Nimmons, to Ian Stafford from the Sporting Club and the legendary Phil Tufnell for dedicating this brilliant event to our Foundation. Tuffers (“the cat”… often found asleep in the changing room!) was full of unbelievable stories about both his sporting career and his colourful life afterwards (Strictly Come Dancing and as “the King of the Jungle”!) – Phil was generous with both his time and energy towards the event and the Foundation. We’d also like to give a big thank you to Wesley Ray from DDS Group and Tim Skelton from Skeltons for their generous joint sponsorship of the event.
With auction prizes and the compulsory game of “heads and tails” a total of £7,000 was raised in just a few hours.
Marathon madness
The London Marathon – what an emotional and uplifting event this is to watch, so many people running for loved ones and in memory of friends and family. For the second year running we were so lucky to have TEDF represented and this year by Laura Childs, Dave Henderson and Kitty Taylor sporting the bright pink Evie tops. A total of £4,500 was raised between them all. We are so grateful. All of them put in incredible performances on a very hot day, Kitty blew us away with a time of 3:30:36, we could barely keep up with her on the tracking app!
Oscars 75 km Ultra Marathon – as if 26.2 miles was not enough! Well Oscar MacCormac, our beloved friend, honorary Trustee and neurosurgical registrar at Kings College Hospital (notably Evie’s wonderful brain surgeon), took on a 75km Ultra as part of the Ultra-X series. Running through the South Downs National Park and clocking up an elevation of 1,400m on the way (that’s more than climbing Ben Nevis!). Oscar has so far raised over £2,000 for the Foundation from this event.
Toowoomba Marathon – TEDF goes down under! Thank you to Will Grant, Ned Coulson and Ryan Woods completing the Toowoomba Marathon in Australia raising over £500, well done guys. Will is a close friend of Oscar, Evie’s cousin, and grew up in Kent. He is now training to be a pilot with Ned and Ryan in Australia and thanks to the amazing efforts of Will, Ned and Ryan we can now truly say we’ve gone global!
Coming up this weekend is the Geneva Marathon – good luck to Ellie Overgaard-Brown, one of our very own Heroes running the Geneva Marathon this weekend. Ellie is a Senior Sister on Paediatric Intensive Care at King’s College Hospital, and also as the Patient Liaison Nurse for London’s Air Ambulance. Please do read about the extraordinary Ellie here.
Hot off the press…
Exciting news, if you are not already exhausted having read about these endeavours of endurance and fitness then for the next 4 years we have 4 of our own official London Marathon places each year – watch this space for more information and drop us an email if you are interested in running for Evie!
Where’s Dickie?
Now that’s a very good question – he’s still with us and has just completed Hadrians Wall and was last seen in Salcombe having walked over 3,000 miles around the UK in Evie’s honour, spreading the word in Dickie’s unique and memorable style. Fundraising is now over £11,000 but grows daily as he starts to make plans to finalise his very long walk with us at The Big Coastal Walk on the 6th September. That will be some homecoming party for this wonderful man and his trusty doggie and walking companion Mr Dongleton! If we had the power to award Knighthood’s there would be one on the way to Sir Dickie Mackness that’s for sure.
NHS Elect 24 Hour Webathon
An incredible event led by Trustee Caroline and who is also Evie’s Aunty. Over 15,000 NHS staff signed up to join webinars and learning experiences over a 24 hour period, starting at midday on the 1st May, with donations going to four amazing health and care charities including TEDF. The NHS Elect team delivered 24 learning events, all completely free to attend, providing fantastic support to NHS staff whilst raising money for great causes. In total the team raised more than £9,200, with donations still rolling in.
And what’s coming up….
Our roster of the main Summer events are on the way.
TEDF Afternoon Tea
Sunday 8th June
12.00 noon to 4pm
Sparrow Court, Chalk Hill Road, Kingsdown, CT14 8DP
Evie’s Aunty Caroline and Uncle Mike will once again be opening their beautiful house and garden in Kingsdown (Kent) for an afternoon of tea, cake, scones. Including a raffle and plant sale. This is a lovely, relaxed event and a chance to enjoy the best of British summer in a traditional and homely garden party setting. Tickets can be purchased here and are £10 per adult, children are free.
The Big Bike Ride
Saturday 21st June
Registration 9.30am
Barham Village Hall, Valley Road, Barham,
Canterbury, KENT CT4 6NX
This is the event I mostly focus on with my friends James and Chloe from Craft Bikes and a team of generous volunteers. This year we have chosen the Summer Solstice to mark the occasion and hope for much better weather than last year’s biblical experience of thunder, storm force winds and torrential rain!
This is a great day out on two wheels and is already 50% sold out so please do grab one of the limited spots before it’s too late! You won’t regret it… well you might but you’ll be doing some good – we even have free massages for finishers this time!
Given the popularity of the inaugural ride we are repeating the same 45km ride through the beautiful Kent countryside. What better way to enjoy the longest day of the year than outside in the fresh air with friends, family, and other like-minded participants?
James, Chloe, together with their awesome bike crew are there to support throughout the route on all things mechanical and motivational! More information and tickets can be purchased here.
The Big Coastal Walk and Little Canal Walk
Saturday 6th September
Our flagship event of the annual calendar as we turn the Hythe and Folkestone seafront into a sea of Pink TEDF T-shirts. A save the date email went out earlier this week to all our 2023 and 2024 participants, and we would love to welcome new walkers too! Tickets can be purchased here, there is a 3 mile and 16 mile option, and we are expecting this to be a sellout once again so please book early!
Thank you for being part of this
There’s even more to come this year with a Golf Day in October and a new and exciting venue for our stellar Christmas Party but we’ll save that for the next update. There are many more people to thank and mention and we will do our best to ensure everyone is covered on our social media channels and importantly in person.
Thank you for taking the time to read this new style of newsletter, without your help and support we would not be where we are and making a very significant difference to the care of children and their families when they need it most.
My very best wishes
Simon – Trustee of The Evie Dove Foundation
