Six months ago Alice & I attended a St. George’s Night celebration in Sudbury and a germ of an idea was planted that we might do something similar in the winter by holding a Trafalgar Night dinner with any funds raised going to Help for Heroes. It would have stayed an idea except for Maggie and Erik Solomon who also wished to raise funds for HfH and were focusing upon a dinner at the Cock Inn, Polstead. I’ve known Maggie & Erik for some time and was called in to provide a touch of oomph and hopefully some ideas, organization and structure. The landlady of the Cock Inn unfortunately become ill in October and we then switched the venue to the Kings Head in Hadleigh. Maggie negotiated a good deal for the meal and focused on raising £5 per head for the charity. This was to be a surcharge on the cost of the meal and saved us the task of selling raffle tickets (and locating the prizes). Roger Howlett (one of the diners) suggested that we made everyone complete a Gift Aid form so that the charity could claim back the Standard Rate of Income Tax on all donations. Twenty people attended and a total of £125 was raised without any pain being imposed on the donors. Everyone sang “Heart of Oak”, “No John No” and of course finished with “Rule Britannia”.  I did the address to the Immortal Memory. Following day comments included:
“A good evening & we both enjoyed the meal as well”
“Thank you for all the work you did to make the evening such a great success. God bless you”
More details of HfH can be found on http://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/index.php?secondtime=1