June 25th 2025
Fundraising for The Charlie Waller Trust
A huge thank you to everyone who joined us last Tuesday for The Summer Soirée in support of the Charlie Waller Trust. This annual highlight event, formerly The Summer Lunch, was held in the late afternoon into the evening for the first time this year, and the new format and timing were a resounding success.
Bathed in glorious afternoon sunshine, and located in the stunning Katah Events marquee on the front lawn, many parents and families took advantage of the early opening shopping, with pizza and ice cream vans to keep their little people happy.
This progressed into a fantastic ticketed evening event, with a sell out audience of 255 guests enjoying the shopping and socialising. A delicious two course dinner was interspersed with inspiring and motivational talks from our guest speakers.
First up was Alice Palmer from the Charlie Waller Trust who gave a brilliantly funny and heart-wrenchingly honest talk about the importance of maintaining good mental health and the impact of the work that the Charlie Waller Trust does to support and educate young people in this area. We were delighted to also welcome Sir Mark and Lady Waller and Richard and Katie Waller to the event.
Next up was Felicity Ashley, who inspired everyone to push themselves out of their comfort zone and do something extraordinary. Felicity rowed 3,000 miles across the Atlantic in an all-female crew, just before receiving a devastating Stage 3 bowel cancer diagnosis. She has used her resilience and determination to get through her treatment, and has since managed a marathon at Everest base camp as well as writing and publishing her first book! Her mantra ‘you don’t have to be great to make a start, but you do have to make a start to be great’ encouraged many in the audience to reflect on their own life choices!
Finally, Milly Whitehead from The Leap, a travel company which offers life-changing adventures, spoke to the audience about leaving technology behind and embracing the opportunity of travel to broaden minds, build resilience and grit, and ignite personal growth.
All of the speeches complemented each other beautifully in a fascinating and inspiring combination.
The Summer Soirée committee pulled together a fantastic array of stallholders for excellent shopping, with 10% of their takings being donated to the Charlie Waller Trust. In addition, a raffle and auction with superb prizes and lots proved enormously successful and exceeded all expectations. The committee will be announcing the final donation to the Charlie Waller Trust next week, and are hugely grateful for everyone’s incredible support.
We’re sure that everyone who attended will particularly want to thank Moulsford parents Tilly Meynell (Chair), Clemmie Turner, Sarah Craig and Hannah Morris for their tireless efforts in producing a really outstanding event which was not only very enjoyable, but also raised significant funds for an extremely worthwhile charity. Thanks also go to the MPA for supporting the event in terms of so generously sharing the marquee post their Summer party.
There are many others to thank too, including additional committee members and supporters, plus the sponsors who helped make the event possible. These included The Country House Department, Expert Africa, Property Vision, Clean Co, Hanning Homes, Renewed Learning and Radley College.
