The Rainbow Centre

Home Page About Rainbow News Fundraising Corporate Building Project Services Links Contact Us

Welcome to the Rainbow Centre

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

Archive Page 2

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

Ossie & Hutch Memorial Race Day at Royal Windsor - August 5, 2006

This year, the annual "Hutch Memorial Race Day" (named after the late great Chelsea player - Ian Hutchinson) sadly became the "Ossie & Hutch Memorial Race Day" following the death of the equally great Peter Osgood earlier in the year. Organised by Peter's wife Lynn and Ian's life partner Elaine, the reception and lunch supported the two players' favourite charities - The Rainbow Centre and the Limbless Association Football+ Project. After a champagne reception and lunch for over 220 guests, generous bidding in the auction raised thousands of pounds for the two charities.
The 4:35 Race - The Ossie & Hutch Memorial was won by "Call me Waki". This horse had been heavily backed by the "big spenders" on the Rainbow Centre Table - who naturally enough were persuaded to donate their winnings to the Rainbow Centre! Compered so ably by Dennis Bundy, everyone had a wonderful day, which celebrated the lives of two great sportsmen.

Winner - "Call Me Waki" enters the unsaddling enclosure

Lynn & Elaine present the prize to the winning trainer

Portsmouth News Business Excellence Awards - January 2006.

Congratulations to Julie Woodward who was nominated in the Achiever of the Year category. Julie received a "Highly Commended" award for her significant contribution to the growth of the Rainbow Centre.
The event was held in Portsmouth Guildhall on January 12 2006 and was compered by BBC Presenter Sally Taylor MBE.
The Rainbow Centre was the "benefitting" charity for the evening and over £3500 was raised.

Helen receives the cheque for the Rainbow Centre

Julie receives her award

Pat digs for Rainbow - 25 April 2006
Mrs Pat Nixon, Lions' Local District Schools and Education Officer has been instrumental in obtaining a matching grant from Lions International which doubles the £5,000 raised by Lions' clubs in the local area as part of the 2004 Rainbow Ride (see "Cosham Lions add to proceeds ..." below). The £10,000 will be used to create a special activity playground for the children. Pat is shown here with Helen Somerset How breaking the ground where the play area will be built

Pat (right) & Helen

A plan of the garden
(Click on image for larger picture)

South Coast Idol - Summer 2006
Following heats across the South, the competition finished with a final before a capacity crowd of 2,200 in Portsmouth Guildhall. Singer songwriter Amy Briant from Chichester took the title of South Coast Idol. She sang "This is your day" a song written for her sister's wedding.

From over 5,000 registered singers, two rounds of auditions, Semi finals and Regional finals, 17 separate events, 600,000 visitors on the web page in the last month alone, 15,000 text votes; Amy has come on top. The evening also went out live on the Radio and the Internet with an estimated 75,000 listening on the night.

Judge Gary Butler, said "The talent this year has just been outstanding, from auditions to the Grand final all the acts have come on so much. As for Amy she is just amazing, she has the look, the voice, the commitment and she writes her own material, she has everything to make it".

The Rainbow Centre was chosen as the South Coast Idol's charity for 2006 and is expecting to receive a substantial donation from the proceeds made by text voting throughout the competition.

Some of the contestants on stage

Steve Brookstein chats to the winner - Amy Briant

"Who are You" - Summer 2006
Robert Rosenberg (Manager of "The Who") is shown right presenting Helen with a cheque for £10,000. The presentation was backstage at the Who open-air concert at Beaulieu in July. The money is from the Who's Charitable Foundation and the cheque personally signed by Pete Townsend. It was presented in memory of Vicky Lea a friend of Robert's who died 18 months ago. Vicky's daughter Izzy attended the Rainbow Centre in the early 90s. Following the presentation, Helen was given grandstand tickets to watch the rest of the concert. She described it as "awesome and spectacular".

awesome

spectacular

Au Revoir - Summer 2006

Aliz & Hanna

We are sad to be losing Aliz and Hanna from our Conductive team.
Hanna has been with us for 2 years and has now decided she would like to further her education and has gained a place at Portsmouth University. This means she will still be a frequent visitor so we wish her well and look forward to her visits, but we will miss her "colourful" fashions!
Aliz came to us on a 6-month sabbatical from her job in Hungary to fill a maternity-leave vacancy. She brought her small son Peter with her, but left her partner behind. She is naturally looking forward to returning home. She was a fantastic member of the team and we will miss her humour. Hopefully she will return to work in our Summer School in August 2007.
In their places we welcome Viki & Dora to our team in September and hope they will be as happy with us as Hanna & Aliz.

Best of all worlds!

Imagine a Wild West Casino evening in a restaurant which boasts "Filipino hospitality and French Mediterranean cuisine with a touch of the Orient"!
This is Lauro's Brasserie at 8 High Street, Fareham recently where over £750 was raised for charity. The clients were asked to choose the charity to benefit and The Rainbow Centre was selected. The proprietors are Larry and Carol. Why not test their brand of hospitality and taste their cuisine. Our thanks to Lauro's.

Helen receives the cheque from the owners and staff at Lauro's

You don't have to loose your hair to support the Rainbow Centre, but Adam Whincup did! Adam (shown below with friend Ben Dude) took part in a sponsored haircut at Southampton's Gatehouse Pub with all proceeds going to the centre. Adam says he'd been growing his hair for twelve years, five of them with dreadlocks. Ben had been growing his for eight! Adam works with children and wanted to support a local childrens' charity. The two haircuts took forty minutes and raised £350. The worst thing for Adam - the cutter used blunt scissors! The best - feeling the wind rush over his head when he runs! Thank you to Adam and Ben.

Cosham Lions add to proceeds of the Rainbow Ride
Joan Rickets, last year's President of the Cosham Lions is shown presenting Helen Somerset How with a cheque for £1000. This money was raised by the club as a contribution towards the proceeds of the 2004 Rainbow Ride (see our past events page) in which a team of Hampshire Policemen rode across the United States. This brings to £5,000 the total raised by local Lions Clubs. It is hoped that this will soon be doubled by a matching grant from Lions International. Later ... see item "Pat digs for Rainbow" - above

Cams Hall Golf Club adopt Rainbow Centre Mens' captain John Carrier and Ladies' Captain Frances Ogilvy (pictured right) have adopted the Rainbow Centre as the club's charity for the year. The club's first fundraiser to start the year was a "Drive-In" held in January. A big thank-you to all club members and supporters from the Rainbow Centre.	John & Frances
Frances arrives in 'cuffs	A Victorian theme
Frances drives off	The competition winners