Fundraising Update

The time has come for me to update my blog again…  This one is going to focus on the fundraising side.

As I’ve said previously I need to raise lots of money for the trip.  When it was confirmed a couple of months ago that I’m going to Nigeria I sat down with me mate Gaz to work out how we could raise such a huge sum of money.  We went over every fundraising idea we could think of and settled on a meal for my church friends as a good option.  The last two months have involved lots of hard work and planning, (it felt like I was organising my wedding), but it all came together and we had the meal yesterday afternoon.  I had an amazing team who did such a great job.  Gaz and Joy were involved from the beginning, and put up with my stressed moments incredibly well.   When we began to plan for the meal we aimed for 60 people and decided to cater for 80 just in case.  About 75 came which worked out perfectly, thank you every one that was there to support me! A huge thank you you Barry and Judy from Mission Africa who came all the way from Holmfirth near Manchester to be there. Judy did a great presentation on the work of Mission Africa and where I'll be going.

Taking off the cost of the meal, including gift aid and standing order donations I raised £1763.40 on the day.  This takes my total donations including gift aid to £2519.55.  I am getting much closer to the £4000 it's going to cost.  I am amazed at the generosity of my friends and so thankful to every one of you who has supported me.  I know a few of you from the meal didn’t have money on you and wanted to donate, standing order forms need to come to me, cash / cheques ideally to me, or they can be put in the offering and clearly marked for Neil Harknett.  I would love to be able to thank everyone individually who has supported me, but it’s not possible because many people have donated anonymously so it wouldn’t be fair to you.  Anyone who wasn’t at the meal and would like the info I gave out please let me know, a few have asked already.

So that’s where I’m at, I'm still looking for support which can either be a one off payment of by standing order, but am so excited that I'm where I'm at financially . Thank you again to all of you who have been so generous. 

Neil