Goodbye Summer, Bring on Santa!

Goodbye Summer, Bring on Santa!

Everyone breathe a big sigh of 'summer's over, already?' Yes that time of year has come and gone, we've already hit our first half term of the new academic year. Summer now seems so long ago, and oh so far away! But fear not, we have lots of good news to keep you going through Halloween and beyond. 

Art Exhibition

After our very lively art workshop over the summer we exhibited all of the young people's art at the Merton Civic Centre. Bev Selway  the Virtual Behaviour Service, Strategic Manager opened the exhibition to very proud family, friends and Jigsaw4u workers. Lots of young people came for both the opening and to check their art out for the other days of the exhibition. All of the art produced look very professional, and meant a lot to both the artists, their family and us

here at Jigsaw4u. Can't wait to do it again next year, bigger and better!!

Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, It's off to work we go...

We have welcomed a small army of new staff to Jigsaw4u over the last few months. Here's a rundown of the new intake...

Disability Support Officer 

We have recently employed Juan Sanchez as our new Disability Support Officer. Juan will be working a couple of days a week helping our participation officer, Michelle Mullarkey in delivering groups, producing the disabled children’s magazine ‘Our Choice’, and providing mentoring support for the young people in areas such as travel training.

Young Runaways
Sharon McCann, a drug and alcohol counsellor has joined the young runaways team working in Sutton. She is working 3 days helping Patricia Alin to support young people who have runaway from home. The team also now have a volunteer who is helping them organize their databases so all systems go in Team Young Runaways this term!


Home School Links
Our ever expanding Home School Links teams have employed 3 new workers taking their total to 8 members of staff now. Rachael Butler is working in St Mary's Primary School and Joseph Hood Primary School, Jacqui Bird is in Hatfield Primary School and St John Fisher Primary School and T Headley, the only man in the team, is working  in Gorringe Park Primary School, Cramner Primary School, and Abbostbury Primary School.




All enjoy long walks and picnics in the park...

There's no I in Team Day.

The only I in our team day was the London Eye...*get it*??!! Jigsaw4u, bursting at the seams with our fresh faced new staff, took a trip up London for a good old fashioned treasure hunt. Unfortunately the treasure was the gift of knowledge rather than anything of any monetary value, but we had a great time nonetheless. Split into groups we each had an allotted time to find out the answers to questions about a part of the south bank - from St Paul's Cathedral to The London Aquarium, and we made some friends along the way! It was a great chance for the new staff members to get to know the team, and more seriously for us to feedback some of the achievements of the last year and plan out the road ahead for 2013/14.

Volunteering

Our latest volunteering programme is up and running, our current intake are getting the complete tour of all that goes on at 40 Mill Green Road, many are choosing to specialize in certain projects and go on to complete the respective training. If you are interested in volunteering in general email info@jigsaw4u.org.uk or see below for more specialist volunteering opportunities...

Helping Hands - Domestic Violence volunteer project 

The Helping Hands project is currently running first programme of training with 12 volunteers, next due to start beginning of November, still looking for more volunteers for Merton and Sutton. Email emmawebb@jigsaw4u.org.uk if you have any enquiries.

Advocacy project up and running

The Advocacy and Independent Visiting service is now open for referrals. This service is for all Looked After Children 10+ years  and those who are subject to Child Protection and Family Group Conferences.  This is an “Opt-out” service, which means that children eligible will have to state that they do not want an Advocate in order to decline the service. The Advocacy service is still looking for lots more volunteers to be advocates so please get in contact with lailamorgan@jigsaw4u.org.uk or the info email above if you want further information. 

Project updates

New girls group young runaways

The Young Runaways project have started their 7 week Girls Group with 9 young people and 1 peer mentor. Armed with snacks Sindia, Trish and Sharon aim to have fun with the group, whilst providing reliable information, a safe place to talk and encouraging them to share their thoughts and experiences with the each other.

