The Eye Fund » News

Wirral’s Cultural Ambassador to open Exhibition

Paul Sherry — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:40:17 +0000

The Eye Fund is having an art exhibition of some of Simon’s graphics. Professional artists will be contributing some of their own impressions of Simon’s designs. Local schoolchildren have been working hard making their own copies of the same pictures.

Art by Simon Sherry

This is to be held from 12th March to 21st March in The Pavilion, Birkenhead Park, Wirral. The grand opening by Mike McCartney, Wirral’s Cultural Ambassador takes place on the 11th March by invitation only.

We will also be presenting a cheque of £4500 to the Wirral Society for the Blind and Partially sighted to help pay for a counsellor to advise people faced with losing their sight.

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2008 Roundup

Phil Sherry — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:16:14 +0000

Simon’s family wish all of his friends and supporters a very happy Christmas and a good 2009. Raise a glass to him at New Year.

The Eye Fund has had a very good first year: upwards of £26000 has been raised. There is a counsellor already working at a Wirral Eye Clinic, funded by The Eye Fund. Next year 2 more counsellors will be helping people like Simon, in London and Liverpool.

We would like to thank everyone. Please keep helping. Have you thought of a monthly donation of as little as £5? Download the form for more information. Every little helps!

Sigur Rós Winner, Neil Walker

Phil Sherry — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:54:12 +0000

After some furious Ebay bidding, our signed Sigur Rós “Hlemmur” CD/DVD was finally won by Neil Walker, who paid an astounding £360 for it. Well done, Neil!

Many, many thanks go to Sigur Rós for taking the time to sign things for us and for agreeing to meet up with Neil to hand his prize over at their London gig last night. Thanks must also go to John Best, their manager, and Paul Baines for being his usual awesome self. We couldn’t have done this without you, Paul.

Signed Sigur Rós “Hlemmur” CD/DVD

Phil Sherry — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 16:52:37 +0000

EBAY: Signed Sigur Rós “Hlemmur” CD/DVD

We've just added the following item to Ebay: Limited Edition copy of Hlemmur by Sigur Rós.

This unique version of Hlemmur was signed especially to raise money and awareness for The Eye Fund, which we are obviously thrilled about.

Also included is a selection of rare promotional CDs from the Takk… and Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust albums.

Promo CD singles: Glósóli; Hoppípolla; Sæglópur (US version); Sæglópur (UK version); Gobbledigook; Inní mér syngur vitleysingur; Við spilum endalaust
Promo CD albums: Takk…; Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

Please head over to Ebay and bid on this item!

Race Night Results

Phil Sherry — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 16:35:31 +0000

The latest fund raising venture was a Race Night organised by David. The venue was the Marine Football club in Crosby (where David and Anne-Marie had their evening do for their wedding).

The evening was a great success and a real family happening. Everyone from Phil’s Nan, Paul’s brother from Leicestershire, Jake from Blackburn and not forgetting Jamie, Ciaran and 2 year-old William. Everyone had a brilliant time and a lovely hot-pot supper (sorry Phil).

After expenses, the amount raised was over £700. Well Done David! (even if he has a few more grey hairs now)

Now! What’s next???

~ Carol Sherry

Liverpool 5

Phil Sherry — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:59:03 +0000

On September 7th 2008, the Eye Fund Sisters (aka: Helen, Anne-Marie, and Li), took part in the annual Liverpool 5k run around Sefton Park. All three finished with a personal best time and at the time of writing they’ve raised £640! Well done, girls.

Take a look at some pictures of the event in our gallery

Arrowe Park Hospital presentation

Phil Sherry — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:38:16 +0000

We had a day at Arrowe Park Hospital on 4th August working with The Wirral Association for the Blind and Partially Sighted in the charity shop. One of the main purposes for being there was to present Gareth Jones with a Max, a digital magnifier that is used through the TV or PC. This allows him to enlarge any reading matter to any size or colour. Something we learnt from Simon while he was still alive was how much easier for him it was to see in certain colours or lights.

One of the things we said at the beginning of the charity was that we wanted to help individuals to improve their life in one way or another. This is the first time we were able to do this and it was great. We’ll certainly be doing it again when the occasion arises.

Take a look at some pictures of the event in our gallery

Liverpool Collection

Phil Sherry — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:37:03 +0000

We had a marathon collection at Central Station, Liverpool on 16th August 2008.

Paul and Carol were there from 10am to 4pm with buckets, joined by Helen, Russell, Marie, Steve Tam (from the Capitol Chinese Restaurant) and Andy Morgan (Steve’s friend). It was a long day but the public were very generous. Andy ceratinly added a special something when he arrived. The grand total was £465.09.

We think Simon would have been proud of our stamina.

Take a look at some pictures of the event in our gallery

Charity Race Night

Phil Sherry — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 20:37:05 +0000

On Saturday 18th October The Eye Fund will be holding a Race Night at Marine Football Club in Crosby.

The evening promises to be a fast and furious one, with some fantastic prizes available for each race. There will also be a Hot Pot Supper included in the price. Starting at 7:30 and finishing at around 10:00 grab yourself the chance to win big!

Tickets will be available from any member of The Eye Fund at the usual contact addresses. Get yours soon to make sure that you don’t miss out on a great night!

Flora London Marathon 2008 Update

Phil Sherry — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 10:24:45 +0000

Of the 92,000 people that applied to take part in this most prestigious event, 45,000 people were accepted. For one reason or another, only 35,044 actually started the race but a huge 34,420 actually crossed the finish line before 6:30pm on April 13^th 2008 .

One of those proud finishers was Russell Kay, running in support of The Eye Fund. Russell successfully completed the 26.2 miles in 5 hours and 32 minutes and actually managed to run all the way — we are completely in awe of his achievement! He finished just after the Masai Warriors but before the toilet (yes really!), a couple of rhinos and the camels, as well as lots of other ordinary runners. His preparation and training helped to ensure that his only side effect was to be aching all over for a few days afterwards and already he is thinking that it might not be such a bad thing to enter again in the future.

Amazingly, even after the race is completed Russell’s sponsorship total is still rising, and currently stands at £2,448! Thank you to absolutely everybody that has helped to make Russell’s hard work so worthwhile. If you’ve not had time to sponsor Russell so far you still have until July 13th left to add your donation to http://www.justgiving.com/russellkay.

We did manage to take a few pictures of the day, that you can see here, but it just felt wrong to stop clapping and cheering just to take pictures. Official photographs will be uploaded soon.

If you’re stuck for something to do on April 26^th 2009 you could do one of two things:

you could join the thousands of heroes running to raise money in the world’s biggest fundraising event, and perhaps help to top up our funds this time next year
if running just isn’t your thing or your application isn’t successful, you could spend the day somewhere along those 26.2 miles and shout and cheer every single one of those runners — it really will be appreciated!

Entry to the Flora London Marathon is not just a matter of entering and getting in; Russell has applied most years since his last run in 1999 and not been successful until this year. So, that means that it can be difficult for charities to organise their fundraising if they can’t just decide to enter a runner. Because of that, FLM offer a certain number of tickets for sale to charities, who then offer them to runners who can guarantee to raise £XXXX amount of pounds for them. THIS is what we’re hoping to do — The Eye Fund have already applied for a small number of Golden Tickets for the 2010 event, so if you would be interested in running to support us in two years time just let us know!