Charlie House welcomed almost 500 people to its black-tie Big Build Ball at the P&J Live on Friday 6th December to raise funds for its Big Build Appeal.
The Winter Wonderland-themed event made more than £147,000 profit, which included a special surprise presentation cheque of £50,000 from the event's silver sponsor, Apache North Sea. All of the evening's profits will go to the charity's fund for its 8-bedroom specialist support centre at Woodend Hospital.
The evening saw entertainment in the form of performances by Danz Creations Performance Team, a children's Christmas choir from Class Act Drama, magic from Ariel Hamui and futuristic tech from VirtualrealiTEA.
The event saw hundreds of guests treated to an evening of fantastic entertainment, food and fundraising. Auction prizes included a Gleneagles getaway, Sports Personality of the Year glittering awards package and a rare and exclusive luxury tour and whisky tasting with Master of the Quaich, Stephen Rankin.
Compere Pauline Fraser and auctioneer Alex Fleming set the tone of the evening with guests getting involved in a silent auction on bidding tablets and the live main auction. The evening ended with guests dancing the night away to a four-piece professional live band from Dundee, Jive Candy.
Ball sponsors included:
Title Sponsor - Brimmond Group
Gold Sponsors - Premier Oil, Worley and Gordon & Watson Funeral Directors, part of Dignity Funerals
Silver Sponsors - Apache North Sea and Brown Shipley
Bronze Sponsors - Clover Tool Europe
Tracy Johnstone, Chair of Charlie House, says, "We are still coming down from cloud nine after an incredible evening. Our guests were so generous and supportive of the ball. Our guest speaker and mum Jill Cameron gave an honest account of family life with her son Harris and how important Charlie House and the specialist support centre will be to her. It was wonderful to see a standing ovation following Jill's speech. The Apache North Sea donation caught us all off guard and was a complete surprise, we are so grateful for their generous donation."
Susan Crighton, Director of Fundraising for Charlie House, says, "We are so thankful to all of our ball sponsors, local businesses who donates prizes, our volunteers and generous guests who attended the ball. There was a lot of hard work behind the scenes to make this another hugely successful event for the charity and the team worked tirelessly to pull together the Winter Wonderland-themed evening."
Susan continues, "The surprise cheque donation from Apache North Sea was the absolute icing on the cake! It was wonderful to have the entire team there for the presentation. All of the profits made at the ball will go directly to the Big Build Appeal and towards our £8million fundraising total for the Charlie House specialist Support Centre."
Patricia Paterson, of Apache North Sea, says, "The staff at Charlie House work extremely hard fundraising for a much-needed support facility in Aberdeen to provide a 24-hour care facility for families with babies and young children who have life-threatening and life-limiting conditions. I would encourage others to consider donating to the cause and help boost their fundraising efforts to make Charlie House a reality."
