BrassNeck Theatre thanked for £3,500 Charity Donation

Charitable donation to ‘OCHRE’ – raising awareness of oesophageal cancer

At our recent Annual General Meeting we were delighted to be able to confirm our charitable donation for our last membership year to OCHRE – a charity which aims to raise awareness of oesophageal cancer amongst the public, professionals, politicians and patients.  The majority of the donation was raised at our charity ‘Club Night’ in September, where singing duo ‘Fire and Ice’ (Lisa Simpson and Marie Collins) entertained a packed Yeadon Town Hall.  The success of the evening was particularly fitting for Lisa whose family have sadly experienced first-hand the devastating effects of oesophageal cancer.

A letter thanking us for our donation explaining how the money will help OCHRE is copied below – for more information on the charity please visit www.ochrecharity.org.uk.

Dear BrassNeck Theatre

What an amazing organisation you are! To choose a small charity fighting to raise awareness of a little known cancer and support them the way you have devoted time and resources to helping us, we simply cannot thank you enough. To raise such an astonishing amount of money and donate it to help our work tackling oesophageal cancer. We are overwhelmed.

If one person attended your show, took note of our name and gave it a few seconds thought then that is all it takes to save a life. We know that when an individual hears a simple message that heartburn is not OK or that difficulty swallowing should be checked out by a doctor that can led to early detection which can save a life which, without intervention, nine times out of ten will be lost following a diagnosis of oesophageal cancer.

I know that there will have been many charities wanting and deserving your support. That makes your decision to choose us so wonderful because we don’t have the money for television advertising roadside billboards but we are fighting the good fight every day. We are spending every single penny to raise awareness and save lives. This year we joined partners from all over the UK to speak to MPs at Westminster about the disgrace of lack of awareness and early diagnosis. We held a debate in the Scottish Parliament to raise awareness amongst MSPs. We seek out every possible opportunity to let people know that early diagnosis can save lives.

Donations like yours bring us another step closer to producing a series of mini films featuring stories from sufferers and survivors to spread the word on social media. It helps us support the creation of support groups for sufferers and helps me spend some time talking to family members who have experienced traumatic loss. It will help us create us first Youth Ambassadors to provide peer to peer support amongst young people who are experiencing oesophageal cancer in their family.

On behalf of everyone at Ochre thank you from the bottom of our hearts. You are wonderful, wonderful people and a fine example of why the arts play a vital role in the life of this country.

With best wishes to you all

Kate Cunningham
Campaign Director
OCHRE_the oesophageal cancer charity