Goodbye 2017 – a review of our amazing year

It was an incredibly busy year…

Goodbye 2017… January

We started the New Year in the national news! On the 4th January, Bournemouth’s ABC Cinema presented a special screening of ‘Back to the Future’ to mark it’s closure.  The BBC News featured us here, and ITV’s Meridian News also covered the event here.  Odeon Cinemas donated the proceeds from the evening to us, which was a hefty £3,200 after tax. On 28th January we had two fundraising events – the Lions Club of Dorchester & District held a sponsored swim at 1610 Dorchester Sports Centre, and we also had 25 people running in the 5k Blitz Glow Run. We received a considerable donation of £1,000 from Lions’ President Rick Rogers, and most importantly we met the Mayor and Mayoress of Dorchester.  All parties are firmly behind our plans to expand our services to West Dorset.

February

Who could forget in February Will Hume, President of Westbourne Rotary’s hair-raising bungee jump from the highest bungee in the world? Will’s jump took place in Macau, China and Will raised nearly £1,500 from this brave feat!  This took the total for our Youth Services appeal to £7,215.50.

March

In March we met an amazing entrepreneur who instigated the start of an important partnership for Dorset Mind. The Stable Pizza Pie and Cider restaurant co-founder Richard Cooper approached us to let us know that he was running in the London Marathon for us. Knowing that services in the South West are scarce, Richard wanted to do something about it.  The Stable also announced us as their Charity of the Year. We also had two other runners – Sarah Clark and Louise Corbin.  Between them, the three athletes raised over £10,000 which was a record fundraising amount for a single event.

April

We were thrilled in April, when our Youth Ambassador Calvin Glen won the ‘Inspiration’ category in the Dorset Healthcare Road to Wellness Awards.  We’d nominated Calvin for his hard work and effort raising funds and mental health awareness for us. Our Weymouth LGBT Support Group also went weekly from monthly, which was a massive achievement.  We recruited a new Support Group Facilitator for the position – the first of several new this year.

May

Mental Health Awareness Week this year saw us take part in 10 events over the seven days.  The week started with an awareness event at Bournemouth Station with South West Trains, organised by our Patron, Dr Andy Mayers.  We also worked with two of our charity partners – Siemens, Poole and Haskins Garden Centre, Ferndown.  Dance troupe New Springs put on an amazing dance finale  at The Regent Centre in Christchurch called ‘Road to Recovery’.  The week raised £2,398.59 – and most importantly raised awareness.

June

At the end of June we launched our plans to expand our services to Dorchester called ‘Dorset Mind West.’ We’ve been lucky to team up with Dorchester businessman David Upshall, senior partner of David Upshall Insurance Services to help fund our expansion. The launch at Kingston Maurward was well-attended and raised £2,330.40 on the night.  Since then, we’ve had plenty of fundraising events, from Marketing West’s breakfast networking events to an amazing Auction of Promises at Duke’s Auction House in November.

July

In July we welcomed the opportunity to work with two outstanding companies as their Charity of the Year – Marks and Spencer in Poole and Ward Goodman Chartered Accountants.  We attended Acts Fast moving conference ‘Wall of Silence’ at the start of the month, and exhibited at Bourne Free at the end of the month.  And on 30th July at CANVAS Bournemouth, Write It Down Records launched their new single ‘Risk Everything’ for us.  This was the start of an ongoing partnership – there’s more happening in 2018!

August

August Bank Holiday gave our ambassador Calvin Glen the opportunity to stage a unique event. Named ‘Hat Trick,’ over 40 local musicians performed at 3 venues on each of the three weekend days, raising money for us. The weekend was incredible, full of live music and entertainment.  Calvin raised a grand total of a MASSIVE £856.74 split between us and Anna Kennedy Online.

September

The Digital Innovation Show took place on 12th September, and Dorset Mind were lucky to be the only charity with a presence. The show was a series of presentations and workshops for Bournemouth’s leading digital community.  Our involvement was courtesy of Dan Willis, Founder/Consultant for Why Digital.  We’re working with Dan on a number of projects for our planned Young People’s Mental Health Services that we’re very excited to launch in 2018. Youth Ambassador Amie Bedford organised a second fundraiser in the form of an open mic night.  The event featured not only Amie herself performing but lots of other great musical talent such as headliners Brothers Grimmers, Calvin Glen and Dorset Mind’s Sarah-Jane Sheffield.  The night took our young ambassador’s fundraising efforts to over £500!

October

October was a busy month!  The annual TeamMindBMX Charity fundraiser started the month with an exciting day, despite the rain.  It was great fun, there was an amazing raffle alongside the racing that raised an incredible £2,673.80.  World Mental Health Day saw the launch of a video made for young people by young people. The film is the culmination of a six-month project that saw us collaborate with Bournemouth University’s Equality and Diversity faculty and some of Dorset’s leading mental health organisations.  It quickly went viral.  #LifeUnfiltered can be found on YouTube here. Purbeck Golf Club also announced us as their Charity of the Year.

November

In November, we took part in #DoitDayBournemouth – a fringe Hackathon.  Led by Dan Willis, we posed a question to three teams of creative people. The theme was workplace mental health that coincided nicely with the launch of ‘Dorset Mind Works.’  By the end of the year we found three companies to pilot our scheme! One of them was Douch Family Funerals, who announced us as their Charity Partner for 2018.  A family-run firm, Douch also has a community/charity champion who we’re excited to work with – we’ve lots of upcoming projects. In terms of fundraising – David Upshall organised a fantastic ‘Auction of Promises’ at Dukes, Dorchester that raised an incredible £4,590 (we’re yet to post a thank you!).  We also bag-packed at The Range with our friends from Westbourne Rotary, and exhibited at Kinson Christmas Fair.

December

December was noticeably quieter than last year, so we took the time to create an eye-catching social media campaign called the ‘Advent of Positivity.’  We also sold reindeers at Haskins during their ‘Christmas Shopping Experience’ and bag-packed at M&S! And good plans were hatched for the coming year…

Hello 2018!

As we say goodbye to 2017, we welcome the new year with open arms. 2018 will be bigger and better as we work hard to put elements of various campaigns into work.  We have one goal – to raise mental health awareness and help educate and support local people through their recovery. Thank you for all your support over the past year, we will be sure to post our new adventures online!]]>