Ball raises more than £12k for community charity

Community-based charity Care Network Cambridgeshire raised more than £12k from a charity ball supported by local companies at Queens’ College Cambridge.

The evening included an auction run by charismatic auctioneer Will Axon of BBC1’s Flog It! and Celebrity Antiques Road Trip fame who cajoled just over £3k from the guests.

Andrew Gardiner, CNC chairman, said: “The Trustees set out to raise awareness in the local community of the valuable work done by the charity, as well as to boost our funds. In the main, we rely on a network of over 400 volunteers, with a very limited budget so a fundraising is an essential activity to enable us to increase our reach.”

Benefactors included Abcam, Newmarket Racecourses, N W Brown Group, Prentis and Co, Price Bailey, S2 Partnership Ltd and The Marshall Group.

CNC, which started from small beginnings in 1986, assists and empowers people in their own communities to set up and run community groups such as car schemes, mobile warden schemes, lunch clubs and even village internet cafes, in support of the elderly and vulnerable in Cambridgeshire. There are now 104 such schemes county-wide.

CNC also runs the Help at Home service, which incorporates Welcome Home from Hospital. CNC’s volunteers offer short term support to people in their own homes during a difficult time such as an illness or after a hospital stay.

New this year is the Community Navigators Project, which guides elderly and vulnerable people towards services and activities they need or might enjoy. The support given by CNC to individuals and communities was recognised recently by the charity winning a prestigious Impact Award from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: (from left to right) Cecile Grahame, Carolyn Douthwaite, Will Axon, Jan Lovegrove, Hubert Frencken