Members of Hampshire Constabulary - Bishop Waltham Safer Neighbourhood team recently presented us with a fantastic cheque after walking 24 miles for us in the middle of July, in very hot weather to raise us over £ 650.00.

Sgt Susan Innes from Hampshire Constabulary said ‘ I came up with the idea as a team building exercise, it entailed walking from the Golden Lion Pub in Winchester, to the Golden Lion Pub in Southwick and then onto the Golden Lion Pub in Fareham, a distance of 24 miles with a couple of stops”.

A huge thank you to all who took part.

Roger

Byron Road in New Milton is aglow for Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance. Even bigger and better than in previous years, Byron Road is lit with festive lights from one end to the other.   Sunday evening saw the entire road filled with hundreds of people for the light switch on, performed by Katie Martin of BBC Radio Solent.

The road will be illuminated every evening now until Christmas with all donations going to HIOWAA.   Over the previous two years the annual event has raised over £ 3,000 for the charity.   A huge thank you to Jed and Sue Hollyoake, all of their helpers, their elves, Elvis (yes really!) and Father Christmas for all of their fantastic support.

Sunday the 27th November sees the annual Byron Road Christmas Lights switch on in aid of Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance. 

This year, as in previous years, thousands of people are expected to fill Byron Road in New Milton to see the whole of the road illuminated with Christmas lights. In the past two years this event has raised over £ 3,000 for us, so a huge thank you to Jed and Sue Hollyoake for their fantastic support.

Katie Martin from BBC Radio Solent will be there to switch on the lights at 6pm and Father Christmas has promised to be there too!   There will also be a Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance stand full of the charity's Christmas Cards and Air Ambulance Christmas gift ideas.

I hope to see you there.

Roger

A long awaited event for Southampton General Hospital, and for HIOWAA, took place today.  The new Helipad, which has been built on the multi story car park, opened with the first landing by the HIOWAA aircraft.  There were many people there to see it, including members of the Hampshire media, and individuals from both SGH and the Help Appeal, who had been instrumental in bringing the helipad to fruition.

The crew of Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance came in to land on the new helipad at exactly 10.00am on Thursday 17th Nov 2011, and were called out again almost immediately to a genuine mission, a transfer from the Isle of Wight.

This facility at SGH will prove to be an enormous advantage to the people of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, by cutting anything up to half an hour off their journey to hospital, as the transfer by land ambulance from the secondary landing site at Lordshill is no longer necessary.  This will have a dramatic impact on the outcomes for patients.  More information about the helipad can be found here.

Sherie

Vroni Bingham hosted a funday day last month for riders and horses, with the theme of Alice in Wonderland. This was the first year and after thirteen entrants and a fantastic event it is hoped that this will run again next year if we can persuade Vroni. The weather was ideal for the riders.

The riders took their horses around the fields taking part in challenges from timed to tricky reversing and angles. They even asked me and one of our new volunteers Di to judge!  We had great fun and good old JJ looked after the stand and tea.   Along with the IOW Mountain & Moorlands Pony Society presenting a cheque for £211.50 the event itself raised another £273.49. 

Another fantastic event having fun, whilst raising money for the Charity. We always do our best to make sure that we can attend and help you achieve this. So if you are thinking of holding an event from horse riding, sponsored, afternoon tea or many other great ideas please let us know, so we can help you help us.

Rosemarie

HIOWAA is lordshill store’s “Charity of the Year” and at the end of October we had a two day collection at the store.  The first day we brought along the aircraft pod, but unfortunately the weather was not that brilliant so we could not open it up. However, it was notice by a multitude of people and was warmly received by many others. 

On the second day we carried on collecting money, as well as promoting our recycling scheme as Lordshill have just had a textile bank placed in their car park. We were joined by Danielle from Bag It Up, and after giving loads and loads of our pink and green bags out, the staff of Sainsbury’s wheeled out their filled bags for the textile bin, they have collected over 50 bags of clothes and shoes – Fantastic! For the months of August and September we received over £30,000 to the charity from all the recycling banks in Hampshire & Isle of Wight. We had a great time at the store and would like to thank everyone for making us feel so wanted and welcome.

