2016 A Massive Thank-You

Well what can we say, 2016 was a year of high's with amazing results throughout the year, but also of great sadness at the loss of our group founder and chair Christine Piper.

Our group and supporters took part in or organised many events throughout the year including

London Marathon
Tough Mudder
Ladies Night 
Weston Pride
Highbridge & Burnham Carnival
Shop 4 a Cure 4 Christmas
Ball Britannia

We also would like to Thanks CJ Hole for their support throughout 2016 with their various fundraising initiatives including Ed Creswick & his son Tom doing a skydive they managed to raise over £1000 for our charity.

Not forgetting all of those people who have made any kind of donation in our many collection tins.

We are pleased to announce that during 2016 we managed to raise an incredible £36,000  bringing the total that the group has raised for Breast Cancer NOW to an amazing £405,000 since it was founded in 1997, not forgetting that in addition to this £20,000 was raised for each of the 4 breast cancer units in Bath, Yeovil, Weston and Taunton meaning we have now raised £485,000 for breast cancer charities.

Ladies Night 2016

When:              Friday October 14th 2016  7:30pm

Where:            Dickies Bar, The Tavern, Brean Leisure Park


****** SOLD OUT ****** SOLD OUT ****** 

It's always such a huge success so we are back to proudly host another Ladies Night at Dickies Bar, featuring amazing muscular male acts plus a drag act and a disco until 12:30pm, all in aid of Somerset Breast Cancer Now.


With their stunning good looks and amazing bodies to match we can guarantee eye popping sights that will leave you wanting more and more. Fueled by the famous fishbowls you can dance the night away knowing you have helped raised money for a fantastic charity!

Charity raffle on the night.

Thank you, we look forward to seeing you all again for another fantastic evening!

7:30pm til late
Over 18s, ladies only

See you there!

Group members and stars at a previous Ladies Night

Ladies Night 2014

 

Back by popular demand :)

When:              Friday October 10th 2014  7:30pm

Where:            Dickies Bar, Brean Leisure Park


It was such a huge success that we are back to proudly host another Ladies Night at Dickies Bar, featuring two amazing muscular male entertainers plus a drag act and dicso, all in aid of Somerset Breakthrough Breast Cancer Group.


With their stunning good looks and amazing bodies to match we can guarantee eye popping sights that will leave you wanting more and more. Fueled by the famous fishbowls you can dance the night away knowing you have helped raised money for a fantastic charity!

So what are you waiting for? If you need convincing, check out some pics from last year on our group facebook page and then get some friends together for a truly unforgettable night.

TICKETS ARE LIMITED - ONLY 150 AVAILABLE AND GOING FAST!

Book now on 07738 405085 and ask for Holly to secure your tickets (upon receipt of payment of cash only) or follow us on facebook Breakthrough Breast Cancer Somerset for more information. Alternatively email hollymacbeth@sky.com

£15 per person - striclty ladies over 18s only  - no ticket no entry.

Charity raffle on the night.

Thank you, we look forward to seeing you all again for another fantastic evening!
 

Friday 10th October 2014
Dickies Bar, The Tavern, Brean Leisure Park, Brean

7:30pm til late
Over 18s, ladies only

See you there!

Group members and stars at a previous Ladies Night

Moonwalk 2013 Completed



Tired but proud and happy!



Well done Somerset group members Holly and Kat for completing the half marathon moonwalk in three hours and raising over £400 for Breakthrough!

The London Moonwalk is an annual Walk the Walk event where around 15,000 intrepid participants powerwalk around the capital in their brassieres, starting at midnight from the iconic Battersea Power Station landmark. 

A puffed out Holly said  "The rain came down but that didn't deter us because we were enjoying every minute of every step, so much so that now we want to do the full marathon distance next year! We'd like to thank everyone who sponsored and supported us, including Fun City Brean and Parkin Workwear."

We'll keep you updated with their plans for the 2014 Moonwalk, but for now here's the the main walk the walk page here. 

Here's some more pics of our fab girls:

Meeting the locals

Modelling T-shirts

Training Walk Selfie

Here's link to their ORIGINAL PAGE
Thanks for reading!

Life After Breast Cancer

Wendy, Christine and Susie

Somerset group members Christine Piper and Susie Loosley, along with friend and supporter Wendy Cox, spent an afternoon with Taunton based photographer Andrea Duncan as part of her project to capture beautiful images of breast cancer survivors.

Andrea's vision is to photograph women of all ages who have overcome the disease, to create meaningful photographs that portray their personality, femininity and love for life.

She hopes the pictures will be something for the women to treasure but that the project will also inspire other women about life before, during, and after breast cancer.

Our ladies certainly found the experience fun, light-hearted and very rewarding, with group chair Christine expressing her thanks. "We are very grateful to Andrea for the opportunity to be a part of the wonderful photos, and we all hope to meet up again soon".