Home School Links

We're all back in school, with three new staff and a few new schools too taking our total across borough to 17.

We've already started to think about Christmas caroling, you can catch us and our lovely Home School Links children at Centre Court in Wimbledon on Saturday 21st December 2.30-4.30pm.

Participation

The Disabled Children’s Participation Service has been working alongside Headliners, a national news agency, where young people aged 8-18 produce articles on issues that are important to them, but of interest to everyone. They have been commissioned to collect the views of children and young people with disabilities, and their parents, about the local offer in Sutton and what they think could be improved in borough. They came in over the summer and taught our young people how to use the film equipment and got them practicing their interviewing skills. Everyone who got involved thoroughly enjoyed it, we may have some budding Spielberg's in our midst. 

Fundraising

• Kongathon is a fitness spectacular being run in collaboration with Calasara Fitness in aid of Jigsaw4u on Sunday 24th November, 12-2pm at Imber Court (McDowell Suite) in East Molesey, Surrey. It is 2 hours of fitness fun for anyone who wants to come down and join in! Visit www.calasarafitness.co.uk for more details and see the picture of the flyer for more detailed info on the day itself.

• On Saturday 19 October members of Team Sally Morgan - TV psychic took part in the Back 2 The Trenches charity mud run in Nutfield in aid of Jigsaw4U. We are still waiting for an update from the team...and hopefully some pictures!! Please do share their JustGiving page http://www.justgiving.com/TeamSally2013 as any small amount anyone can spare will make a real difference to the children and young people we support!

• Our Macmillan Pre and Post Bereavement Team facilitated another successful Macmillan Coffee Morning. It was a good chance to see some friendly faces and the staff made the most of it by 'taking some home for the kids', needless to say the cakes didn't last long!

• Jigsaw4u's very successful Quiz Night was a sell out with 65 people pitting their wits at Cranleigh Tennis & Social Club, Merton Park. We raised over £530 and enjoyed some lovely fish and chips. Many thanks to the Quizmaster Syd and organiser Jan Wright.

Flourish Presentation

Missy from the Flourish Foundation made a trip to Stanford Primary School to present a cheque to Jigsaw4u staff from their fundraiser. Some lovely year 6's welcomed Missy and our new Vice Chair of the Trustees Maureen Bailey. They shared drinks, cake and stories - a lot of the children spoke about moving on to Secondary School next year. I'm sure they got lots of good advice from Missy and Maureen. The presentation event was a great success, and everyone involved had a great time. Thanks again to the Flourish Foundation for all of their hard work fundraising, it's greatly appreciated here at Jigsaw4u!

Thank you to Peter Webb

We invited Peter in to say a thank you in person for his courageous achievement. He had a true hero's welcome with champagne and Colin the Caterpillar cake. He told us all about his grueling run and his blisters...thanks Pete! All in all a fantastic accomplishment, and everyone at Jigsaw4u is so incredibly proud of Peter, and thankful to him for choosing to support us. We wish him the best of luck with future races, we're sure he won't keep those running shoes hung up for long.

Any Other Business?

AGM 

Over 50 people, who just about squeezed in to our Centre at Mill Green Road, attended our very enjoyable AGM and heard very positive reports about the work over the last year. These included some very moving testimonies from 3 young people and Stanford Primary Head teacher, Keran Currie on the value of Jigsaw4u.

Full reports will soon be available on the website or by email by request.

Grateful vote of thanks were made to retiring Chairman, John Dodwell and Trustee Anna Lubelska, who have both done so much to support Jigsaw4u through difficult financial times. 

And that rounds up our latest installment of J4U News. Hopefully you'll tune in next time to hear all about our Christmas shenanigans and what resolutions we will have all already broken by the time schools start back again!

Until next time...Jigsaw4u Team. x

The Beginning of Summer

The Season of Good News!

Sharon Clack meeting Aston from JLS

The last couple of months there has been a buzz in the Jigsaw4u offices. We have had some exciting new appointments, a brilliant art day with some lovely children, our staff have been meeting celebrities and there has been some inspiring fundraising!

