The build up to Christmas...

Hi Everyone,

I hope you are all well and prepared for the build up to Christmas (which I am sure starts earlier and earlier each year!). Tickets to our Christmas Concert, which is being held on 10th December are now available, please phone us on 01628 501547 to get yours! The concert, which will take place in a beautiful church near to the NRAS office in Berkshire, promises to be a lovely evening, with local school choirs singing as well as readings from supporters of the charity, including the Rt Hon Theresa May MP. Tickets are £10 for adults and £6 for concessions. Hurry up and book yours now, they are selling out fast!

Christmas cards are also still available; we have six lovely designs, all of which come in packs of 10 and are £3.50 per pack. You can view the designs on our website and to order you can either phone Val on 01628 501547 or print off the order form and send it to us in the post. All proceeds will go to supporting people living with rheumatoid arthritis.

I would also like to tell you about a small organisation called ‘Give a Car’, who contacted us in the summer and told us about their new fundraising scheme. Give a Car launched in January 2010 and help to raise money for charities by accepting donations of unwanted cars.

Just two weeks after signing up with Give a Car we were extremely surprised to receive our first donation, especially considering we hadn’t told anyone about the idea yet! The lady who wanted to scrap her car had been looking through the list of charities on the Give a Car website and was drawn to us as she has RA herself!

We decided to start publicising this fundraising scheme as it seemed it was not only raising the much needed funds for people with RA, but also raising awareness of the charity and helping people who hadn’t heard of NRAS before.

After the first donation, we then received another four donations in the following months. To be honest, we were all completely taken aback by the response and couldn’t quite believe how many people wanted to donate their cars to us!

We are all over the moon that this new fundraising scheme has (so far!) been a success; without the support from donors we would not be able to carry on supporting people with rheumatoid arthritis.

So please, if you or anyone you know has an old car sitting on the drive that isn’t wanted anymore, please consider donating it to NRAS!

Thank you!

Emma