24Hr emergency line +44 (0)20 8476 4099
Join Balpa

BALPA Pilots Giving: how you can help

by Charlotte Branson Communications Officer

You may remember us launching our BALPA Pilots Giving fundraising initiative last year, in which BALPA pledged to raise money for two melanoma charities, Melanoma UK and Melanoma Focus. We wanted to bring you an update on activity but also take the chance to remind you that any fundraising you can do for these charities is extremely worthwhile.

Want to raise money for melanoma?
Melanoma Focus and Melanoma UK would always welcome donations so we would encourage any members who would like to do some fundraising, to consider doing it for these charities. Our very own Head of Organisation, John Stembridge-King has had a great idea on how to get fit and help raise money at the same time. He is currently trying to improve his fitness by running in the Park Run at Wycombe Rye. Each week his time for 5km is registered on their website. To incentivise him to keep pressing for a fast time, each week John has agreed to convert his five slowest times to pounds sterling. This is a great idea and not only will it help keep John fit, but it helps our chosen charities as well. If you’re looking for your next challenge, why not consider something similar? If you do, we’d love to hear about it.

How has BALPA raised money so far?
Our ADC fundraiser was a runaway success, with all delegates getting thoroughly behind our efforts. Fundraising doesn’t always need to be difficult or time consuming, and with our simple game of ‘heads and tails’ we raised a fantastic £1,500.

Last year we asked members to just give an hour of their time for melanoma, from the comfort of their own living rooms (or hotel room). We emailed our members to work out their hourly pay and donate this amount. It was a very simple fundraiser but brought in almost £500 in donations.

You may be aware we pay a very small fee to members who decide to contribute their time and energy to producing some of the fantastic articles you read in this very magazine. Not only are our members generous with their time in writing these articles for us, but many have also decided to donate their awards to our charities.

Chief Executive of Melanoma Focus, Simon Rodwell, had this to say in thanks of the donations: “We will make good use of this contribution. The money will help us in our task of setting up new research and practical projects to improve the treatment and avoidance of melanoma. We have recently commissioned our third scientific research study. Meanwhile we are working hard to raise money for a further project, aimed at making young people more aware of the dangers of melanoma, which we hope will be launched in the next six months.”

Find out more on either of our charities by visiting their websites:
www.melanomafocus.com
www.melanomauk.org.uk

Don’t forget! If you just want to make a one off contribution to either or both of our charities, visit our JustGiving group at www.justgiving.com/teams/BALPApilotsgiving.

Thank you to all members who have been so generous and donated.