The Rainbow Centre

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Welcome to the Rainbow Centre

Specialists in conductive education helping children with Cerebral Palsy throughout the South of England.

Archive Page 1

These pages will contain items archived from past "latest news" and "past events" pages. Archived items will not necessarily be in chronological sequence!

HRH the Countess of Wessex visits Rainbow Centre. More ...

WE'VE MOVED - 28 April 2006
The move to our new premises at Cams Alders can be followed by clicking on the following links.
New Bradbury Building ... , Moving Day ..., Patron's Day ...

RN Motorbike Club show they are "good eggs"!

Six bikers from the Royal Navy Motorbike club visited the Rainbow Centre just after Easter to deliver Easter Eggs for the children. The children's faces were "a picture" as they saw the bikes and were allowed to sit on them.
RN biker group vice president George Bunkin said:
"We do this sort of thing every year and we were only too pleased to come and show the children our bikes and answer all their questions. I hope they enjoy the chocolate eggs - but don't eat them all at once!"

Mayor of Fareham's Charity Ball
The Mayor's annual charity ball was held in Ferneham Hall, Fareham on Friday 31 March 2006. As one of the Mayor's chosen charities for 2005/6 the Rainbow Centre will receive a share of the money raised on ticket sales, and raffles.
With the Mayor's Naval links, the evening's charity auction offered some interesting lots including a sea trip onboard a warship, a day with the Royal Marines in Poole including guesting at the regimental dinner and a visit to the RM School of Music and a day at sea on Sir Alec Rose's "Lively Lady". We await the final total raised. We thank the Mayor & Mayoress and their guests for their hard work and generosity.

Julie & Helen before the ball

Benefactor to the rescue!
One of our benefactors has come to the rescue in our fight against vandals. See "Vandals strike ..." below. We gratefully acknowledge the generosity of the Linbury Trust in funding the extra security measures we need to put in place to protect the Bradbury Building

Vandals strike the new building (April-May 2006) - cost the Rainbow Centre £25,000
Within days of occupation, the new building had become the target of vandalism. This included graffiti on the external walls, gouge marks on the wooden security doors, and dents in the metal shutters caused by throwing rocks at the windows. In addition almost half of the garden plants had been stolen and a fire set in the wheelie bins. The vandals had to climb a six-foot fence to get at these! These were not isolated incidents and happened with regularity in the late evenings during the first four weeks when everyone had gone home.

Following detailed discussions with local police and security experts, the Rainbow Centre has taken the decision to install a monitored security camera system, and motion detectors. The building will also be surrounded by railings. In addition, the local police will increase out-of-hours patrols around the site.

Total cost of making good the damage plus the installation and monitoring of the new security system is estimated at around £25,000. This obviously has a direct affect on the money available to help the Rainbow Children.

Rainbow Centre to benefit from "South Coast Idol"

Following four heats in Portsmouth, Bournemouth, Brighton and Southampton in February, the Grand Final of South Coast Idol will be held in Portsmouth's Guildhall on 28 May 2006.
The Rainbow Centre has been chosen as the charity to benefit from the event.
Promoter Chris Grayston visited the Rainbow Centre in January to cast his eye on possible entrants! His verdict was that the Rainbow Singers (pictured) should stick with their day-jobs! Chris is on the right.
More about South Coast Idol ...

Rainbow board member Gary, with staff members Julie and Helen have now left the building!

A few days later, this visit was followed by a second publicity visit which included the Mayor & Mayoress of Fareham and last year's South Coast Idol winners - pictured below. The Rainbow Centre is one of this year's Mayor's Charities.

Fred Dinenage chooses Rainbow Christmas card. More ...

Uniworld Moonlight Ball - 12th November 2005

Over 400 people danced the night away at the Uniworld Moonlight ball, held in the Guildhall, Portsmouth. After an excellent dinner, auctions and raffles (including a holiday in Florida) raised over £6,000. This has to be added to the ticket receipts, all of which are for the benefit of the Rainbow Centre. The Uniworld Communications team put a huge effort into organising this highly successful event and the Raibow Centre is very grateful for their efforts.

Thank you Uniworld.

empty plates!

energy to burn!

Work begins on the new Rainbow Centre - 23 July 2005
	Councillor Sean Woodward and TV presenter Fred Dinenage performed the groundbreaking ceremony using a mechanical digger. The plot had previously been blessed by the Lord Bishop of Portsmouth. story and pictures ...

Caroline completes Iron Man
Our Marathon runner - Caroline Street is a glutton for punishment! On 24th July she completed a full Iron Man triathlon event. This consisted of a 2.4 mile swim in open water, 112 mile cycle and a full marathon (26.2miles). All had to be completed within the 15.5 hour time limit. The event (aptly named The Longest Day) took place in Wolverhampton so no exotic location. Caroline raised funds for the Rainbow Centre.

Caroline completed the course in 14:41:35 . (Swim 1:26:20, Bike 7:03:44, Run 6:11:31).

