Fred Foundation

http://www.justgiving.com/Duff-Borer2011

Tom Wainwright is only 9, but while his Mum and Dad were away he decided to do a sponsored row for the Fred Foundation. On his brothers rowing machine, he rowed so far -10k- that he got blisters all over his hands. He raised £170 for The Fred Foundation. It was a fantastic achievement and in it’s own way as impressive as running the marathon or swimming the Channel. Well done Tom and many thanks!

http://www.justgiving.com/Duff-Borer2011

 Dear Friend,    

 A belated Happy New Year to you all and apologies for sending out the January 2011 newsletter in February!

 The Fred Foundation is entering its 5^th year in a better position than ever. Despite a reduced number of high profile events in 2010 the charity has been quietly busy behind the scenes, with its aim of “helping as many children with autism and their families as possible” increasingly being realised.  

Some of you will know that at the beginning of  last year Fred’s parents moved house in order to get suitable secondary provision for him.  After yet another fight with their new Local Authority, they thankfully won funding for Fred without having to go to a third Tribunal.  They became the first example of the charity giving a child the all important consistency of education provision by providing a funding bridge between the Education Authority’s obligations.

(The Borers still also play an active role fundraising for The Fred!)

Another family we support have also just heard that they won their appeal to get their daughter funded by their Local Authority which is thrilling.  It’s a great example of  how we help families best -  freeing them up to fight their particular Local  Authority by alleviating the worry of having to meet the costs of their child’s specific educational needs.

We are supporting several families at the moment but we can now say we have the potential to support more.  We are working hard to tell all the relevant bodies that we have enough funds to take on new families and on that basis we are actively looking to help autistic children whose parents have lost at Tribunal and are appealing against the decision.    

We get a lot of enquiries and the ones that meet our criteria for funding are so grateful for our help.  I wish I could show you the letters and let you listen to the conversations I have with these parents. They are all at their wits end

thinking nobody can help. You may hear some of their voices on the blog over the next few months. (www.thefredfoundation.org). We also hope they will now in turn hold their own fundraising events to help The Fred Foundation.

As you know, we have always wanted to fund as many children as possible and in 2010 we started to attract donations which were not event related.

In particular, two friends of parents with an autistic child (who were struggling to get a proper provision for him) and intending to set up a charity, admired our work and quickly realised that The Fred Foundation’s aim was the same as theirs.  Their fundraising efforts, which included a very successful dinner over which our Patron Lord Guthrie presided, combined with The Foundation’s ongoing projects, have put the charity in a healthy position for 2011. 

Meanwhile, we are supporting that family and their child whilst their case is being heard in the High Court.

 We have hired an accountancy firm to do our accounts a job previously done by our accountancy trained Trustee Suzanne Thompson. Many thanks to her for all her hard work to date.  (As a matter of course you can see our accounts via the Charity Commission’s web site).

 Of course, the serious business of fundraising continued in 2010 by our regular supporters.

 One amazing piece of fundraising was by Matt Gower who decided to take on the epic challenge of swimming The English Channel.  6 weeks after falling short by 1 mile, Matt got back in the water and after 16 hours battling tides and extreme exhaustion, he made it, raising over £2,000 in the process – a fantastic achievement.

As an easier option Duff Borer ran The London Marathon raising £6,500 along the way.  He is running it again this year, definitely for the last time!

After adopting The Fred Foundation as their corporate charity MediaVest truly threw their weight behind some great initiatives.  A Spring Photography Competition with the winners judged by the photo editor of The National Geographic Magazine raised over £2,000.  Once again they have sent Fred Foundation Christmas cards to all their clients and various members of staff have contributed in their own way including donating monies raised from leaving do’s.

We are indebted as always to Ben and Sandra Reynolds of Reynolds who have once again organised all the catering for our events as well as raising money through money boxes at both their sandwich shops.

 Roberto Mori and family continue to raise money for us whether through money boxes in Roberto’s Gallo Nero delis or the Mori children holding table top sales.

Chris Walmsley, Andrew Brown, Graham Monk, Mark Alhadeff, Deborah Blank, Max Tottenham (and Duff) of the band Telford 6, Richard Haworth and  Martin Galton and Dan Cockerill of Bang Said The Gun held a “Fred Rocks” gig at The Half Moon in Herne Hill in November.  A fantastic night raised over £3,500 and there promises to another gig in November 2011.

 Martin Galton carries on doing all The Fred artwork for our posters and our beautiful invitations.  I am sure you will agree that each one is very special.

 After the success of Susan Newell’s fabulous tour of the V & A last year we hope to add both another tour of the Wallace Collection and possibly the V & A so do watch this space. Thank you so much once again to Susan and to all the people who attended her fabulous event last year.

  Of course, we could not have done any of this without your help.  We are especially grateful for the help we got and carry on getting from our staunch early supporters, whether it be through their ongoing monthly or special on off donations, or their dogged attendance at our events whenever they arise!   You know who you are and we are eternally grateful. 

 Without you there would be no Fred so please give yourselves a slap on the back.  Who would have thought at our inception five years ago we would be able to go on and  help so many families. 

 We are sure Fred would be very proud if he were able to express it.

 Thank you so much.

We  are sorry to report that we seem to be having another problem with our contact link on the web site. If you would like to contact us, please  -

e mail us via  thefredfoundation@googlemail.com

Felicity Ellacombe

A family supported by The Fred Foundation  have taken on Lambeth  at a Special Educational needs tribunal and WON!

Great news for the worn out family but  how sad they had to go that far to get their child’s needs met.

Cindy Doyle MacRae is a single parent carer to 15-year old Lea who has autism.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid601325122001?bckey=AQ%7E%7E%2CAAAAAEabvr4%7E%2CWtd2HT-p_Vh4qBcIZDrvZlvNCU8nxccG&bclid=0&bctid=792557942001

“It feels like my daughter is being mugged”

link.brightcove.com

Cindy Doyle MacRae is a single

The year before last Fred’s Mum was aware that he wasn’t sleeping well and seemed to be in pain. Watching him carefully she could see it was something to do with his feet. A visit to the shoe shop confirmed that his shoes were the right size. What was the problem?  Unable to guess what it was she took him to the doctor. He said that poor Fred had the worst case of chilblains he had ever seen – almost frostbite. Every Time his feet warmed up he was in agony. He had not been able to tell his Mum that he was cold in his wellies when he was outside, despite warm socks and clothes.

That year The Celtic Sheepskin company came to Fred’s rescue and sent him a free pair of cosy sheepskin waterproof boots. Well Fred is a growing like every other little boy and has finally outgrown the boots. His mother was dreading this very cold weather was going to give him chilblains again, but The Celtic Sheepskin company have again come to the rescue and sent Fred another pair of cosy boots.

The Celtic Sheepskin company is a British firm based in Cornwall. Please take every opportunity to tell everyone you know about how kind they have been, and buy your boots from them!

www.celtic-sheepskin.co.uk

Felicity

Don’t forget when you are doing your online Christmas shopping, to enter the easyfundraising site first. The Fred Foundation will get a donation without it costing you a penny!
Forgotten how to go about it?

Go onto www.easyfundraising.org.uk.
If it is your first time – register and choose ‘The Fred Foundation’ as your charity. ( Very fast to do)
Start shopping! All the major on line retailers are on the site, including M+S, John Lewis, Boden and Amazon. For every pound you spend they give us a donation. Very simple, but it just requires you to remember to go through the site to reach your retailer.
Thanks in advance.

thefredfoundation@googlemail.com