Art Exhibition

We held another fantastic art workshop in the May half term which included children and young people of all ages from many different projects at Jigsaw4u; including Home School Links, Young Runaways and Disabled Children’s Participation. They created some amazing art using paint, clay, pencils, collages – and it was all based around the theme of ‘Putting the Pieces Back Together’. Many of the pieces were inspired by our modern art presentation from Jacqui, one of the brilliant volunteers we had on the day. We had some scissor drawings, Picasso like paintings and even Jackson Pollock inspired art going on. Luckily we had great weather so everyone could play outside and enjoy a pizza picnic! We wouldn't have been able to run the day without the dedication of the staff, and the help of our fantastic volunteers - Jacqui, Kathy and Jane.

Some of the lovely art produced at the workshop

The exhibition in Merton will be held in the Morden Civic Centre and the opening will be on Wednesday 3^rd July 5.30-7pm. It will be opened by Bev Selway the Virtual Behaviour Service, Strategic Manager who has always been a champion for Jigsaw4u and especially the Home school Links service.

Children and young people at the art workshop

New Jobs 

We have a few exciting additions to the team at Jigsaw4u; after our funding bids in March we received new funding for various different projects – Emma Webb our former Domestic Abuse Family Support Worker is now the new Volunteer Coordinator for the Domestic Violence project we are delivering in partnership with Sutton Women’s Aid. In her previous role we now have Michelle Mullarkey who is also our current Disabled Children’s Participation Officer. Laila Morgan will be taking the helm at our new Merton Advocacy Project and we have two new positions on our Home School Links team. These will not begin until September so we will have more news on our new members of staff when they start!

Peter Webb at the finish line

Fundraising 

Peter Webb took on the mammoth task of defeating Hadrian’s Wall over the weekend. Before he set off he told us that he had increased his target to £3000 which he had very nearly met before he’d even started, which is an incredible achievement. Now after finishing the race, in just over 16 hours no less, he has already exceeded his target and had this to say on finishing the race -

'After 16 hours and 6 mins I crossed the finished line after 69 miles (plus an extra ½ they seemed to add on) at 23:06 in Newcastle. The body made it but with the help of a lot of Ibuprofen and mental challenges to keep it going.

This lived up to all that I thought it would. The training alone meant that I pushed my body to it’s limit. 

Peter Webb and his two proud sons

On the day I had great support from my wife, Alex at various stages, as well as my Mum and her partner and of course my 2 boys. This was a great motivator over the miles but as I always said at the beginning, this was a personal challenge as well.

I purposely had my IPOD in my bag but did the race without any music, I had to keep running when I was in pain for miles 50-55 (Mile 54 was in memory of my father), you will be glad to hear that mentally I ran mile 67-68 for all at Jigsaw4U. It was only through breaking the race into these challenges that I was able to get to the finish.

Hadrian's Hill

I am so pleased to have raised over £3000 for the charity. I have found by working for a charity that covers a lot of topics and areas of support I could have personally benefited from when younger has given me a great sense of achievement. The fact that through the support and great work of your team that others in my earlier position will become stronger is very rewarding.

At the same time inadvertently, it has helped me look at my own feelings, thoughts and goals for my family.'



As Peter mentioned he has reached his target but hopefully in the coming days we can help him to raise even more money in recognition of his fantastic accomplishment, here's the link to his Just Giving page http://www.justgiving.com/WebbHitsTheWall

Flourish Foundation

Missy and Zoe from Flourish Foundation 

Flourish Foundation launched last night, a foundation raising money and awareness of small charities who use the arts to support children.  We are lucky enough to be the first charity supported by them and last night raised £1320 in sales of the Flourish Foundation necklace, 100% of profits coming to us.  You can purchase the 14c rose gold necklace online from their website.  Thank you to Missy & Zoe at Flourish for their support of Jigsaw4u.

