Page 311 - She's One Crazy Lady!

to so many breast cancer patients and their families. I always felt how courageous it was, for a ‘new visitor’ to climb our stairs, turn the corner and be faced by a multitude of happy people – for it was a ‘happy’ place – and oh! – the ‘noise!’. We were a noisy lot and we were able to create a lot of fun and positivity with cakes, raffles, games, competitions, news updates – and a LOT of talking! Whenever a new person came in we always gave him/her 1:1 time for as long as needed before introducing them to others. How lovely it was to see that person later comfortably engaged in conversation, being made to feel so welcome – for everyone had made that ‘first move’. Only on rare occasions did a few people admit it wasn’t for them and this was always respected.
“Enter as strangers – leave as friends”
Throughout 2006 and 2007, I was working voluntarily at the office alone but realised we needed more hands as I was having to ‘juggle’ so many tasks. I also realised that, at some point, I needed to earn a salary – perhaps go out and find a job – having to rely on a small Teacher’s Pension (minimal, because I had been pensioned off at a young age) and Crazy Hats having already cost me a lot of my own money. By now we had appointed a professional Accountant with whom we worked annually to write and present the Audited Trustees Annual Accounts at the yearly AGM’s which we now held at Wicksteed Park and later at the Bowls Club in Rushden. All meetings were very well attended – meetings whereby we were to recruit many of our future Committee Members. Talking things through with our Accountant he advised me that I should be taking a salary saying the Charity could afford it and justify it too.
To begin with I accepted travelling costs only, not willing to be salaried.
In 2008 Marilyn was unhappy at school. She was still at Victoria Junior School but they we having to vacate the glorious old Victorian building and move to a new, smaller school next to the Infant School on Finedon Road. It is so sad today to see that the building, despite having been purchased by builders to create ‘flats’, has been left and is in a very poor state. That beautiful building had so many possibilities and so much history.
Marilyn was still very active with us at the Charity as a volunteer and was very experienced on the secretarial and administrative side of things – she knew the Charity as well as I did – so she decided to leave school and came to work for Crazy Hats. This, of course, had been discussed at length with our Trustees – the timing was right and I knew she and I would work well together. So Marilyn was salaried and I started to receive a small salary a few months later. May I add here our sincere thanks to Elsby’s (Accountants) at Sywell, who managed the Charity’s salaries on a pro-bono basis; to ‘Mel’ (another Accountant) who was made known to us and who came in to the office on a regular basis to assist us with reconciling our accounts; to Anstee & Co (Independent
“I always felt how courageous
it was, for a ‘new visitor’
to climb our stairs, turn the corner and be faced by a multitude of happy people – for it was a ‘happy’ place – and oh! – the ‘noise!’
”
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