Paul Starmer,an A.B. Walker Operative was thrilled to announce the arrival of his daughter Olivia Daniella on 18 June 2010 weighing in at 6lb 14ozs
Simon looks very confident abseiling down a Reading building in June.
Matt Walker and Lee Atkins came 37th in their class and raised over £9000 for Help for Heroes, A.B. Walker's chosen charity of the year.
Matthew Walker and Lee Atkins training hard for the Devizes to Westminster Canoe Marathon being held on Easter Weekend 4th April 2010 – please sponsor the boys at http://www.justgiving.com/Canoe-Kings in aid of Help For Heroes
A.B. Walker has chosen Help for Heroes as its Charity of the Year for 2009/10. This event raised £750 – the total stands at over £4,000 and will increase with several staff events in the pipeline.
A.B. Walker conducted it’s first burial at sea for some time this winter about 3 miles south of the Needles in accordance of the family wishes. An emotional if bracing experience for those in attendance.
Thank you all for supporting me I just missed my target of under 4 hours - I managed 4.00hrs and 42 seconds (but at least I beat Gordon Ramsay!).
I have to admit to rather enjoying myself, it was very hot for running (20 degrees plus), especially as all of my training has been early on frosty, snowy or wet mornings - my only injury is a spot of vest shaped sunburn! Nicky managed to spot me en route and together with friends Alex, Seamus and Franny, take me for a celebratory beer or two in the West End within minutes of finishing!
Together with your help, my sponsorship total for Sue Ryder Care is £5,329.34. I am going to see the staff at the Sue Ryder Hospice in Nettlebed on Wednesday for a ceremonial cheque handover.
Thank you everyone for being so generous with your money and your encouragement, especially the training tips and hints. From my personal health view, I have lost about 4 Kilos and reduced my body fat percentage by over 7% from Christmas time to be well within the recommended healthy range!
Thank you all.
Julian
Head Office Building renovation is progressing – all of the administrators are now safely ensconced in their new office and the conversion of the chapels, mortuary and entrance reception has started. We are on track for completion in December 2008 and look forward to a service of dedication of the new chapels in the late spring time on 2009.
David Walker is blessed with another grandchild – this time a girl! David’s elder daughter Sian and son-in-law Alan have announced the birth of Molly Naomi.
A. B. Walker & Son held its second forum at the Leander Club in Henley and this year our speaker was Claire Rayner OBE who spoke entertainingly, and openly, about her experiences as a nurse and an agony aunt and her survival against cancer.
Over 70 specially invited guests attended and the evening was thoroughly enjoyed by all. 13 Leander Club athletes won medals at this year’s Olympics for rowing which made the venue even more spectacular.
As a treat for some Latvian students on an exchange with girls from the Abbey School, Reading, they were collected from the airport in three of our new limousine fleet.
We have now taken ownership of our new Jaguar fleet and this, in conjunction with retaining one of our Mercedes hearses and two of our Mercedes limousines, increases our fleet to an impressive 3 hearses and 6 limousines. This enables us to further meet the expectations of our clients throughout the area.
All members of staff were engaged at an afternoon workshop to develop their product and service knowledge as well as consider areas of our service to improve. It was held at the Madejski Stadium in August and the ideas thrown up by staff members are to be incorporated into our strategic planning process
This is a gardening and floral display competition for the Wokingham area. This year we are sponsors, judges and awarding the best floral display by a commercial premises. Entry forms for both sections can be obtained from the following link.
http://www.wokingham-tc.gov.uk/
In July A. B. Walker sponsored the running shirts and transport to London of seven runners for the British 10km. Amongst the exhausted runners was Julian, his wife Nicky and local Twyford GP Carol James. Well done to all those who took part!
We have had two causes for celebration recently. In July Paul, one of our Funeral Operatives, married Giustina and spent their honeymoon in Turkey, and in August Pam married Giancarlo and enjoyed their honeymoon cruising around the Mediterranean. Coincidentally Giancarlo is the uncle of Giustina so a double celebration for their family!
We held our annual staff event on the ‘New Orleans’ in August with the vessel taking us on a leisurely trip along the River Thames. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening which was rounded off by a spot of dancing. Our thanks to Hobbs of Henley.
ABW again sponsored two bowls competitions locally and it was good to see that one of the home sides won their final with Henley beating Shiplake during the final end.
To celebrate the centenary of Ian Fleming’s birth, Peppard Revels held a weekend celebration on Peppard Common. Attended by over 400 people, A. B. Walker supported the James Bond themed ball which ended with a magnificent fireworks display and raised nearly £4,000 - the bulk of which went to support the War Memorial Hall and the remainder to the Friends of Peppard School and the British Heart Foundation.
Every few years the Village of Rotherfield Peppard near Henley, holds a weekend celebration on Peppard Common which on the Saturday includes a family day, an evening event and a multi-denominational church service followed by lunch on the Sunday. In the past, themes have been The Millennium, The Queens Golden Jubilee and the Bicentenary of Trafalgar. This year we are supporting the evening extravaganza celebrating the centenary of the birth of local author Ian Fleming (the Fleming family were resident in Joyce Grove, now Sue Ryder Care in Nettlebed). The evening we are sponsoring is a James Bond Ball – tickets and information are available from http://www.peppardrevels.org.uk/
Hoping for better luck than last year we entered a highly trained team into the 2008 football tournament, played at the Madejski Stadium in May. Yet again we were unsuccessful in winning but we all know that it’s the taking part that counts!
We have decided to create a charitable trust. This will become our vehicle for directly helping local charitable causes. We are going to invest in the trust without drawing from it for another four years to allow an appropriate sum to accumulate and in turn earn a significant enough amount for distribution. We hope to include the next generation of the Walker family (the eldest is still only 9!) as well as members of staff and retired members of the family in the management and distribution of the funds.
Our thanks to Mark Evans and his team at Coutts for their advice.
http://www.coutts.com/philanthropy.asp