Page 303 - She's One Crazy Lady!

apply to the Charities Commission to become a Registered Charity. More paperwork – a great deal of paperwork in fact, but it was a great feeling when our application was accepted. Crazy Hats became a Registered Charity! We were ready for this added responsibility and had identified Trustees and appointed additional Committee Members to meet the Charity Commission’s directives. We quickly ended up with a much bigger team, such was the enthusiasm of people already involved!
For some reason we called ourselves
the “Crazy Hats Appeal” but we found
that every time we Googled the name, we didn’t feature in any breast cancer categories (only in ‘hats’ and ‘joke shops’!) so we added two very important words – ‘Breast Cancer’ – “Crazy Hats Breast Cancer Appeal” – and our views increased overnight.
Our Mission Statement as stated in our Constitution was a follows:
“We aim to provide the relief of sickness and the preservation and protection of those persons who have suffered, or are suffering from breast cancer, by the provision of grants as the Trustees see fit.”
This sounds rather ‘grand’ doesn’t it? In layman’s terms we simply wanted to provide support for patients and carers and donate funds to the Breast Care Departments (as ‘grants’) at our local hospitals to enhance their facilities. On all our promotional literature we put: “Together we CAN make a difference!”
Becoming a Registered Charity was a move in the right direction but I knew I could not carry on at home as things were – we desperately needed more space and to get organised – we were so busy!
Early in 2006 the Charity was growing beyond belief.
In designing promotional material to give out wherever we went, we found a printing firm on the Finedon Road Industrial Estate in Wellingborough and met ‘Gary’. (Drew and Angelina at AO Copy were still generously supporting us with the printing of paperwork for the Walks but we could not take further advantage of their generosity.) Gary and I were talking and I mentioned that we needed a room, or something... as if we didn’t, we may have to stop.
“Ah,” he said, “Follow me. I’ve got a room upstairs you could use. It has a desk, a bookcase...”
We went to have a look but the room was very small.
“We really need a bit more than that Gary but thank you for offering.”
“Together we CAN make a difference!
”
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