Happy New Year to all who read this!

The Charity team has come back to a flurry of activity after a restful Christmas and New Year break. But we never pause completely – our offices were staffed in between the two celebrations, and we continued to speak with our donors and supporters even during that quiet time.

We ended the year on a good note. We had some lovely festive events, and received two sizeable gifts to support the purchase of our new gene sequencer, which will speed up the diagnosis and therefore treatment of many potentially fatal genetic conditions. But not all gifts have to be large – gifts of all sizes can make a mountain of a difference – quite literally. In my previous life, at The National Trust, we ‘bought’ Snowdon, and if you take out the handful of very large gifts, we raised over £1 million through an average gift size of £37. It’s a bit like voting – you may think your vote doesn’t count but it does. Without gifts of all sizes, we would not buy equipment, build buildings, support our patient care programme and provide music and art at our hospitals. So, while a ticket to our Carol Concert wasn’t expensive, between all of you who came, you raised over £13,000 – with thanks to Savills too, for their sponsorship.

One of the most valuable ways of giving to our hospitals is by buying a leaf for our supporter trees around the hospital, to say thank you or to commemorate a special occasion. Here is Marianne Shephard and her family, who sponsored a leaf on our supporter tree in memory of her mother Rita.

These come in different sizes and you can support a leaf for one, three or more years. Click here to sponsor yours.

We don’t have many events in January – it’s more of a planning and preparing month. February and March however, well, you need just take a look at our website to see the amazing events we have coming up!

Did you know we also do talks and tours of our key projects for our special donors, who make such a difference to our two wonderful hospitals? If you want to know more, please get in touch by emailing [email protected].

We hold these events throughout the year, so that you can see how we take your donation and turn it into something truly remarkable – brick-by-brick in the case of Harefield’s intensive care unit as it emerges from the ground.

If you haven’t made a new year’s resolution yet, it’s not too late. Why not find out more about your two hospitals and what miracles they perform every day by visiting our Charity Hubs at either hospitals, or browsing our website?