Rosemarie

Dear Supporters, 

I hope that you are well. I am pleased to advise you of some exciting news.  Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance have moved to a self-contained office at 4 Kings Park Road, Southampton, SO15 2AS.

We have had to move offices as our lease expires during November 2011 at St Mary’s Stadium.  We have not been able to agree satisfactory terms to stay at the Stadium so have no alternative but to move. The offices at St Mary’s have been a good home for the charity to date but we now need more space to accommodate our existing staff ( it was not possible for all our existing staff to work in the offices at St Mary’s at the same time) and also for the increasing number of our wonderful volunteers who assist in many different ways in the office.

We have been able to use the current economic climate to conclude a very satisfactory deal for 4 Kings Park Road (4KPR).The new offices have a number of benefits, which include more office space, a meeting room ( reducing the cost of room hire) adequate private parking and additional public parking nearby together with good storage facilities which have been a problem to date.  We believe that this location is an appropriate location for the next phase of the growth of our charity, we have a 10 year lease and hopefully our tenure can go far beyond. We have been very fortunate to receive generous donations of additional office furniture, pictures, telephones and other useful items, so the costs of the move overall have been the bare essentials. 

We have not advised you before the move,  as our phone numbers and emails remain the same, and are all working again after the usual battles with BT for 36 hours!. We are also receiving all the mail that is sent to St Mary’s Stadium so hopefully communications ongoing are unaffected. Please advise if you have any problems.

We hope that you will be able to visit us soon. We plan to have our usual Christmas ‘Open House’ (Wednesday 14th December – timings etc to follow) and we will be delighted to welcome you to the office so you can see for yourself.  Thank you very much for your ongoing support in so many different ways.

John

The Woolston and District Bowling Club have supported us magnificently over the past twelve months when we enjoyed being their President’s Charity of the Year.   After a year of events in aid of Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance, outgoing President Mr. Les Smith presented us with a cheque for £4,065.38!

This fantastic amount came from events held to raise funds for us, fines for misdemeanours whilst playing and in the clubhouse and through the generosity of the members.   A huge thank you from all of us at Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance.

Roger

The honeymoon of Dominic and Rachael Clacy began in an unconventional way on the 1st October when they both set foot in Kilimanjaro National Park, and started their climb of Africa’s highest mountain. After witnessing the air ambulance responding to an incident in their village of Whitchurch in Hampshire, they had both decided that their ambition to climb a mountain could be used to raise awareness for the charity, and raise important funds in the process. To date the pair have raised in excess of £1000, above and beyond their £900 target originally specified.  For more about their amazing trip please click here.

June

Good luck to all the wonderful people who will be running in the Great South Run this weekend, to raise funds for HIOWAA.  Our Community Fundraiser, Rosemarie Norman will be there to welcome you all home, and we are hoping for good weather so that the event is a huge success.  Thanks from all the team at HIOWAA.

Sherie

It’s getting to that time of year again where we all start wondering what to get our loved ones for Christmas.  We have plenty of items that can be used as presents and stocking fillers in our online store, including our 2012 diaries which have come in today. These beautiful green and gold diaries will help keep you organised and meeting those all important dates. They also feature colour maps, forward planners and all kinds of other information you may need. A bargain at £3.50.     Why not also support your Air Ambulance by purchasing our Christmas Cards? We have three designs – our current aircraft in the snow, our original aircraft in the snow and a robin, all in packs of 10 with the greeting “With Best Wishes for Christmas and the New Year”.      All orders are dispatched to you within a few days, but we suggest that you order everything before 7^th December to ensure you get it all in time for Christmas

Kirsty

On the 26th and 27th of October the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance heli pod will be outside the Sainsbury's Lordshill  store along with collectors who will be taking unwanted clothing from customers.

The store Manager said “So far our Colleagues alone have brought in 38 bags of clothing, shoes and bras for recycling!  We are also going to be holding a 2nd hand book sale for Colleagues and a Halloween dress up day.  We are about to have 2 Collection bins put out in our car park for customers to also recycle any unwanted items.  ”

Some come along and help Sainsbury’s support your Air Ambulance.