  

Andrea is looking for other women who may be interested, so if you would like to know more please do contact her to arrange a chat. The photosessions will be 'on location' rather than in a photo studio, these were taken inside the lovely Cosy Club in Taunton, but Somerset has many great locations outside as long as the weather is kind!

Thanks for reading.

www.andreaduncan.co.uk

www.cosyclub.co.uk/taunton

 

Celebrating 15 Years

Christine Cutting The Cake



The Somerset Group was formed in 1997 by Christine & John Piper, Ann Carr and Anne Whaley.                         

The idea of the group was Christine's’ after she saw Sir Ranulph Fiennes on the television talking about his attempt to walk across Antarctica in aid of Breakthrough Breast Cancer and this was her inspiration, as well as the fact that Christine’s mother had breast cancer in the very early sixties, plus Christine has had Breast Cancer twice.  Fellow group member Susie Loosley, who has been with the group for 14 years, is also a survivor of breast cancer.

Christine Piper, Chair of the group says “We have had loads of fun over the years fundraising for Breakthrough Breast Cancer to help and support their work to achieve a future free from the fear of breast cancer. We’ve met some wonderful people, from our first ever event with a group of children from St Mary’s Church in Berrow when we set off 100 pink Balloons, to a Tug of War at Burnham Rugby Club, Wicked Women Evenings, Quiz Nights, Golf Events and we even did the Moonwalk! Plus lots, lots more. 
Our most memorable was our “Twist on the Beach” in 2002 when we set a new Guinness World Record & people still talk about that event today!


2011 saw us achieve  the World's Largest Rugby Scrum at Burnham Rugby Club, when we broke the world record, but only for a short time. However, we achieved some lovely publicity for Breakthrough Breast Cancer in The Sun & Christine was even interviewed on Talksport by Paul Hawksbee and Andy Jacobs. We are attempting to do this event again this year and 2012 also sees our group holding our 4th Ball, which have been very successful and of course loads of fun!!
We are very lucky to have the support from Mayor & Mayoress Michael & Maria Clarke.

Throughtout our 15 years, we are very proud to have raised awareness of breast cancer in Somerset by supporting other events and giving talks. We are also VERY thankful for all the support we've received helping us fundraise over an incredible £300,000 for Breakthrough Breast Cancer.  Christine says “ A huge thank you to everyone for their support for the last fifteen years and here’s to the next fifteen”!!
                       

We are very pleased to announce that Bernie Nolan (The Nolans Sisters) agreed to be The Somerset Breakthrough Breast Cancer group’s Patron...... Bernie sent this message...

“Congratulations to the Somerset Breakthrough Breast Cancer Group on your 15th Anniversary. Making and keeping people aware of early detection and of course raising money for much needed research is vital and you have done a wonderful job over the past 15 years.
Goodness knows how many lives have been prolonged if not saved through your amazing work.
With all out best wishes and Thanks from all of us Breast cancer survivors..     Bernie Nolan  XXXXX"  

Tessa Munt MP has supported our group for a number of years... 

“ The Somerset Breakthrough Breast Cancer Group are a truly wonderful group of people who have worked tirelessly over the last fifteen years, raising over £300,000 to help improve the situation of women and men with breast cancer in Somerset. I commend the important work they do to raise awareness of breast cancer and the support and morale boost they give to local people affected.   Tessa”

We as a group know about how breast cancer touches people. In April 2010 we lost group member Julie aged just 35yrs to breast cancer. Unfortunately Julie wasn’t aware of the different signs of breast cancer, so we designed a poster “Julie’s Legacy” which gives information about breast cancer.  We really do need to get the message out there, not only for Julie but for every woman & man.  48,000 women & 300 men are diagnosed each year this number has gone up since we formed our group in 1997 and this is very sad!!


We would like to say a very big Thank you to everyone everyone who has supported our events and also held your own to raise funds for Breakthrough Breast Cancer.

Chair of the Somerset group, Christine says “If there is anyone who would like to join our group,we would like to hear from you! Together, we’re joining a force of thousands of like-minded people across the UK working together with a single-minded ambition to stop women dying from breast cancer. We hope you’ll join us”

Without you we could not do our work and Breakthrough Breast Cancer could not do theirs so a BIG Thank you to you ALL!

Here's a link to article on Burnham-on-Sea.com 
http://www.burnham-on-sea.com/news/2012/cancer-group-anniversary-13-03-12.php

How Can You Help?

As much as you want to!

Awareness goes hand in hand with fund raising, so the fact you are reading this sentence is already helping!

However, many people would like to become more active supporters of Breakthrough but don't really know where to start... well here are a few ways you could help our Somerset group no matter how much time or energy you have.