Claire and Ann attended the launch of the Flourish Foundation on June 27th at 45 Park Lane-aka the baby Dorchester.  Missy knows of us after volunteering during her counselling training and so chose Jigsaw4u as the first charity to benefit from the proceeds of their events. According to Ann and Claire there was much ado about what outfit one might wear to the baby Dorchester, here at Jigsaw4u HQ we are excited to see pictures of the final ensembles!

As to be expected at such an event they enjoyed champagne (responsibly!) and canapes.

Claire made an impromptu and moving speech to the event goers, which included a few celebs from Made in Chelsea! Most importantly they met lots of lovely people who are really interested in supporting Jigsaw4u.

Everyone here at Jigsaw4u is looking forward to working alongside Flourish over the coming months.

Claire and Kathy opening Tesco Express Sutton

Tesco Express Sutton
A new Tesco Express has opened on Lower Road in Sutton and Jigsaw4u were invited to be guests of honour!

Tesco kindly donated £500 to Jigsaw4u and we got to open their brand spanking new store. Here's Claire and Kathy representing Jigsaw4u, in the rain no less.

Tesco delivering their kind cheque

Other kind donations and fundraising achievements include - 

• A £25 gift voucher donated by Body Shop
• Battersea Parish Church kindly donated £1500
• Mr and Mrs Reid donated £20
• Coffee morning £195
• Croydon Logistics donated £178.94
• Godstone Farm collection box £137.44
• The Geary Family did a fundraising walk which State Securities bank matched so in total they raised £408 

Activities

The stage at The Voice

Some young people from the grief support project got the amazing opportunity of going to see The Voice live semi final!

Ann Marie tells us about the day –

Ann Marie, family and Lisa Maxwell

‘We were lucky enough to receive some free tickets  from a good friend who works in the media and so on Saturday 15th June I went along  with Niamh Butler, Hollie Egremont and her grandmother, Sue Read to see the live recording of the hit BBC show The Voice at Pinewood Studios

The contestants all put in amazing performances and also sang live with their team judges, Jessie J, Danny O’Donaghue, Will.I.Am and the legendary Tom Jones.

Karl and Mary Costello

As if that wasn’t enough excitement for one day, we also saw live performances by Robbie Williams,  Dizzee Rascal and Liam Gallagher and his new band Beady Eye.

We also bumped into a few celebrities along the way who were happy to pose for photos and hear about the amazing young people who access our service.’

Ann Marie and Ricky Gervais

So it's been a busy old couple of months here at 40 Mill Green Road. We hope you've enjoyed the round up of all our news and come back for more in a couple of month's time.

Lots of love,

Jigsaw4u Team. x

Spring has sprung

At Jigsaw4u the last couple of months have been as busy as the weather, so we are sorry to be bringing you this blog a month late. But as is with spring (and the beginning of a new tax year) we have been busy with new beginnings - New projects, ventures and exciting things to come for the rest of the year.

So this is what we we've up to at Jigsaw4u HQ....

Project Updates

The grief team ran a very successful 6 week grief support group in Feb and March and are already concentrating on the next group due to start in May.

The Disabled Children’s Participation Project has been extended until April 2014, so we expect more exciting things from them over the year. Over Easter they ran a session for the young people around safeguarding, and the importance of understanding safeguarding as a young person, then after all that hard work they got to go bowling! Everyone had a great time and can’t wait to do something like that again, maybe over the summer holidays.

Our current Domestic Violence worker, Emma Webb has just secured the new full time post at Jigsaw4u working on Domestic Violence with Sutton Women’s Aid. Congratulations Emma!!

The Home School Links project are looking to join up with other projects at Jigsaw4u to do the art exhibition again, which was such a brilliant success last year! Hopefully we can get even more young people involved this year, and create some amazing artwork that represents our young people and their feelings about Jigsaw4u. The theme this year is 'putting the pieces back together'. Can’t wait to see what creations come out of the exhibition this year.

