Hey Everyone, I’m Rebecca and this is my first blog post for Barnsley Hospital charity. I started working for the fundraising team in November 2014 and ever since it has been a blur of fundraising, organising and getting use to the daily routine of the charity. There’s never a dull moment in this office, trust me!

I work from 9 to 5 everyday as an admin apprentice in fundraising. On a day-to-day basis I find myself sending emails, making and receiving calls and working in close partnership with staff members and other departments. I do creative art work for the charity office and sometimes for other areas of the hospital too, for instance:  the hospital restaurant and volunteer cafes.

I also maintain administrative databases and deal with enquiries, donations and requests. I help to organise events, which is something I find really interesting to do as I feel like I can contribute my skills and personal experiences.

We sell merchandise in the charity shop that is based downstairs in the hospital by the coffee bar and I get to meet local celebrities and attend exciting events! So, I have to admit, my job is pretty cool, and I love it.

Since December 2014 I have helped to organise and also attended, the exceptionally glamorous – Tiny Hearts Appeal premiere for the launch of our Tiny Hearts campaign video starring Sir Michael Parkinson and the Mallender family! Link here (get a tissue ready, it’s emotional!)

We also had the grand opening of the Santa’s grotto, which was an amazing success and finished on Christmas Eve after Santa saw lots of children from Barnsley and the surrounding areas!

I personally volunteered to be an Elf and I loved it; getting to see the children’s faces fill with excitement as they got to meet Santa was magical! We have to say a HUGE thank you to the Alhambra centre for setting up the grotto and raising almost £5,000 for the Tiny Hearts appeal!

We also had a huge Christmas raffle, with seven fabulous prizes to be won. Our thanks go out to the hospital volunteers who donated the prizes and did all the hard work to put the raffle together! In total the Barnsley Hospital volunteers raised over £600 for the Tiny Hearts Appeal. An amazing amount and a big well done to everyone involved.

As December approached, the Charity sold Christmas cards and Light for Love trinkets, the latter of which are pretty little tree decorations that you can pop a little photograph in and once your tree comes down in January they can become a fridge magnet – how clever is that?

And now January, it’s very cold, windy and icy outside, but in our office it’s always warm and bright! I would like to end my first blog post of the year by saying a huge thank you on behalf of the charity to all our supporters, trustees, volunteers, staff, partners and the community who have shown us so much support and help make a difference.

Look out for more updates from the charity coming in the near future, we have lots of fun and exciting events for you to attend such as: most notably the Rainbow Run and make sure to stay tuned for updates on our Tiny Hearts appeal.

For more information about our campaigns and events, go to www.barnsleyhospitalcharity.co.uk

By Rebecca Louise Nicholson.

Today, November the 17^th, is National Prematurity Day. A day in which organisations and people around the world try to raise awareness of the many difficulties having a premature baby can have on families everywhere. We’d like to take this opportunity to encourage everyone across Barnsley to support our very own Tiny Hearts Appeal.

Each year, around 60,000 are born prematurely in the UK. Barnsley Hospital alone cares for around 300 premature babies each year at the Special Care Baby Unit. These babies are underdeveloped in every way, from their skin to their tiny organs and it is vital that they are given extra special care to help their bodies to cope with the harshness of the outside world.

An average pregnancy lasts around 40 weeks and Barnsley Hospital’s Special Care Baby Unit cares for babies born from 27 weeks. Babies can spend up to 14 weeks on the unit, receiving treatment for various difficulties and this means that parents also spend a huge amount of time on the unit, supporting and caring for their babies.

Having a baby prematurely always comes as a shock. Parents expect to spend this time preparing for the birth of a healthy, bouncing baby but sadly, this is not always the case. These weeks are often stressful and tiring for families, with endless trips back and fourth from the hospital, helping to nurse their tiny babies to full health.

