2025 in a Nutshell!
As 2025 draws to a close, we look back on a year of wonderful events. From pop up shops to golf days, gift fairs and plant sales, we thank everyone who has supported us this year.
Spring
April saw our spring pop up back at Ilmington Village Hall raising £5435 – a record amount for this event. Thank you to everyone who donated beautiful clothes, and all our wonderful volunteers! An Opera Evening at St Edmunds Church in Shipston raised £675 for SHN.
Summer
‘Dine and Donate’ launched in May, with The Fuzzy Duck in Armscote adding a £1 to each dining bill. They have raised £1223 for us so far and will continue the scheme until the new year. It’s a great fundraiser for the charity and also helps us to raise awareness. May was also the month for our village plant and home produce sales with 14 villages taking part this year, raising over £13,454. We were so grateful to be sponsored by NFU Mutual Central-South Warwickshire this year, and we look forward to working with them again in 2026.
As ever, we’re so grateful for the National Garden Scheme at this time of the year. We loved hosting the teas at Ilmington Open Gardens (hard work but a lot of fun!) and Admington Hall and we’ll be back in Ilmington next year.
May also saw Laura’s Tractor Run and the Stour Valley Lions Duck Race, for which we were one of the beneficiary charities. What a weekend!
Continuing our busy season, in July we were back at Feldon Valley for our annual golf day, this year joined by 80 golfers on one of the hottest days of the year. The sun shone, Champagne was poured, golf balls putted and over £8200 raised for the charity. We’ll be back in July 2026! And, it wouldn’t be summer without the beautiful countryside surrounding Blackberry Farm, inviting us to enjoy the scenery and search for butterflies. Thanks go to Richard Gray for his ongoing support.
As always, we had some wonderful fundraising initiatives from SHN volunteers and supporters. Olga and Barbara sold their home essentials at various events, including a summer ‘pop up’ at Gilks’ Garage Cafe, and Wendy welcomed people to her beautiful garden, serving teas and lunches to raise funds for us. And, of course, Lindsey and the incredible team at the Ettington Garden Cafe sold plants for us throughout the year.
In August, Kate Allen completed her amazing walk from Lands End to John O Groats, raising just over £12,000 We were delighted to catch up with her, alongside her fellow walker Dana, her husband Jonathan and springer spaniels Dana, Skittle and Sushi in the SHN office on their return.
Autumn
Moving in to September, Saturday 13th saw the ‘Phil Salt Memorial’ cup game between Stratford RFC and Shipston RFC at Stratford Rugby Club. We were delighted to be asked to attend with our collection buckets.
Our annual 10k at Walton Hall took place on Sunday 21st September. We were fortunate with some lovely weather and welcomed over 200 runners and walkers over the start line. A new route proved popular and our volunteers were all brilliant!
October brought with it two fabulous fundraisers – Malcolm took on the Weston Beach Race, and Katherine completed the Chester marathon. We’re in awe of you both! Thanks also to the friends of Idlicote church for organising their fun quiz night and donating to us.
Later in the month, our pop up returned to Ilmington and raised £5565 – it just keeps getting bigger and better and we’ll be back in March 2026!
Winter
November wouldn’t be the same for us without our Gift Fair and we were back at Ettington Community Centre with a great selection of stalls – some familiar faces and a lot of new ones! This year we didn’t charge for entry to the fair, so we had a lot of visitors and the tombola was more popular than ever. Thank you to everyone who joined us, particularly the volunteers (of which there were many). It’s a real team effort, hard work but a lot of fun and we are so grateful.
At the time of writing this, preparation is under way for our final event of the year – Village Carols at Christmas on Saturday 20th December at St Mary’s in Ilmington. We can’t wait to round off 2025 with this joyous festive event – with readings by Anton Lesser and singing by the talented Mollie Smith, and Julian Smith at the helm once again. The evening is now sold out so if you have bought tickets, we’re looking forward to seeing you there.
And then… it’s time for a Christmas break. As always, we thank our amazing volunteers, all the local businesses who have supported us this year and our wonderful community. We’re looking forward to 2026!
Kate, Allison & Jo (SHN Fundraising team)