We started our new volunteer training programme in April which we are 3 weeks into now, all new volunteers will receive training for all projects across Jigsaw4u from working with young children, disability awareness through to domestic violence and many others. We want our volunteers to be equipped for any situation that might arise during their time here. And we hope to give people an insight into things they may never have thought of trying before. Hopefully our volunteers have been enjoying themselves and want to come back! The next training programme will run in the Autumn so get in touch if you'd like to be involved.

Fundraising News

Sharon Clack has been busy getting the donations and raffle prizes in, here are just a few.

·         10 free Burrito’s from Chippolate in Wimbledon

·         The All England Tennis Club donated a large holdall and Bard Back Book all about Wimbledon Tennis

·         £250 donation from Next

·         15 Easter eggs donated from Asda

Carol Miller's coffee morning raised £279.00

Vicky’s Easter Egg Sale raised £32.40

Sharon Clack’s daughter Vicki made a basket full of Crochet Easter Chicks that raised £32.00

Georgia Fawcett of Hillcross Primary School raised £118 doing a sponsored silence.  The money raised bought the Teddy Bears for the next Grief Support Group

Webb Hits the Wall

Peter Webb is still training hard for his Hadrian’s Wall feat. He has been held back in his training through injury but appears to be back, fighting fit. Here’s what he had to say...

“Unfortunately I have had an injured ankle and not been able to run for the last 4 weeks. I have managed my first run of 10 and 7 miles this week to test my ankle and get back into my running.

I found great motivation from the donation made by someone through Jigsaw 4U.

“Don't give up the training, hope you succeed. My girls are about to lose their dad to cancer.”

It is always good to have these reminders when on a training run to make the pain and effort go away when you can put it into context as to why I am doing this.

This weekend (actually a way to celebrate my birthday) Alex, my wife, has booked a hotel room for us at Windsor for a romantic break. The only catch being that I have to run there under my own steam on Saturday from my house in Sutton (approx. 40 miles!)

As you can imagine I am now only 2 months away from the race and in need to push hard on my training. This is definitely a challenge.

So the plan leading up to the race is:

27^th April – Personal Run – 45 miles Sutton to Windsor

18^th May – North Downs – 50 mile race ½ Centurion Race

22^nd June – The Wall Race 69 miles

It’s going to be a busy 2 months!!!!”

We wish Peter the best of luck with his training, and if you haven’t donated, please do try to give what what you can to spur Peter on with his amazing feat. He really could use some inspiration now! You can find his justgiving page at http://www.justgiving.com/WebbHitsTheWall

That's about it from us this month, with summer parties, fundraisers and art workshops in the planning we will have even more to tell you about in the coming months! And we will keep you updated with Peter's training too.

Jigsaw4u Team. x

Full to the brim - our last 28 days

Thirty days has September,

April, June, and November.

All the rest have thirty-one,

Except—you know which one....

THIS ONE! And we hope a happy shortest month of the year was had by one and all! With only 28 days of news you’d think we would keep this short and sweet, but here at 40 Mill Green Road we have been as busy as ever.

Comings and Goings

We have a had colleagues come and go of recent months and this month we held a leaving lunch for Eny Osung, Advocacy Team Manager. Lisa provided a banquet which tempted those of us who had just started lent! Eny got to feast on his beloved chicken and teary farewells were had. Sad as he was to go, Eny was more than chuffed with his leaving presents – A personalised Tottenham Shirt, A Tottenham Football and some Jigsaw erasers, so he can never forget us!!

While we said goodbye to Eny we have recently welcomed back Trish, our Young Runaways Worker for Sutton, who had been off sick. She’s back and with a good as new back to boot.

Fundraising

On the Feb fundraising front we had Sally Morgan Enterprises raising a whopping £2,769. A staff raffle at a generous cosmetic company generated £626. And Chris Roe’s Race Night raised £950.00!

