Conclusion of the St John’s Hospice 50-50-500 Challenge

On Friday 28th July we attended the Charity Challenge Celebration Event which marked the end of the St John’s Hospice 50-50-500 challenge in which 50 businesses in Lancaster, Morecambe and surrounding areas had 50 business working days to raise a minimum of £500 per business for our local hospice.  

Our fundraising was kicked off at the beginning of May with an office dress-down day that followed a red, white and blue theme in keeping with the celebrations for the King's Coronation.

We held a ‘Guess the Sweets in the Jar’ competition that saw various guestimation tactics deployed by our savvy accountants in a bid to secure the sweet treats. The exact number of sweets in the jar was 226, which meant the prize was split between two of our accountants – Sophie Lucas and Andrew Wright who were both incredibly close with their guesses of JUST 3 shy of the correct answer. The sweets disappeared very quickly after the event!

In true Scott & Wilkinson style, we couldn’t do a fundraiser without having a bake sale. Our bakers got to work in their kitchens and our cake enthusiasts donated generously. On offer, there were brownies, carrot cake, lemon sponge, chocolate fudge cake plus lots more. As always, the sale went down a treat and there was not a crumb left in sight!

In June, we had a hugely successful quiz, bingo and pie night hosted at Bare Cricket Club, who kindly let us use their clubhouse for the evening. After some gruelling rounds of a challenging quiz set by David Westworth – thank you, David – it was the Bare Cricket Club team who were victorious. We had some generous prize donations for the tombola including a meal voucher from Pizza Margherita, a chocolate bouquet from Mr and Mrs Taylor and some very nice whisky from James Cornthwaite.

Our reception duo, Dawn and Terri, hosted a very popular Guess the Baby photo competition. Remarkably, Sue Henderson and Andrew Wright (again) were both able to correctly guess 30 out of 34 photos despite some (not naming names) being in black and white!!

To wrap up our series of fundraising, we held a savoury bake sale and dress-down day. The savoury bake sale saw the S&W team excel once more and put on an amazing spread featuring a cheese board of local cheeses, pork pies, quiche, deli meats, savoury flapjacks, cheese and onion rolls and scotch eggs to name a few. A feast that left no one needing to go out for their lunch!

In total from all our efforts, we surpassed the original £500 target and doubled it, raising £1,043.39 for St John’s Hospice. We are very proud and thankful for the generosity of all who donated not just financially but also with their time spent organising the various events or hard at work baking. A huge well done to all involved!

At the celebration event, it was unveiled that over £30,000 had been raised from the Challenge Event. This well exceeded the event goal of £25,000 (50 businesses x £500) despite not having the full sign-up of 50 businesses – a truly monumental effort from all the businesses that participated and the event organisers!