Rosemarie

For the second year Natwest banking, are running “Community Force” .  NatWest Community Force is a new initiative which sees them working with local communities to support the people, projects and charities making a real difference where you live.   HIOWAA has been registered to be in the running for a £6000 donation, but we need your votes! There are 13 days left to vote so please act fast and vote for us by following this link. http://communityforce.natwest.com/project/1943 

At 7.30am on Saturday 10th September a small novice team of mountain climbers reached the summit of Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain. The team included Vicki Kyle-Lawrence who had set herself this goal a year ago when she decided to raise money for Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance who had saved her life back in February 2009 after being kicked by a horse which ruptured her liver causing her to lose 4 pints of blood.

Although she had been training since the start of the year nothing could prepare her for the mental and physical extremes that climbing at altitude has on the body. Living in a tent with no running water or electricity for a week, trekking daily for up to 9 hours at a time through jungle, plains and volcanic moonscape needs strength and resilience. However the reward was to reach the summit as the sun rose over the cloud sea and the most fantastic view of the sun rising on the magnificent walls of the glacier which sits on the top of the crater.  'No photograph will ever capture the stunning scenery and views you get when you are standing on one of the world’s highest points. It took 7 ½ hours of climbing at night in minus 10 degrees centigrade to reach the summit but the feeling of achievement when you get to the crater edge in indescribable.'  said Vicki.  'People keeping asking me what next – I think just a good rest and some time to recover. But who knows what may be around the corner. Although it will be very hard to top this experience!'    

So far Vicki has managed to raise over £3000 to donate to the Air Ambulance but she still plans to reach her target of £6000 by the end of the year.    A concert, East Woodhay does West End, is being held on Sunday 30th October at The Clere School near Newbury by East Woodhay Silver Band in aid of the Air Ambulance as part of Vicki’s fundraising. Tickets are £10 each and will be available from local businesses in Woolton Hill, Burghclere and Kingsclere or by calling 07970297940.

Over 2 days 8 members of 22 Field Hospital undertook to paddle 4 fourteen foot open Canadian Canoes the length of the Basingstoke canal.  Self supported and carrying all equipment and rations required for the 2 day trip. 

Starting at the River Wey end of the Basingstoke Canal near to the M25 Motorway at 0700hrs on Monday 10th October,  we were happy that the weather was warm and sunny as we set of for day one of the 50km paddle.

The trip would require us to negotiate 29 locks on the canal and for speed and safety it was decided that these would be portaged carrying all equipment and boats.  Unfortunately 28 of these locks are in the fist half of the canal so day one involved a lot of lifting and carrying. This was made even more challenging by the fact that when we arrived at lock 15 there was no water on the other side!

Read more about our challenge here

Our T Shirts are kindly sponsored by Brilens

Andy Game

A wonderful night was had by all on 11th October  2011 when members of Woolston & District Bowling Club organised a Fundraising Fashion Show, hosted by Travelling Trends from Ringwood. The Club House in Temple Road Southampton was packed out, with queues forming at the entrance well before the evening started. A 120 people attended the event which showcased over 80 high street and designer items on the catwalk. 

 With members strutting their stuff down the walk way applauded by the audience, a scrum then ensued with shopaholics rifling through through more than 20 rails heaving with clothes from Jasper Conran, Viyella, Peppermint, Wallis, to name but a few, which could be purchased at 30 - 60% less than RRP, with commission earned on the sales going to Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance.   People were treated to free wine and nibbles provided by the Club, during which raffle tickets were also sold in aid of the charity, with generous prizes donated by Kutz 'n' Beauty Netley Abbey, Les Smith Butchers and other bowling club members.

 It was a fun, girlie night with much laughter [and spending of money] due to an amazing amount of effort being put into the event. Many thanks to all the team at the Bowling Club for making it such a successful fundraising event  for the Air Ambulance.   

Sarah Rowlands

Saturday 12th November 2011.  St Colmans Church Hall, St Colmans Road, Cosham.   8pm – 11pm.   Charity Social Dance in aid of HIOWAA and Rocky appeal. Social Ballroom and Latin Dancing, with tombola and dance display. Theme: Posh Frocks and Lounge Suits. Ticket includes tea / coffee and biscuits – please bring your own other refreshments.    Admission by ticket only. Tickets £6. Please call Pauline on 07989 124 089 for tickets and more information

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