It was a very wet and windy day - which started at 6am in a cold boating lake. Caroline said she didn't feel the cold, probably because she was so nervous and hyper.

Fareham's Citizen of Honour Award goes to Rainbow Co-founder - May 2005
At the annual Mayor-making ceremony in Fareham's Ferneham Hall on 12 May 2005, Helen Somerset-How was presented with the Citizen of Honour award for her outstanding work for the Rainbow Centre during the past fifteen years. Full story ...

Cheque presented by local Masons - 6th October 2005
Worshipful Master Shane Bird of the Comrades Lodge and his wife Amanda visited the Rainbow Centre to present a cheque for £2,000 . This money was raised at Amanda's Ladies' Night Ball on at the Marriott Hotel in May. The Rainbow Centre thanks Shane & Amanda for their support. Since many of the donations made by Shane's fellow Masons were subject to "Giftaid" - the final amount received by the Centre will be higher .

Roman Rudnytsky Piano Concert - August 2005. article & pictures ...

Portsmouth footballer visits Rainbow Centre

Portsmouth player - Laurent Robert visited the Rainbow Centre recently and certainly created some Portsmouth FC fans of the future. Two of them - Patrick Kimber (pictured here with Laurent) and Matthew Cooper have been invited to the forthcoming home game with Chelsea and will be accompanying the team on to the pitch.

Portsmouth sponsors OKI presented the Rainbow Centre with a match ball and framed shirt for future auction.

Our thanks to Laurent Robert, OKI, Mark Mudie and Gary Butler for making this visit a success.

Trekkers leave for Nepal - 25 November (see below)

(Trek photos added January 2005) To see photos follow this link ...

Our Nepal Trekkers assembled at the Rainbow Centre at 4 o'clock on 25th November, bound for Heathrow and an overnight flight to Katmandu. Local coach company - Lucketts - provided the transport free of charge as a contribution to the Rainbow Centre. Thank you Lucketts!

Despite minor problems including leaving walking poles at home, forgetting to pack a specially purchased warm fleece and one member of the party eating the entire contents of his fridge in the coach on the way up, we can at least confirm that they reached the airport safely!

Hopefully, pictures and details of the trek will appear on this site when they return.


Going	Going	Gone!

Harry the Hippo - New friend of Rainbow
Local company - Hippo Waste are to become one of our new Corporate sponsors. After presenting the Rainbow Centre with a cheque for £500, Hippo Waste is now looking for other ways to support the centre.

Pictured - Rainbow Centre children meet Harry for the first time!

Another donation from HMS Collingwood
Just before Christmas 2005, representatives from HMS Collingwood presented the Centre with two cheques totalling £2,000.
£500 came from the HMS Collingwood Field Gun day held last year, and £1,500 was raised in the Warrant Officers Mess throughout the year.

Pictured - the team from HMS Collingwood present the cheque.

Garbo Ball December 2005

The Garbo hairdressing chain organised a ball at the Marriott Hotel in December. It was a great fun evening which raised almost £2,000 for the Rainbow Centre. Singer Shirin, who is a supporter of the Rainbow Centre, performed a popular cabaret spot. Our thanks goes to everyone involved in organising this event.

Shirin raises money for the Rainbow Centre. Shirin, the young local singer who has adopted the Rainbow Centre, raised £180 at a one of her recent concerts. Shirin's mother works for Lloyds TSB, who kindly agreed to match this amount. The picture shows Shirin presenting a cheque for £360 to Helen & Julie in the presence of the Mayor and Mayoress of Fareham - Councillor & Mrs Leslie Keeble.
For more about Shirin - see the article on our past events page.

Police Team swim Solent for Rainbow Centre
In July 2005, a team of local police undertook the challenge of dodging the Solent shipping to swim to the Isle of Wight and back. Between them they raised £2,800 and presented the cheque to the Rainbow Centre in November.
Below - various member of the team complete their crossing. Our thanks to the Police

Rainbow Ride 2004
A group of Hampshire Policemen riding across America for the Rainbow Centre. Their website ...

"Cycling Across America" end of event party. - April 2005

Last year, four Hampshire policemen (seen here leaving Portchester Castle en-route to Heathrow) cycled across the United States - coast to coast raising money for The Rainbow Centre. See their website at British Bobbies Challenge . Together with their sponsors and supporters they raised over £27,000. On April 8 they held a party at HMS Collingwood in Fareham to celebrate the successful conclusion of this event. See our web page

Local singer adopts Rainbow Centre - April 2005

Shirin a young female singer, from Fareham has decided to adopt the Rainbow Centre as her chosen charity. She has donated a supply of her recent CD to the Centre and has committed to raise funds for us in the future as her career develops. We hope she is a huge success in her chosen field. If you would like to know more about Shirin visit her websitehere.

London Marathon 2005 article and pictures

London Marathon 2004 article & pictures

Skydiving 2004 article & pictures