Thanks to all your kind generosity through ticket sales, sponsorship, our lovely brochure, fundraisers on the night and of course your personal pledges, we made over £200,000 which is an amazing effort and we are extremely grateful to our guests for everything they did to help us hit our target.

Despite the Joker's best efforts to sabotage the evening, it all went ahead as planned because our target was hit and the evening was saved! As guests danced the night away to the fantastic Love Train and Metropolis there was plenty of photo opportunities in our picutre booths and heads on bodies...for the superhero in you!

To view and download the photos from the evening please find the link through to Peter Steven's Photography here and please use the password 'sweetcharity'.

Many thanks again for your support and if you have any feedback do let us know, we're keen to hear what you think!

This was the inaugural Scottish Sweet Charity Sportsman’s dinner, and what a cracker it turned out to be.

The evening was organised by the Scottish Fund Raising Committee of Sweet Charity, and with some 125 guests there on the night we raised circa £3,500 for Scottish Beneficiaries, ‘a really great result’, said Easton Millar, Chairman of the Scottish Committee. The evening was hosted by Chick Young the famous BBC Scotland sports pundit, and he got all guests involved right from the start with his unique way of running the traditional opening table game of heads and tails!

Chick then went on to talk about current and past events within Scottish sport and, whilst his vast knowledge of Scottish sport was very evident, he made no apologies for making light of it all and by introducing many hilarious stories from his years in the industry.

Throughout the night a silent auction was in place with lots of Scottish sporting memorabilia available for guests to bid on. A prize raffle also took place, thanks to the generosity of many of our industry partners donating a varied selection of prizes including bottles of spirits and drives in Lamborghini and Ferrari cars.

Jimmy Stirling, comedian for the night left us all crying with laughter at his jokes and antics!

Yes this is a great event to bring into the calendar within Scotland and we can’t wait until next year.

Easton closed the evening by saying, ‘What a fantastic way to help a charity and have a great night out with business and family friends’.

You can read the official press release here

Sweet Charity's second independent retailers conference flew by this week and delegates were given insights into the latest information in the retailing convenience channel from the likes of Palmer and Harvey, FWD, Kantar Worldpanel, Newtrade and him! plus valuable independent retailer's insights from Nisa Local and Premier stores.

The main theme to come from retailers and wholesalers alike was to listen to the consumers and work at getting first class customer service alongside getting to know the community and getting local people involved with their local store. In these times of extremely stiff competition, the focus is on differentiating yourself from competitors and offering the consumer a local service they cannot resist.

Thanks to all our speakers for making the day such a quality event. The feedback coming through is fantastic and whilst we are still finalising the figures, it looks like this year's conference has raised around £30,000 for Sweet Charity which is great news and every penny will go towards supporting those in the confectionery industry who find themselves in unexpected circumstances.

Thanks also goes to Deloitte for hosting us once again and to our sponsors; Booker, Kraft, Mars, Nestle and Palmer and Harvey.

The presentations are available to download (see below) and thanks to the speakers for agreeing to share their slides:

Patrick Davis- Sweet Charity- About us

Ed Garner- Kantar Worldpanel- Setting the retail scene

Rav Garcha- Nisa Local- An independent retailer's perspective

James Bielby- FWD- Wholesalers playing their part

Jonathan Rons- him!- Independent retailers competing in a changing market place

Nick Shanagher- Newtrade- The furture is great. The outlook for local independent retailers

Shahid Razzaq- Premier Stores- The credit crunch, the good news

Chris Etherington- Palmer and Harvey- The furture of convenience





The hard work had all been completed just in time. At 6.05pm on the evening of 7^th Oct, the NI Area Sweet Charity Committee dashed off nervously to get ready for the biggest night to date, ‘The 75^TH Annual NI Candy Ball’. They needn’t have been nervous for the evening was destined to go without a hitch!

250 guests were greeted by jugglers, stilt walkers and a jazz band, they sipped on Chambulls and nibbled on Quality Street as coincidently, Quality Street was also celebrating a 75^th Birthday and there was a magnificent set of cakes in honour of us both! Mr Patrick Davis arrived suitably attired in a 75^th Bow Tie and the revelry began.

There was much to celebrate as our Hon. Secretary Mrs Lina Graham and our Hon. Treasurer Mr Lewis Noble were applauded for having served on the committee for more than 90 years between them!

Our evening was smoothly navigated by Mr Graham Walker and our guests were entertained further by the Ulster Operatic Society, they feasted on a fine meal and then clapped enthusiastically to the Royal Tara Dancers. The Grand Draw and the Tombola was a highlight to all who won! Energy was still in abundant supply as the dance floor filled to the sounds of the HOUSEM8’s and continued until the wee small hours, the sign that a great night was had by all was surely evident as we couldn’t get people to go home!

A big thank you to all our Sponsors and to all who helped make our night a fantastic success. We are proud to say that our projected profit is in excess of £24,000 for Sweet Charity.

We are looking forward to next year already!

Grace Bosket

Chairman

NI Area Committee



Palmer and Harvey's very first curry and comedy night went down a storm last Thursday evening as 400 office staff and suppliers joined to raise money for Sweet Charity. 

 Alfie Moore played our host for the evening and kicked off the night regaling us with jokes and snippets about his home town of Scunthorpe before letting the guests loose on the delicious Indian buffet that was tempting everyone on the tables. Once the meal had taken place (think lamb rogan josh, vegetable korma and garlic naans) comdian Seann Walsh (of Mock the Week and 8 out of 10 cats fame) took to the stage and got the audience thoroughly warmed up for the final act.

The prestigious raffle gave an extra edge of excitement to the evening (many waited with baited breath to see if any of the top prizes were theirs) and lots of fantastic prizes were handed out including an iPad donated by Mars/Wrigley, a Nintendo Wii from Ferrero, with Palmer and Harvey donating a luxury trip to Paris prize along with plenty of others, they were not to be sniffed at!

Ventriloquist and comedienne Nina Conti was the final act and she wasn’t alone! Puppets  ‘Monkey’ and ‘Granny’ came out of her travel bag and entertained the crowd and ‘Granny’ even had some audience participation with an obliging (and very brave) gentleman picked from the audience. Nina’s comedy timing and ventriloquist skills ensured the night finished on a high.

A massive THANK YOU to the team at Palmer and Harvey who organised this amazing event and for everyone who supported it by attending, sponsoring or donating raffle prizes. It was a fantastic evening and one surely to be repeated!

On Tuesday 9th August his business was completely destroyed by rioters. All his stock was taken, as well as other equipment, and his freezer damaged. His insurance will cover £25,000 of his loss, but the loss adjuster has estimated the damage to be £90,000 and the insurance company had estimated the claim will take 3 months to settle. Unless he could get immediate help he would be unable to trade nor support his family of 6 children.

Despite publicity in the national press, and a visit from Prince Harry, Sweet Charity was the first organisation to offer him money. A cheque for a new freezer and replacement of stock was with him within days. In addition to this we have persuaded 2 large confectionery manufacturers to restock his shop to help him get up and running as soon as possible. We have also referred him to another charity who has also pledged their support.



Throughout the night tickets were sold for a superb prize raffle which had more than 20 ‘top notch’ prizes which had been donated by attending companies and other suppliers and manufacturers who supported the night. To continue the party theme there was also a tombola stand which was heavily stocked with product and prizes, again supplied from the charities supporting businesses in Scotland.

Our MC Barry Shafar took the event to a close, sometime around 1.30am with his fantastic disco tunes that kept everyone on the dance floor.

It was a fantastic night supported by fantastic people who contributed generously to our Scottish funds- thank you to one and all!

Easton