What an amazing year it has been. Our 30th anniversary has been a memorable one for so many reasons, and now’s a good time to reflect on a few of the highlights.

• We won a Blackpool Civic Trust award in March for best refurbishment.
• Our Medical Director Dr Susan Salt ran the London Marathon for us in April and raised £5,000.
• In May we had the wonderful Blackpool 10K fun run – with 2,000 runners.
• In July we organised the coast’s biggest ever Colour Splash – 1,800 runners  raising an amazing £70,000!
• Our summer fair saw the gardens full of visitors, enjoying a (rare) sunny day.
• We were official charity for Lytham Festival  in August – our biggest ever mobilisation of volunteers, and we also received £21,000 from the event.
• The summer water crisis had a silver lining – enough donated bottles from schools and colleges to supply all our big events in 2016!
• Our Friends Groups reached an amazing milestone: between them they have raised £1 million for us over the last 30 years.
• Our shops broke the £1 million income target for the first time.
• Five of our volunteers received special awards for an incredible 30 years of dedicated service. Two others won Volunteer of the Year at the Radio Wave awards.
• We held our first ever Morecambe Bay walk.
• In September our Ball at Blackpool Tower raised an unprecedented £95,000 in one night.
• Hospice at Home celebrated its first full year and has had fantastic feedback from families.
• In November we installed solar panels to cut our electricity bills and provide a new income stream.
• In December we had 7,000 local children doing Reindeer Runs for Brian House, and we had 1,000 Santas in the Dash along the Prom.

We have done so much, but none of it would have been possible without our supporters and our volunteers. Thank you for helping to make our 30th anniversary such a special year, whether you bought a raffle ticket, jumped out of a plane, got covered in powder paint, baked cakes or made a donation in memory of someone special. You are amazing.

Here’s to a happy and successful 2016.