Chessington Chapter 3!

Oct 24, 2016

Our third Chessington weekend was the biggest yet with over 90 people! The trip was similar to the others but with many more smiles, a private lunch and a visit from Rapunzel (see our video for her dancing with a tiny Rapunzel (also known as Pal Ebonie!)). It was an amazing end to 3 weekends of fun and we thought instead of telling you the details we would share some videos instead! Don’t forget to read the write up about trip 1 and 2 though.

This is a tiny selection of pictures from feeding Sea lions and meeting lots of different animals.

Finally a video of some of the many happy times!

We started this project after we were offered corporate support, after jumping through lots of hoops though, the company changed their mind leaving us with a project costing over 3 times our annual income and a lot of excited families. At times this seemed like it would be impossible, but in the end 50 families had an amazing weekend! It was meant to be one trip which turned into 3 and, guess what, there is a part 4 planned! A Christmas weekend for those who were too ill to attend before or who are facing their last Christmas together, for details please see here.

We couldn’t possibly begin to thank everyone on here who helped, fundraised, donated or cheered us on but we would like to say a big thank you to Merlin’s Magic Wand and the staff at Chessington World of Adventures who went above and beyond. Lots of planning with Chessington went into the trip and families commented on how the tiny details, like having the correct amount of extension leads for their child’s equipment in rooms or catering to special diets, made it a relaxing time. Big thank you in particular to Nikki, Von and Grant. Thank you to Dawn, Steve and Jaymee who gave up 3 weekends and did lots of running about. Extra Smiles Sarah who put so much work into securing funding for individual families and for the countless hours that went into this project, it would not have happened without her. Dawn Smith for running 2 online auctions and raising lots of money, thank you also to everyone who donated an item or placed a bid. Elbi and all your users, clicking the love button really does add up and paid for a few families to attend!

I’m sorry to everyone we haven’t mentioned but we appreciate all your help and we hope you enjoy seeing the happy memories you helped create.