A wonderful time was had by all at our recent weekend away at Flamingo Land 

31 families met together to rekindle old friendships and to make new ones.

We found out who likes the adrenaline rides,

and who preferred to watch the animal shows.

We learned who makes the best BBQ food.

But most of all we learned that heart families know how to have the best fun ever – and yes we did ignore the signs on every single ride that said you couldn’t ride on this if you had a heart condition.

We figured out that our cardiac teams’ permission was better than a theme park insurance company’s disclaimer!

Thank you so much to the staff of Manchester Museum.  They put together an amazing Night at the Museum … the first time they have done this type of event for families.

We went on a hunt for fossil evidence, we checked out how fast dinosaurs were running, we photographed magical, musical, and mysterious items on a treasure hunt

We designed our own T shirts and screen printed them

There was a midnight screening of  “Night at the Museum 2” of course

And in the morning we met a Royal Python, a Madagascan Chameleon and two Costa Rican leaf frogs.

Smart Storage have taken us on as their charity of the year  and have already raised £380 for us with a sponsored Santa Dash.

We have a storage facility with the Bootle branch which is usually piled high with your donations ready for our next charity shop.  Each time we run a week’s shop we can raise over £1000 so this storage facility is vital for our fundraising.

Thank you Smart Storage

Here are our exhausted bouncers after the hour of trampolining at Jump Nation.  We had a fabulous time.

Robyn – in the centre – has raised over £1000 and others have raised around £500.  We’ll have a grand total when all the sponsor money has been paid in.  A huge thank you to everyone – and we can’t wait to do this again.

There was a hard game to play – spot the heart child. Sometimes the heart child was the one doing the upside-down somersaults and encouraging the unfit adults to try too!!

We are delighted to introduce you to our new patrons – Dr Denise Kitchiner and Dr Raman Patel. These doctors have now retired, but will be familiar to so many of our families – and many of our children owe their lives to their interventions. We are honoured to have them on board. Please have a look at the patrons page on our website. https://heartchild.info/web/about/patrons.

We’ve received a thank you from the play team at Ward 85 Manchester Children’s Hospital.

“Thank you so much for the £100. With this I have been able to buy cheaper up to date games.  Thanks Jo play specialist x”

It’s the little things that we do which can make someone’s stay in hospital just that bit easier.  Thanks to everyone who has helped us fund raise this year.

(And if Santa has been very kind to you do you have some old games you could donate to the ward?)

Our Association was selected as part of the One Stop and Mondelez (formerly Cadburys) ‘Happy Summer Dayz” campaign which ran from 15th July 2014 to 13th August 2014. During this time, those who won the One Stop store family days out competitions could nominate a charity to receive a donation to the same value as their prize.

In all, there were five charities that could be nominated, including the Children’s Heart Association, and we received an super total of £278.  Thank you to all those who supported us!  We look forward to using the money towards family events in the near future.