Friday night was lovely. Our annual Ball is now one of our established ‘engagement events’ – all about catching up with old friends, meeting new ones, and celebrating achievements and raising some funds to help us create more Spaces to Sing and Spaces to Talk.
Hilton Cardiff did us proud, Tenovus Cancer Care Cardiff Sing with Us Choir were fantastic. We were saddened that Bethany Handley could not, for health reasons, join us but Leigh Manley did her and us all proud. Thank you Leigh.
Lylia Young and Ffion Parry sang a fantastic rendition of our Charity Single Here Together.
Our thanks to The Right Honourable Lord Mayor of Cardiff, Cllr Michael Michael and The Worshipful Mayor of Bridgend, Cllr Heid Bennett, for making the presentation on our behalf to Lylia and Ffion.
Emotional health
As chair, I took the opportunity to challenge the current public discourse that has a singular focus on ‘mental health’ leaving the essential element of ‘emotional health in the shadows.
Our normal human emotional reactions to illness are just us being human; they are not a sign of a mental health condition; those emotions need a space to be expressed in and to be heard – otherwise they may lead to a mental illness too.
That is why Daring to Dream makes Spaces to Talk – to support and encourage us all to talk about our feelings and come to terms with them.
Support
It was lovely to have The Worshipful Mayor of Bridgend, Cllr Heidi Bennett and also the Right Honourable Lord Mayor of Cardiff, Cllr Michael Michael, together with the Lady Mayoress Joyce Michael with us together for the evening – learning about us and supporting our work. And Cllr Jane Gebbie in her roles in Bridgend County Borough Council and as Chair of the Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board.
And a room full of guests, good company, food, music, words, and poetry.
And all hosted by Jason Harrold fabulously and who conducted the fundraising activities to help us generate over £5,500 in much welcomed funds.
A thank you to our sponsors
We had fantastic sponsorship support from Cenin, Cobalt HR and Hilton Cardiff.
