Young People's Events

During the course of last year, we received approximately £2,000 in memory of John Welsh and Courtney Davis, which we were asked to use for an extra Young People's Event.

John, in particular, loved Canal Boating, so we've been trying to find an water-borne event to use this funds on, so we have been making enquiries with the Jubilee Sailing Trust - a charity who own two three-masted schooners, entirely disabled-friendly and accessible and we are in the process of organising a day trip in July for our young people.

The tentative dates so far are EITHER 28th or 29th July.  The ship, Tenacious (pictured left) sails from Southampton at 8.30am and is back by 5pm, with lunch and refreshments provided.  If you're a  long way away, there could be sufficient funds available to fund a night's accommodation before and/or after in a cheap motel nearby - just let us know if you might need this.

The lower age limit is 12 and there are 12 places.  The cost to us will be £99, but we're subsidising this event as usual, and the cost to your teenager will be no more than £20 (yet to be decided!).  However, after problems with last year's Young People's Weekend, with people booking and not turning up, if you don't turn up without a VERY good reason, you will be charged the full cost of the trip.  I think that's only fair - we are a charity, after all!!

If your teenager is interested - PLEASE email me by Friday 20th January, as we need to book and confirm this trip by the end of January in order to secure places on either of those dates.  Indicate your preferred date, and whether you would require accommodation. 

YOUNG PEOPLE'S WEEKEND 2012

Karin is already organising the next activity weekend, which will be at Bendrigg Lodge, Kendal again, and will be either the weekend of 19th-22nd October or 26th-29th October.  As always, the event will be action packed, with rock-climbing, canoeing and no doubt LOTS more!  Email Karin at karin@cmtuk.org.uk to register your interest, and then she'll know who to send forms and whatnot to, when the time comes.  The lower age limit is 12 and the cost will be approximately £45 (to be confirmed).  Again, no shows will be charged the full rate - which is approximately £300!  She's waiting to hear from you NOW!

Scottish Conference

For everyone north of the border (and south if you want to!), we'll be hosting a Regional Conference in Scotland - at the Hilton Hotel, Strathclyde on Saturday 15th September.  Speakers and all the details are still being worked on, but mark it in your diary!

And if you would like to talk to, or meet up with, our Trustees in Scotland, email either Richard or Jeeta Ouston (richard@cmtuk.org.uk or jeeta@cmtuk.org.uk) and they'll be happy to meet you, or have a natter or whatever! 

FUNDRAISING 

As you are all very much aware, we rely entirely on subscriptions and donations for ALL our income in order that we can carry on supporting you to the best of our ability. 

We know that times are hard, and what with the squeeze on disability benefits, likely to get harder, but you can help us in some easy and relatively painless ways:

Firstly, subscriptions - PLEASE can you a) respond quickly and promptly to our letters, which saves us money in sending reminders, and b) pay by direct debit, which allows us to administer your membership with the least possible hassle to you.

Secondly, donations - extra donations on top of your subscriptions are wonderful and help us greatly.  But if you can't afford to do that, even a couple of stamps helps! 

And don't forget to check out www.justgiving.com/cmt for all the nutters who are doing wonderful sponsored events for us - they are all listed there.

If you want to try your hand at fundraising yourself, we've lots of ideas and resources at www.cmt.org.uk/fundraising.php - it's not even too late to hold a Cake, Muffin and Tea Party, if you really want to!

And there are other even more painless ways -

Recycling - we can gain money from mobile phones, any brand of ink-jet cartridge and from used postage stamps.  We can send you envelopes for the first two, and if you could send stamps roughly trimmed, that helps a lot.

Online shopping and search engines:

Do your online shopping by starting at www.easyfundraising.org.uk - register and log in - you'll be asked for your preferred charity, and you can find us listed.  Thereafter, any shopping you do via that site, we'll gain commission on.  There's another here at www.spendandraise.com/cmtuk/ - you don't even need to register at this one.

And when searching the net, use www.everyclick.com/cmtunitedkingdom - they also have a shopping portal.