The Race Night at Cranleigh Tennis and Social Club was a fantastic event. With a great buffet, fully stocked bar and 1970's horse races it was fun for all the family. Although I think it’s safe to say those at Jigsaw HQ are not lucky gamblers. Nothing close to the success of the event could have been pulled off without the work of Chris Roe and all of the friends and family of Jigsaw4u that helped out by selling tickets, arranging the buffet, bringing themselves and others there and betting, so THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH!!

Another huge thanks to Sharon Clack who this month has brought in:

• Merlin Magic wand donated 10 tickets to Chessington World of Adventures along with a cheque for £30 towards travel costs
• The Toby Carvery kindly gave 10 free carvery meals
• Ely’s Wimbledon £25 gift card
• Wilkinson’s Sutton - £10 gift card

Thank you to all who have fund raised and donated, we are really very grateful for all of you support!

Peter Webb vs. Hadrian’s Wall

After all the excitement of our fundraising so far this year you must be thinking, ‘how could it possibly get better, what more excitement could be coming our way?’ Well one brave soul is going to knock all our socks off (and possibly his own) as he attempts to run...yes RUN...Hadrian’s Wall – you know the massive wall from Roman Britain that now reaches a vast 69 miles across Northern England? That wall! For those of you who might want some context as to how massive this is, we have inserted a little (not to scale) diagram.

Peter Webb lost his father in a tragic accident at 2 ½ years old; he says that throughout his life ‘there have been many times this has not been far from my thoughts [...] It is the right time to move on positively, whilst helping others. I happened to stumble across a local charity Jigsaw4u. I believe the support they offer children going through this difficult time is invaluable’.

 

After stumbling upon us Peter decided to do his run in aid of Jigsaw4u and we plan to support him 100% of the way.

We shall be updating you on his progress, hopefully with words from the man himself and some pictures of how he is getting on. I know that none of us can imagine what it is going to be like, so by way of encouragement I proffer the following video of how I imagine it will go down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L8SqPm0o3s

(In case anyone doesn't get the reference...it’s Peter Pan, because his name is Peter...there will be a lot of these references along the way so I apologize in advance!!)

More importantly here is the link to Peter’s JustGiving page.

www.justgiving.com/WebbHitsTheWall

PLEASE DO DONATE GENEROUSLY this man is running for longer than most of us could stay awake for, and just think how much Keifer Sutherland achieves in his 24 hours? This is not to be taken lightly and all donation will be so greatly appreciated, big or small.

Project Updates

After all of that there’s not much time (space) to tell you about what our projects have been up to, but we’ll give it a go! The Grief Team held their grief support weekend and had a fabulous time, with a great turn out. Some of the schools that our Home School Links project works with have asked for further days of work which is absolutely brilliant. The Young Runaways, Disabled Children’s Participation and Transition Key Work projects have all been involved in the latest Young Inspector’s report of Sutton CAMHS. Our young people did an inspection of CAMHS and told staff what they thought of the service. They have since been asked to be part of a young persons’ forum that CAMHS would like to set up to increase young people’s involvement in the service. The Transition Key Work service have started their Social Skills sessions which are going really well, and our Disabled Children’s Participation Officer has been involved in setting up a young person’s shadow group to the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board, which will include Jigsaw4u young people, so they will get to inform decision making and discussion around safeguarding children in Sutton.

That’s most certainly not all we've up to at Jigsaw4u HQ but there’s just so much we can’t fit it all in!!!

Hopefully we will keep you updated with Peter Webb’s progress in between our monthly blogs, so stay tuned for pained training run pictures!! And please don’t forget to donate if you can, as Tesco puts it so well – ‘Every little helps’.

Until next time...Jigsaw4u Team. x

P.s. We didn't receive any Valentine’s Day cards so they haven’t featured in this month’s blog. You only have yourselves to blame for not weighing them properly and putting on the correct stamps!

