Intro by Margaret Sheard ….
We did as much promotion as we could on CyprusScene for this wonderful fundraising event and were pleased to be able to go to Happy Garden on 2nd August to support the fundraising for the care and maintenance of Green Hill Cemetery. It was an extremely well organised and successful event and thanks must be given to Kate Davies and James Smile for the work they did to make it happen. Also thanks to all who were involved in the organisation and to the artists who performed free of charge for this fundraiser. We asked Kate if she would like to write something about the event and this is what she had to say :
Readers mail …
From Kate Davies …
When Bahrain John died nearly 2 years ago, James was in charge of the funeral arrangements. He had very little knowledge as to which offices he should take papers to in order to allow release of the body etc and the burial committee held his hand throughout the entire process. He told me that he felt very supported by their care, both emotionally and practically.
A few weeks back we were up at Green Hill Cemetery and James and I were both so impressed by the cleanliness and care of the area that we decided it was time for James to act upon his previous pledge and put together a Green Hill Fundraiser.
This fundraiser took place on 2nd August at the lovely Happy Garden in Ozankoy village. Erbay (Elvis), the owner was more than happy to let us use his venue.
The event kicked off with a short burst of bingo organised by Patti and David Miller, we opted for 1 line and house, prizes were a bottle of pink gin for the line and a case of bubbly for the house. It was important to keep it short so that we could move on to the main event of music.
Chrissy Bailey was first on stage with her 45 minute set, her beautiful country tone set the mood as the heat of the day slowly started to disappear. Following Chrissy came The 5 O’clock Shadows (Andrew Cloughly and Grant). They actually came on around ten past five so they weren’t too late! Andrew and Grant are highly accomplished guitarists and soon had everyone tapping their feet along to the music. The icing on the cake though was Nessun Dorma, the crowd erupted. What a fabulous piece of music.
After the first two acts came the raffle and auction. Patti and David worked so hard to sell the tickets and it certainly paid off. My task was to source the prizes. Many local businesses were more than happy to give to us in the belief that we should all pull together during such a dire economic time. A large number of restaurants contributed including Balti House and Moonshine in Esentepe. All businesses are named below. We held an auction due to the generous prizes received from Erdener Garage, Stone Cavern, Happy Garden, and Chicago Hair Club.
Once the formalities were over it was back to the music, first to get the crowd going was Andy Reay with his usual upbeat mix of music, it wasn’t long before the dance floor was full. The dance floor remained full as The Chosen (James Smile and Lenie) took to the stage with a variety of music, from T Rex to Whitney Houston to Disco.
As the night drew to a close we were happy to learn that our efforts had raised around 9000TL, this was presented to Biddy and Steve who both work incredibly hard up at the cemetery. They actually called James the next morning to give us a special thank you and to confirm the grand total of 9,240TL. All proceeds went directly to Green Hill.
We would like to thank everyone that contributed to the event and a special thank you to Erbay and his staff for the venue and also keeping everyone fed and watered as well as the musicians who gave their time freely.
Contributors
See more pictures below (photos courtesy of Kate Davies and Chris Elliott) :
