Quinton Motor Club celebrated its 50th birthday in some style, club members presented a cheque for £1800 to Midlands Air Ambulance as a salute to their outstanding work in helping Midlands’ motorists and others who need emergency medical help.

Mike Stratton, chairman of the team that organised Quinton’s 50th celebrations, hailed the presentation as “a crowning glory” to their festivities. He explained that in marking this notable anniversary, a number of special events had been arranged for members and friends of the Club to celebrate its successes over such a long period and its current position as one of the leading motor clubs in the Midlands.

As a result of the generosity of all those involved in these events, Mike had been  overwhelmed with the donations made towards this essential yet voluntary organisation who do such excellent work whenever the need arises.

Receiving the cheque on behalf of Midlands Air Ambulance, Margaret Hill said that Quinton’s donation was an amazing token of the generosity and enthusiasm of the Club’s members and friends that, amidst their celebrations, they had also thought of the MAA and made such a remarkable contribution. “Our helicopters have flown over 31,000 missions over nearly twenty years and we receive no Government or Lottery funding.

To keep operating, we continue to rely on donations from the public and we are so grateful for this excellent contribution from Quinton Motor Club.

Midlands Air Ambulance own motorbiking Grants and Legacies Officer is back on the road thanks to a specially converted motorbike.

When 48-year-old John Brown lost his left leg in a head-on collision in 2007, he thought his biking days were over.

John was working as Paramedic motorcyclist for West Midlands Ambulance Service at the time of the accident, which also shattered his pelvis and punctured both lungs. His injuries forced him to retire as a Paramedic, but since then John has re-built his career with Midlands Air Ambulance. And thanks to specialist dealer, Shrewsbury based Midlands Royal Enfield; John will now be commuting to the Charity’s HQ on a brand new converted dream bike.

John said: “This ‘classic café racer’ styled bike is beautiful looking, easy to maintain and ticks all the right boxes for me. I still teach advanced motorcycling to other riders around Cannock and will use it for group rides with friends throughout the Midlands at weekends. Since my accident, my wife Justine, also a paramedic has passed her test and has the choice of a Fireblade and VFR Honda to ride, so motorcycling really is in the family”.

Midlands Air Ambulance would also like to say thank you for the cheque donated by Midlands Royal Enfield dealer Steve Smith at the handover.

Midlands Air Ambulance was presented with a cheque for £5000 from the Crossroads Charity at Strensham Air Base this week.

The money was raised through a number of activities which included a 6 mile Charity Walk from Ewe & Lamb public house in Bromsgrove and also from a local fete.

Terry Murphy, Neville Horton, Nick Mossop and Dave Veal from The Charity presented the cheque to Paramedics Julian Spiers and Vicky Brown.

Event Background
This was the Sixteenth year of the Country Fayre Farm Fun Day on August Bank Holiday Monday, which has grown somewhat from when it was first conceived. We now have several thousand attendees in about 20 acres of event space and we probably use about 10 acres of parking space. It has also grown to a weekend of events including “Folk In The Field” on the Saturday and a Beer Fest with music and an “It’s a Knockout” competition on the Sunday.

The committee has been formed purely for this purpose and its objectives are twofold. Firstly to raise money for local and National charities and secondly to provide a local community event for all the family.
This year we raised £15,000 for local helper charities and for our main charities.
The following received cheques during the presentation:

Midlands Air Ambulance
£1,200 cheque accepted by John Cookson.
The Midlands Air Ambulance volunteers manned the eye-catching  Air Ambulance stand which had pride of place on the entrance to the Fayre and they also helped with some stewarding.

Cancer Research UK
£1,625 cheque accepted by Paula Ellison.
The sum we presented also reflects the effort that Janet Pickford and helpers have contributed over the planning year, the provision of our info tent and also the contribution during the weekend.

Donna Louise Trust
£1,900 cheque accepted by Sue Bedborough.
Not only is this a worthy cause to help children in our area but the Donna Louise Trust provided a small army of helpers throughout the weekend.

Rushton Home School Association (RHSA)
£2,585 cheque accepted by Marie Carr and Jane Grindey.
The RHSA provided a retainer which helped  to fund the startup of the Country Fayre and although the school is very small there seemed to be a disproportionate amount of help from the families and friends of the school.

