Welcome to the summer (if you can call it that!) edition of the chairman’s blog.
It has been a very busy start to the financial year which I am delighted to say has seen five new Corporate Ambassadors come on board and we have made seven grant awards, totalling over £33,000. We would not have been able to make these grant awards without the continued support of our existing Corporate Ambassadors, new Ambassadors and some very generous individual donors.
As you will recall this is our 10th anniversary year and we held a reception in the Guildford Castle Grounds in June to celebrate the occasion inviting all our donors and all those we had given grants to over our first 10 years. We were thrilled to welcome the Lord Lieutenant and the Mayor, Sallie Barker, also said a few words. Despite the rain showers it was a wonderful event and I would like to thank one of our most recent Ambassadors, Chilworth Manor Vineyard, for kindly supplying their wonderful wine for us all. We also launched our Impact Report at the event detailing all our activities over the last ten years. This is now available on the website
I would also like to thank Richard Game from Cressive DX, one of our original Ambassadors for persuading me to walk 22 miles with him across the Surrey Hills to mark the start of British Wine Week and also raise money for Guildford Philanthropy. The sore limbs were soothed by samples at the five vineyards and one brewery on route and we raised over £7,500. Thank you to all who donated.
As we look to the rest of the year, now we have reached 40 Ambassadors we are keen to push on to increase this to 50 before the end of the year. Your help, in introducing businesses you work with in the Borough would be hugely helpful. We are planning another Ambassador evening on September 26th and further details will be made available shortly but please save the date, and then also mark down the Mistletoe Ball which will be held at G-Live on December 12th, when it would be wonderful if you could all attend (and fill some tables!).
With best wishes,
Peter Cluff