January 2013

So as is customary in our Gregorian calendar, Christmas came and went. The young people of Jigsaw4u were treated to presents kindly donated by the staff and friends of Breeze Yoga Beckenham and ASDA. The young people were thoroughly chuffed with their gifts so THANK YOU all very much.

 Santa Fun Run

Jenny  Christmas caroling

As well as our bowling trip, the grief team took a group of young people and their carers to a traditional Christmas party at Southside House in Wimbledon, and had two Macmillan Christmas parties at Harrods and Mandarin Oriental.

We had great fun at our own Christmas lunch at the Jigsaw office and our party at The Holiday Inn in Sutton. Everyone enjoyed the Christmas pud, secret santa and the Gangnam Style disco!

What's going on?

Sadly before Christmas we lost one of our projects – the Advocacy service, and Advocacy manager Eny Osung. As a member of the Jigsaw4u family for 12 years it will be sad to see him go, but we must! We’ll be having a leaving lunch mid February. Hopefully Eny will be able to stay in touch with Jigsaw and help us out with other projects in the future.

Eny Osung

On a more positive note, we have been given some Comic Relief funding to run Merton and Sutton Sexual Exploitation projects which will be run by our Young Runaways team Patricia Alin and Sindia Malhotra, so that’s even more great work that’s going to be going on at 40 Mill Green Road.

Fun Day display

Following the Disabled Children’s Project fun day we have been working on tackling the accessibility of transport, how to cope with bullying and looking at whether there is training for bus drivers in how to support young people being bullied on buses. We are also working with Sutton Parents’ Forum, Contact a Family, the Sutton Transition Team and the ASD service to produce a new and improved ‘Transition’ leaflet to explain the process and hopefully improve it for young people going through transition in Sutton. We are hoping to see changes to transport, leisure services and school bullying policies as a result of the event so watch this space!

Our Choice new issue

The Disabled Children’s Participation Project has also published the new edition of their magazine ‘Our Choice’ which is distributed to all young people in Sutton on the Disability Register.

In other news - The Grief Support Team are starting their new programme of groups next week, our Home School Links workers are back into schools after the festivities and some of our projects including our Domestic Violence project have been to the local mosque in Morden to promote our service to the wider community.

Fundraising

The family and friends of Sam Chapman raised an amazing £1500 for Jigsaw4u at The Sam Chapman Memorial Race Night. It’s an annual race night held in the memory of Sam Chapman, whose family attended the grief support groups here at Jigsaw4u after she passed away. Her father and mother came in with the donation, but we know that all of her family and friends helped so much in making the event a success and raising such an amazing amount of money for Jigsaw, so thank you all very much!

Sally Morgan and Pam Byfield

Other fundraising news includes a £250 cash donation from Next PLC for the second year running, a £272 donation from Riddlesdown Collegiate and a generous £1000 from TV psychic Sally Morgan who donated her Celebrity Come Dine With Me winnings!

Thank you all so much for all your help, all the staff at Jigsaw4u and the children, young people and families we work with will always be very grateful for your support!

There's more to come....

And they’re off....On the 2 March there will be another Race Night, at Cranleigh Tennis and Social Club, SW19 3LX in aid of Jigsaw4u. This is a great chance to put your cash where your horse is and raise some money for charity all at the same time. There will be 8 races throughout the night which you can bet on, only 50p a bet, and you can also 'buy' a horse for £3 - all owners of winning horses will win a prize on the night. Get in touch with info@jigsaw4u.org.uk if you’d like to get tickets.

Jigsaw4u stand at info fair

We’re also having a prospective volunteer night on Wednesday 6^th March 6pm – 7.30pm so if you know of any prospective volunteers,email the above address with their contact details and we will send them an invitation to come along and hear all about the opportunities we have here at J4U.

Hope you've all had a great January and see you again soon with our February update; any Valentine's Day cards sent in will feature in next month's blog so get sending - chocolates and flowers also appreciated.

The Jigsaw4u Team. x