Our Tiny Hearts Appeal aims to raise £1 million to support the development of a brand new home for these vulnerable babies and their endlessly dedicated families at what can be such a difficult time. The new unit aims to provide a more homely environment for families, so that they can properly bond with their babies.

The new unit will also allow staff to continue their already outstanding level of care, in an environment which is much more suited to unique needs of each and every baby. Staff will have access to the best state-of-the-art equipment, including; intensive care units, infant resuscitator systems, heated cot mattresses and much much more.

If you and your baby have had experience on the Special Care Baby Unit here in Barnsley, we’d love to hear from you. We’re even planning to make a Tiny Hearts gallery with photos of children who have been on the Special Care unit and updated photos showing how they’re doing now!

Our Tiny Hearts Appeal has already received a fantastic amount of support from the Barnsley community but, with a target of £1 million, we urgently need this to continue! Whether you’re thinking about holding your own fundraising event to support the Tiny Hearts, or you’d just like to donate £1 to the appeal, we immensely appreciate your support and your kind thoughts at this time.

For more information, or to request a fundraising pack, please contact tanyaoates@nhs.net

You can also visit our Tiny Hearts Just Giving page to donate directly to the appeal or text Tiny01 with your donation amount to 70070.

By Tanya Oates

It’s that time of year again where the mighty men, women and children show their support for Cancer Services at Barnsley Hospital by growing and showing their best bushy moustaches.

The month of Movember, formally known as November, is where men grow their moustaches throughout the month and gain sponsorship. Women and children will also be able to join in by buying fake moustaches taking a selfie and donating to the cause.

Each Mo-grower will take a selfie at the end of the month showing their magnificent Mo and send them to tanyaoates@nhs.net. We will then post them on our wall of fame and choose the best moustache as our winner.

Last year Movember raised a fantastic £1,000 for the cancer services at Barnsley Hospital, and this year, with your support and hairy upper lips, we hope to beat that amount!

Along side this fundraising campaign, we have many more charity events and campaigns that you could help and join in with. Our biggest campaign by far is the Tiny Hearts Appeal where over the next 2 years we plan to raise £1 million to help pay for a brand new, state of the art Special Care Baby Unit.

In contrast, we have the Zombie Run coming up on the 18^th of October. Participants will run 5k through the woods and fields of Wosborough Mill conquering obstacles whilst trying to avoid the un-dead!

If you would like to get involved in any of our many campaigns or have any fundraising ideas don’t hesitate to get in touch, via our website, Facebook or contacting us by email.

By Ryan Gains

So today we’re finally launching our Tiny Hearts Appeal which aims to raise £1 million over the next two years to help support the development of a brand new Special Care Baby Unit here at the hospital (no pressure).

We’ve had the development of this capital appeal in the pipeline for a while now and over the next few weeks we’ll be sharing some very exciting news and launching various fundraising initiatives, so watch this space! For now, I’m going to tell you all about our Tiny Hearts Appeal and how you can get involved because it really is an important and worthwhile cause and we need all the help we can get.

Barnsley Hospital’s Special Care Baby Unit (or SCBU) is often described as excellent and the staff couldn’t be praised more but, despite this, the unit does need to be updated so that staff can continue this excellent standard of care. The new unit will feature state-of-the-art equipment and will be focused around providing a family-orientated environment for all patients and their families who have to stay here at such a difficult time.

Just last year, the unit cared for 300 families, providing specialist care to babies born from 27 weeks. When babies are born so early, their tiny bodies are not developed enough to cope with the outside world, making the vulnerable and in need of extra help. The new unit is centred around allowing these babies to fully develop whilst providing parents with essential bonding time.

Our Tiny Hearts Appeal is focused around engaging with the Barnsley community, getting people involved with the appeal and helping them to develop their own fundraising ideas. We’ll be providing you with some great fundraising initiatives and events but will be encouraging you to be as creative as possible with your ideas.

