Author: Anita Powell

Our My Marathon, My Way challenge in May was so successful we clocked up a total of 4,485 miles, taking us all the way to Oxford in Ohio! We have now set ourselves the challenge of getting home again, but we thought we would have some fun along the way, visit some new places and learn about different cultures!

Our first destination is The Bahamas, which is 1,087 miles away. People we support and staff will be logging their miles, and the activities that make them smile to get us there – and once we reach our destination we’ll have a big old celebration before we travel onwards!

Join us and help us get there! All you need to do is log your activity on the Miles & Smiles link – either daily, weekly or as and when you do things.

Please just email us at community@styleacre.org.uk to let us know you are joining in, so we have contact details to keep in touch with you about the challenge.

On Saturday 4th May, a group of brave souls will be abseiling down Dorchester Abbey Tower in front of crowds gathered for the launch of this year’s Dorchester Festival.

Amongst them are Grace Kerrigan, one of Style Acre’s Ambassadors, and Chris Ingram, our Chief Exec. They hope to use the opportunity to raise awareness of the work that Style Acre does to enhance the lives of adults with learning disabilities locally, and to raise funds!

You can read more about their stories on their fundraising pages – Grace and Chris.

Others joining them include the Lee Upcraft (Mayor of Wallingford), Karen Roisin (Mother of a lovely chap supported by Style Acre – abseiling in fancy dress), Hayley Cook (Slimming World’s Miss Slinky 2019..and Style Acre Development Manager), Jonna Mundy (You HR) and Victoria Matthews (Element 6).

Harwell Safari Supper is a village event with 160 people having starter and main courses with different hosts, before all coming together at the village hall for desserts, drinks and a raffle! This year the proceeds are going to Harwell Village Hall, the local scouts, and Style Acre. We were very happy to sell raffle tickets to such a friendly and generous crowd, and the guys proudly made nearly £500 in raffle ticket sales. We’ll find out how much the event as a whole made in about a week! Well done team!

Style Acre has been chosen as charity partner for this year’s Dorchester Festival. The festival, held at the prestigious Dorchester Abbey, has raised £150,000 since 2015 for Dorchester Abbey and local charities.

The festival will provide lots of opportunities for people Style Acre supports to get involved – groups from the charity’s day hubs are busy making decorations for the opening night bash, and getting creative with scarecrows hoping to win the competition to have theirs displayed as part of the scarecrow trail!

The adults Style Acre supports are looking forward to getting involved in events throughout the week – they will be judging at the dog show, making pedal-powered smoothies at the Food Fair, selling raffle tickets at concerts by the likes of Tallis Scholars, BBC Elstree Band, and Out of the Blue and generally enjoying themselves!

Style Acre Ambassador Daniel is especially excited about meeting some of his musical heroes – we booked Sam Kelly & The Lost Boys to join Jackie Oates for the festival’s first folk night, and Daniel is a huge fan – he will get to meet them over dinner before the gig and he can’t wait!