I think most of you are aware that I’m captain of Bedlington golf club this year.

It’s tradition that the captain chooses a charity as part of their tenure.

For a number of reasons I chose St Oswalds hospice which is a totally independent charity based in Gosforth where both the hospice and a charity shop are located.
The hospice primarily offers end of life care for all ages at no cost and has running costs of £10 million, so as a charity needs to raise over £6.5 million and statutory authorities provide £3.5 million.

Today St Oswalds are running a ‘giving day’ campaign starting @8am and finishing @5pm on Wednesday.

So it’s basically a telethon a bit like Red Nose Day. I’ve signed up alongside another 550 people as a giving day champion. Through trust and well wisher donations St Oswalds have received donations totalling £150K which currently resides in a ‘pot’. The objective of the campaign is for each giving champion to raise as much money as possible to ‘release’ funds from the pot. So for each pound raised a pound is released from the pot. If the champions collectively raise £150k then the maximum equivalent amount of £150k will be released giving a total of £300k which will go directly to St Oswalds. A quick calculation showed that if each ‘champion’ raises £272 then that would raise the required £150k.

To donate please see:

https://www.charityextra.com/stoswaldshospice/mr-gary-dixon

I appreciate times are hard so whatever each of you can donate would be hugely appreciated by myself and more importantly by St Oswalds.

Thanks in anticipation
Gary