The year just ended (2019) was a historic one for charity soul, both from a musical event organising and medical point of view. The start of the year saw us ‘soley’ (sorry for the pun) in charge of the Huntington WMC, York regular music event nights commencing in February. This was due to Mike Ward, a great friend and supporter of Charity Soul, inviting us to organise the events held at Huntington WMC. This was a tribute to Charity Soul’s reputation and standing that Mike did not consider any other promoter/organisation to take over the organisational reigns from him at this venue. This gave us a ‘home’ base to work from, as we had been without one since our withdrawal for the much-loved Manifesto Club at Knottingley. The proceeding scheduled events here have been very successful, donation wise and musically, with a great array of Charity Soul dj’s giving their time and services for our cause.

Summer

The start of the summer events saw us return to Roda, Murcia for the 3rd Festival of Soul and Motown. As it turned out it was our most successful event ever, with 8,000 euros raised over the three days. It was well supported by the local ex-pats and UK Charity Soul attendees and it was estimated that over 400 people attended the event. Our fundraising activities continued into the summer with our regular weekend events at the Windsor Hotel, Bridlington and the Buck Inn, Whitby which saw us again generate substantial funds to donate to prostate cancer research.

Professor Norman Maitland

August was a rather sad and significant month, as it brought to an end the fantastic research work into prostate cancer by Professor Maitland due to his much-deserved retirement. After 45 years in the medical profession Norman had decided to bring to a close this research work into cancer and hand the reigns over to others, coupled with the closing of the Cancer Research Unit at York University. This caused consternation within the ranks of Charity Soul as it left us without a plausible recipient of our donation endeavours. This was soon to be resolved with the appointment of Dr Fiona Frame, Professor Maitland’s assistant at York, to a cancer research post at Hull University which saw us continue to fund prostate cancer research, but with Dr Frame the new recipient of donations. It was decided to make Norman the Honorary Patron of Charity Soul.

Autumn

The autumn saw us return again to Whitby to the Buck Inn for our second weekender and new venture take place in Los Alcazares, Murcia of the Serena Soul rare and underplayed event. This was a rather sombre occasion as it was a few days after horrendous torrential downpours in the region, which caused extensive devastation to local homes and buildings. It was decided that it would be only the right and proper for Charity Soul to donate some funds to the local flood relief fund, which is allowed in our Articles of Governance, therefore we donated 1000 Euros to this worthwhile cause.

Dr. Fiona Frame took up a research post at Hull University Biology Unit at the end of July, and was asked would she be willing to be the new recipient of charitable donations from us. This she was quite agreeable to do so, and September saw Charity Soul make a donation of £10,000 to the Hull University Biology unit run by Dr.Fiona Frame. She stated that this money would be used to fund specific undergraduate research activities in the field of prostate cancer and would update charity soul on the results of this research. Our fundraising activities continued into the winter months and our last scheduled event was the annual Christmas charity event at Huntington WMC which in itself was extremely significant as it saw us on completion of a donation of £3000 to Dr, Fiona Frame of Hull Biology research unit, reach a ground breaking figure as regards our donation activities. Since our inception in 2013 charity soul has raised and donated to a variety of worthwhile causes a significant cumulative sum of money, the recipients and funds being:

£72,000York Cancer Research Unit

£13,000 Hull University Biology Unit

£12,500 Nueroblastoma Unit, Newcastle University

£800 (1000Euros) Flood Relief, Los Alcazares Spain

£2,500 Blue Bell Wood Children’s fund

£500 Parkinson’s Disease Fund

The donations made to these cause’s totals up to £101,300 which is a fantastic amount donated from you, the soul loving public at large, given that the people involved helping to raise this are all volunteers, who contribute a significant time, money, and effort and receive no monetary reward what so ever. Since our inception in 2013 we could never conceive in our wildest dreams of achieving such a considerable amount of money for various charitable organisations. This would not be possible with your generosity, so from Charity Soul a humble ‘thank you’

The Future

We have some exciting new ventures planned for 2020. Not least the six scheduled events at the Capricorn Club, Goole for which we hope for a great response from the soul music loving public of Goole, who we think are devoid of quality soul music, which we aim to rectify with some top class djs delivering top class soul at this programmed event. We will again be in Roda, Murcia for the 4th Festival of Soul and Motown which has now become a firm favourite of Charity Soul supporters. There is also the prospect of seeing a number of your favourite Charity Soul members ‘Reach for The Sky’ (and hopefully return to earth, safely I might add) with our sponsored parachute jump at Shotton Co, Durham, followed on with our charity fundraiser at Easington Welfare in June. So, things look extremely exiting for 2020, so good health to all our followers and Keep On Keeping On supporting Charity Soul.

Dave Johnson Secretary/Administrator Charity Soul