One of the great ways for you to raise money for the Tiny Hearts Appeal is through our Great Barnsley Bake Off campaign whereby you can hold your own mini Bake Off competition, raise sponsorship and sell your cakes off in a bake sale! If you are interested in taking part, we have some excellent Bake Off packs that we can send out.

For us to reach our £1 million target we need to keep spreading the word about the Tiny Hearts Appeal and encouraging the fantastic people of Barnsley to work together and raise some money f    or a wonderful cause! We have some fundraising packs ready to send out which will tell you everything you need to know about the appeal.

If you have any great ideas that you’d like to share with use, please do get in touch with either tanyaoates@nhs.net or katiecartwright@nhs.net or alternatively call 01226 431916.   

If you popped into the Alhambra last Tuesday you might have been surprised to see some very glamorous princesses hanging out. That’s because we were holding our Princess Pamper Party as a way of raising money for our Tiny Hearts Appeal.

The fantastic Copycat Costumes brought three stunning princesses along to entertain the kids, along with a very popular jolly snowman! They definitely caught the attention of the children who were enjoying their last week of the school holidays; it was a great way to keep them entertained that little bit longer.

The kids spent the morning being pampered too, with the lovely ladies from Glamour Eyes there to provide nail painting and glitter tattoos and Aimee Le Masurier creating some gorgeous princess hairstyles. Amy Law was on board to capture some real princess moments, please visit her photography page and take a look at the photos!

The really great thing about this event however, is that it allowed us to spread the word about our charity and the Tiny Hearts Appeal. We had the opportunity to speak to lots of local people about the work we do and managed to raise some money with donations from the generous people of Barnsley.

Getting out and about around our town is the best way to raise awareness of our charity and is something we love to do! This weekend we’ll be setting up a stall at the Barnsley LGBT festival too to promote our upcoming Zombie Run so if you’re around, do come and see us and we’ll be able to answer all your zombie-related questions.

It’s now seven weeks until the Zombie Run so now is the time to pluck up the courage and register as a runner, we offer a 10% discount for groups of five or more people which is great if you’re a bit anxious about getting up close and personal with our zombies!

Hello to you all, it’s been a few weeks since we gave you an update and I’m not going to lie and say it’s because we’ve been extremely busy, it’s actually because we’ve all been gallivanting off on holiday. However now we’re back, we are extremely busy! I hope you’ve all been enjoying some time off too! We’ve got a mixture of things in the pipeline for you to get involved with.

First of all, tomorrow we’ll be holding our Princess Pamper Party event for the kids at the Alhambra from 9:30-11:30am. The money raised will go towards our Tiny Hearts Appeal to help fund the brand new Special Care Baby Unit here at the hospital, it’s really a great cause.

Everyone’s favourite ice princess will be visiting, thanks to Copycat Costumes, and there’ll be lots of activities going on for the children to get involved with. We’ve got some fab makeup artists on board who will help to make the kids feel like real princesses and you’ll even have the opportunity to purchase a photo of your little princess with Amy Law’s photography service.

As many of you will already be aware, our second Zombie Run is coming up on the 18^th October so now’s the time to start booking your tickets! You can register online for yourself or for your team at http://www.zombierunbarnsley.co.uk/. If you think you can beat the zombie apocalypse, this one is definitely for you! We’re also on the lookout for more zombies so please get in touch with the charity if you’re interested in being a bit more gruesome.

We’ve also launched our Great Barnsley Bake Off fundraiser which  to get the people of Barnsley into the spirit of baking! All the money raised will go straight to our Tiny Hearts Appeal. With the Great British Bake Off back on our screens we thought it would be the perfect opportunity for you all to use your imaginations and come up with something exciting (and edible, preferably). If you’d like us to send you a Bake Off pack with details of how you can get involved, please contact us.

So it’s good to be back in the office with lots to do, we hope you fancy getting involved with our campaigns. It’s not too late to come along to our Princess Pamper Party tomorrow morning, what better way to entertain the kids on their last week off school?!

By Tanya Oates