If you're a fan of social networks then please follow us on Twitter (@BreakthroughSom) or join our Facebook page - both are great ways to stay in touch for news and details of future events. Sharing our links on Facebook and retweeting the odd Twitter post will help us reach more people across Somerset and beyond - we promise not to clog anyone’s timeline and appreciate every #FF!  :)

Apart from staying in touch on-line, we are always looking for shops, restaurants and bars that might have room for a pink ribbon badge box on the counter. We're already grateful to many establishments in Somerset who sell Breakthrough pink ribbon pin badges for us or have our collection tins handy for spare change – but the more the merrier and it all helps!

A number of loyal supporters hold coffee mornings and bake sales for us once a year – perfect examples of simple events that enables Breakthrough Breast Cancer to perform its crucial ground breaking research that is really making a difference.

A Pamper Event!

Maybe you might consider holding a traditional bingo evening, or a cerebral quiz night? We’ve even held a few raunchy ladies nights where good times were had by all ;)

Ladies Night 2011

For the last two years we’ve held a Christmas raffle to coincide with our Ball, so raffle prizes such as bottles of wine or hampers for example would be an ideal donation. If you live near a group member and can spare a prize or even just sell a few tickets then it all helps, it really does.

And talking of our Ball (held near Weston-super-Mare), it really is the highlight of our year, so if you’ve never been then please do consider it, but contact us early as tickets are limited and normally go fast!

Moulin Rouge Ball 2009

Do you have any influence with an established sporting club that attracts larger crowds? Maybe you’d be able to arrange for a few members of our small group to attend a game one day, with a stall or simply just collection buckets/tins?

Another great help are the items and services that are donated each year for our annual Ball auction. If you know of a celebrity or famous sports person who could help, whether it is free tickets, a signed item, or something amazing like a “money-can’t-buy” studio tour experience, it would be wonderful if you could get in touch.

Signed Andrew Strauss Pictures!

We are always looking for places with changing rooms such as shops, leisure centres, swimming pools etc to display A5 posters of Julie’s Legacy:

http://somersetbreastcancer.blogspot.co.uk/2011_02_01_archive.html


Julie’s Legacy was launched in February 2011, in conjunction with Breakthrough’s TLC campaign, in memory of much loved group member Julie Selway. The message is simple but not commonly known – like Julie, you do NOT need to find a lump to be diagnosed with Breast Cancer.  Please get in touch if you can display a poster in a suitable place. If we save just one life it will be worth it.

Many small local sporting clubs raise awareness and funds for us (and themselves) by holding race nights, poker evenings or skittles competitions – these are a great idea as it raises our profile among their younger male members who may not have Breakthrough on their radar.  Although rare, 300 men are diagnosed with breast cancer each year in the UK.

In addition to GO PINK events in October for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we also organise a number of awareness events throughout the year, such as the world’s biggest rugby scrum and the twist on the beach, so if you see us out and about then please do come along and say hello!

191 person scrum! May 2011

If the above ideas have whetted your appetite for helping Breakthrough, maybe you would even consider joining our group to help us plan all our events and make an even bigger difference!

We are actively seeking another 3 or 4 people, men or women, who are able to attend our meetings on the 1st Wednesday of each month. The group is based in Burnham-on-Sea where we generally hold our meetings, but as a few members live in Portishead & Bridgwater, we also hold the occasional meeting away from Burnham to freshen it up and share the travelling.

Meetings start at 7:30pm and finish before 10pm. The atmosphere is always friendly & informal, and with less than 10 members it shouldn’t be too daunting for any new faces. A warm welcome awaits...  :)

Christine & John Piper started the Somerset group back in 1997, and are extremely proud that after 15 years the group has raised over £300,000 for Breakthrough Breast Cancer. But this has only been possible with the help and support of so many great people & businesses of our county, so a very sincere THANKYOU goes out to everyone who has helped make a difference over the years!!

Celebrating 15 years in March 2012

But no laurels are being rested upon, so if any of these suggestions interest you, or if you have any other ideas that you think may be suitable, please do email Christine Piper and/or Somerset Group or tel 01278 793870 to discuss them in more detail.  
We’d love to hear from you!

Of course, as a small regional group of Breakthrough, we can’t be too ambitious with our events, so if you fancy a more challenging experience while supporting our valuable cause, Breakthrough HQ are always organising a mountain to climb or a perfectly good airplane to jump out of!!
Just check out www.breakthrough.org.uk  and you’ll find more national challenges than you can shake a stick at!

Breast cancer touches the lives of far too many people, but with your help we can continue to work towards a future free from the fear of this awful disease. 

Thank you for reading... and keep smiling :)

Contact :  christinepiper@sky.com   01278 793870    or    somersetbreakthrough@gmail.com