Cancer is evil. I don’t even like writing down the word. Unfortunately, be it directly or indirectly, it has a huge affect on virtually everyone and very sadly it has had a devastating effect on my family over the past couple of years.

On Tuesday this week I held a charity workshop in aid of Cancer Research UK. Great strides have been made in the identification and treatment of cancers over the years and the work of such incredible charities as Cancer Research UK hopefully means that in the future, fewer people will have to battle and suffer with such a horrible disease.

I set out secretly wanting to make £2,000 for charity but in the end, with the addition of a private donation made separately, the total figure raised was £4500.

I have been bowled over by everyone’s generosity for such a worthy cause.

Initially, I asked a few of my favourite suppliers whether they may be kind enough to donate anything towards the day to help me raise more money. The response I got was quite overwhelming. It started with suppliers but then my friends started to offer the most incredible prizes too, without me even asking. In the end the prizes donated were worth well over £1500. I will forever be grateful for everyone’s generosity and support.

There are just so many friends to thank for donating such amazing prizes and listing them here really doesn’t do them justice but I will always be so grateful to them:

– Adam Johnson, Rahul Khona, Andy Gaines & Mick Shah from NineDots
– David Stubbs
– Liam Crawley
– The 8 Street Collective
– Sam Fitton
– Katie at Ashfield House
– Nik Bryant

And so many suppliers too. All of whom whose products and use regularly, I love them all:

– Magmod
– Camera Bits Inc
– Stomp Software
– JPEGmini
– Yoast

Donations of prizes is one thing but they wouldn’t be as useful without everyone who came along on the day buying so many raffle tickets to try and win them. So the biggest thanks of all go to the 37 photographers (including some who knew they couldn’t attend but bought a ticket anyway) who booked on to the workshop and who between them entered the raffle, guessed the number of M&Ms in the jar and played party games to raise over a thousand pounds on the day. I had been hoping for £500 but we more than doubled that. Just amazing.

Not only did we raise so much money for charity but we also had a brilliant day too. I wanted to make the workshop informal and fun and that’s exactly how it felt. The day felt more like a party than a workshop and I loved it.

So once again, a huge and extremely heartfelt thank you to everyone who attended the workshop, donated prizes and offered their support. I could not be more grateful to you all.

Thank you to James White for the photograph – the moment Zoe won Scissors Paper Rock!