A Fantastic Evening celebrating UF's 30th Anniversary
Updated: 4 days ago
Photos courtesy of Nic Cornell. Thanks for a fantastic job, Nic!
To celebrate Uniting Friends' 30th Anniversary we put on a spectacular evening at Faces Nightclub in Gants Hill on 29th October. A sell-out event full of our favourite people - service users, families, friends, members of staff and UF supporters, the atmosphere was fizzing - and not just from the Prosecco!
Once everyone had settled in, we premiered a film we commissioned to be directed and produced by disability champion Isaac Harvey MBE and his team of talented filmmakers. It was a breathtakingly beautiful film and wonderful for everyone to see just how far we have come as an organisation over the past 30 years and the profound impact UF has had on so many people's lives. With plenty of cameos from many of our service users, including some who are dearly missed, more than a few tears were shed! Huge congratulations to Isaac and to James Dingle from TheForest.tv for the production of a masterpiece. It will be available on our website early next year, but until then you can see the film again on a big sreen at the UF AGM on 2nd December at 7PM - so register now and come along!
After a crowd pleasing buffet and more drinks, it was time to party - Anna Aarons as Amy Winehouse and her fabulous 7 piece band wowed the crowd with a fantastic set that got the room dancing and singing along to all our favourite hits. Thank you for a great show Anna and the band!
Of course, no self respecting UF event would be complete without a raffle. Thank you to everyone who donated the fantastic prizes (MurWalls, Art by Toor, City Place Wanstead, Southend Adventure Island / Sea Life Adventure, Gravity MAX Stratford, The Beehive Harvester) and also to everyone who dug deep to buy tickets - we raised £875 which is so gratefully received and crucial to running our operations. Congratulations also to our winners - Russell Hawkes, Thomas Lerner, Isaac Harvey, James Dingle, Jenny Smith, Lauren Richards and Robbie Spill.
The evening rounded off with a special Groovy Cat Club session with incredible sets from DJs Bony Tony, Dr Bass, DJ Spiller and compare DJ Sparticus. The energy was something to behold! It's joyous to have such a wonderful group of service users fully committed to their moves on the dancefloor!
A heart felt thank you to everyone Involved
Thank you to all the service users, families, friends, members of staff and UF supporters that came along to celebrate everything that UF has achieved over the past 30 years.
We also thank the Rt. Hon. Wes Streeting MP, who came along to join us and support our cause. As our local MP he has been a fantastic supporter of UF for the past 11 years and we are so grateful for him publically endorsing the important work we do - please check out his facebook post below!
Finally, thank you to all those involved in organising, running and volunteering their time to help make our special evening such a success.
Here's to many more years of Uniting Friends!
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