Organising Committee
Thanks were also made to 18 strong volunteer committee. The event is a lot of hard work for a few people across the year and then quite a few more helpers on the weekend. The event on Sunday 14th February was not only to make the cheque presentations but also to thank everyone who helped.
Special presentations of flowers were made to Liz Bannister (Secretary of the Organising Committee) who was  thanked for her tireless work throughout the year and also to Margaret Heath who along with her husband Mick Heath hosted the Country Fayre. The Heath’s and their  staff put a lot of time, money and effort in to the event for which they will only accept a modest site rent which doesn’t come anywhere near the investment of time, services or money that they put in.

The local helper organisations who received smaller levels of funding included:

•    The Scouts and Explorer Scouts,
•    Community First Responders,
•    The local church and chapel,
•    Biddulph Moor Village Hall,
•    Macmillan Cancer Care,
•    Biddulph High School Teams and Dreams (for an aid trip to Africa),
•    Leek and Macclesfield Young Farmers,
•    The Rossendale Trust,
•    The Rotary Club,
•    Moorlands Radio and
•    A local community fund to kick start a small project during the year.

Special mentions were made to Stu and the Scouts and Adventure Scouts, Moorlands Radio, Mike Sykes and Stan Lee (Organisers of “Folk In The Field”), Wincle Brewery and Winston Heath for their help over the weekend.

Here’s a reminder of some of the Activities
We started the weekend with a  Folk night “Folk In The Field” on the Saturday, then on Sunday with a Beer Fest, It’s a knockout and Music Evening. On the Bank Holiday Monday we had our Country Fayre Farm Fun Day which included:

As you can see it was an action packed weekend and really brought the local community together. We also had people attend from across the country.

Many local businesses supported us with the loan of equipment, reduced rate hire, donations of materials, prizes, services or refreshments and donations of money.

Midlands Air Ambulance is launching an education partnership aimed at promoting safety awareness to primary and secondary school pupils throughout the region.

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Eckington and District Whist Drive Club has come up trumps for Midlands Air Ambulance, donating over £3,000.

The £3,300 was raised over six months during weekly whist sessions, raffles and jumble sales held at Eckington Village Hall in Pershore.

This donation was part of Eckington and District Whist Drive Club’s charity appeal which has seen a total of £50,789 raised for Midlands Air Ambulance.

Midlands Air Ambulance would like to say a huge thank you to all those involved.

Midlands Air Ambulance has been chosen as one of the charities to benefit from a trust fund established as a memorial to the tragic oil and gas industry helicopter incident off the north east coast of Scotland last year.

Public donations of £330,000 are to be distributed amongst 11 charities chosen by the 16 families whose loved ones died in the incident as North Sea Flight 85N was returning to Aberdeen on April 1 2009. Midlands Air Ambulance has received £10,313.

“As a result of the generosity of the general public along with companies and people throughout the industry, a number of outstanding charities will benefit from significant donations made in memory of the men who so tragically lost their lives in this awful incident” said Malcolm Webb of oil & Gas UK and chairman of the Memorial Trust.

Angus Addenbrooke aged 23 completed a 22 mile sponsored swim raising money for charity.

The sponsored swim was the equivalent of swimming the length of the English Channel and raised £240 for Midlands Air Ambulance.

Angus took 11 weeks to complete the swimathon, going every Friday afternoon to Oak Park Baths, completing up to an impressive 160, 25 metre lengths in one stint. The 23 year old said of his accomplishment “It wasn’t too tiring, you just keep going.”

Proving that Down’s Syndrome doesn’t prevent him from such achievements, Angus is also a successful actor with roles in both film and TV.

Midlands Air Ambulance would like to congratulate Angus on his remarkable achievement and express our gratitude at his very kind donation.

Isabel Hopkins is playing Cupid for Midlands Air Ambulance by raising money with her homemade Valentines Day cards.

Each sale of these individually designed cards will donate £2 to the charity as well as touching the heart of a loved one.

Isabel’s cards are a way of saying thank you after she was airlifted to safety in late December. Her ankle was broken in three places after a nasty fall, resulting in a long stay in hospital and a number of operations.

Isabel says “The paramedics were brilliant, really kept my spirits up and made me laugh on the journey. I was starting to go into shock and found the pain was hitting me but they really jollied me along”.

Midlands Air Ambulance is extremely grateful to Isabel’s fundraising and wishes her every success with her Valentines Day cards which can be found at http://www.folksy.com/shops/airrescueiz