An Evening at Duncombe Park

We had a wonderful evening at Duncombe Park this week. The event was organised by land agents Strutt and Parker for the benefit of ARC Addington and it gave Ian (of ARC) a chance to invite supporters of the fund and to be able to thank everyone for all their fundraising and support.
The beautiful house is one of Yorkshire’s foremost historic houses and estates. The house is closed to the public from 2011, but the spectacular gardens are open to visitors, as is the parkland. Its a beautiful and historic landscape on the edge of the market town of Helmsley, a gateway to the North Yorkshire Moors National Park.
We had champagne all evening, well some did but guess who was driving and didnt!! And the canapes were out of this world. And there were so many the waiters just kept going round and round, and then when you thought there couldnt possibly be anymore they came round with dessert canapes! Melt in the mouth delights!!. Slimming World here I come......

Yorkshire Air Ambulance

This morning 5 of the Farm Stay ladies who were involved with the Charity breakfast went along to the Yorkshire Air Ambulance Station at Leeds Airport. The purpose of the visit was to present the team with their cheque of the money raised at the Breakfast event.
We were joined by Ian Bell of ARC Addington who also received his cheque
We met the YAA team and had a really interesting tour, led by Lee Davidson, Chief Paramedic. We saw how the calls come in and how they are handled and what decisions are taken regarding whether or not the helicopter is deployed. We had a look in the Helicopter, which cost a whopping 2.4 million pounds!!
We also met the BBC team who are based there to film 'Helicopter Heroes' which covers every aspect of life at the station, even the paramedics wear a small camera so viewers get a real close up of their work
We saw the editing suite and learned how the programme is put together
In some ways we were very fortunate as there was very thick fog and the Helicopters were grounded today, otherwise they could have been out on a mission. There were no flights leaving or arriving at the airport this morning!!

ARC Addington

Ian Bell, the ARC fund director, came up from Warwickshire to help out at the Breakfast this week. Ian come up last year but I didnt manage to get a picture of him in his apron! I wasnt going to miss the opportunity again, and thought I would put it on here for all to see!!
Whilst Ian was up he spent time after his breakfast duties visiting families and patrons of the fund in the area. ARC Addington do a fantastic job helping farming families with rural housing and emergency help when disaster strikes like flooding, or in 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease.
The REAL Food and Farming project Ive been involved with over the last 4 years have also been fundraising for ARC and the latest donation of £900 was presented to Ian at the breakfast.
This year the charity celebrate their tenth anniversary and more information about them can be found on their website www.arc-addington.org.uk

Farmhouse Breakfst - St Georges Court

L to R Ian Bell - ARC Addington, Andy Woodward - CEO Farm Stay UK, Gary Verity- CEO Welcome to Yorkshire, David Wilkins - Yorks Air Ambulance


This week has been Farmhouse Breakfast Week. A national campaign run by the Home Grown Cereals Authoirty. Last year we held a 3 day charity fundraiser here at Scaife Hall Farm and Lindsey of St Georges Court offered to do the same thing again this year at her home St Georges Court Grantley.
The chosen charities for this year were the Yorkshire Air Ambulance and The ARC Addington Fund. Representatives from both came to help the Farm Stay members serve over 200 breakfasts. The food was all be sourced from Yorkshire producers and they were extremely generous with much of it donated or sold to us at cost.
All in all it was a great way to raise money and awareness for charity, to raise the profile of St Georges Court and Farm Stay properties and support Yorkshire food producers.
At the end of 3 days we all had very sore feet, were very tired but we had lots of laughs and great fun!