Harbour Place Day Centre has held its annual fundraiser for 2009. It is the 13th year that we have been open and we celebrated this with a lavish five course meal at the Beechcomber. The night was interspersed with raffles, silly games, an auction and entertainment from a Celebrity speaker and Compere.

The evening started with Steve Tandy who was our MC for the night. Steve has many years of experience under his belt including appearing on New Faces. He has enjoyed theatre tours with the Drifters and summer seasons at Butlins to name but a few of his numerous appearances up and down the country. As anticipated he kept the evening running smoothly and the guests amused with his stand up routine.

Our special guest speaker this year was John Sergeant, he entertained the guests with stories from his days as one of the most recognised polictical journalists of his time. He then spent time describing his experience on Strictly Come Dancing where he stirred up controvesy whilst dancing with Kristina Rihanoff by capturing the hearts of the viewers who kept him in against the wishes of the judges. What a wonderful gentle man, it was a pleasure to meet him.

Our prizes for the auction and raffle were kindly donated by local companies and year after year generosity continues. Our gratitude goes out to all who made the evening another big success. This has been shown by the fact that all enjoyed the evening and £12,000 was raised for Harbour Place.

The centre would like to thank Barclays bank who have supported us yet again by matching raffle tickets sold on the night pound for pound. Barclays have supported the centre for many years and help to make the Celebrity Fundraiser the success it is.

As always the girls (and boy) from Barclays worked very hard on the evening to sell raffle tickets and help with the auction and to them a final big thanks, you always support the centre and the evening would not have been as big a success without you. 

Thanks again to all involved and we hope to see you again next year.