A magical evening by Rob Clark, Corporate Fundraiser

Hey presto!

It was ‘A Magic Moment’ once again last week for The Sick Children’s Trust when The Magic Circle Headquarters kindly opened its doors to our trustees and their invited guests. Not even a torrential downpour could discourage our supporters as they made their way to the champagne reception. Claudette, Jane, Suzanne and I made sure our guests were made to feel welcome and were not denied the opportunity to buy a raffle ticket or two!

On the stroke of 8pm we were invited to watch The Magic Show, a 45 minute exercise in complete bewilderment. How can a marked £20 note end up inside of a lemon? How did the mind reader know that the guy in the third row was thinking of the number 77? He asked a lady in the front row to think of the name of her first boyfriend , she did and he guessed Peter and he was right but how did he know? How ever it was done, it was done well and with slick one liners that kick started what was to be a great night for our charity.

After The Magic Show everyone was invited to sit down for the evening meal and our guests enjoyed the full Mosimann effect with some table magic thrown in from magicians Neil, Graham and James. The wine was fantastic and generously donated by our trustee Gary Boom, another contributory factor to the success of the evening.

The time seemed to fly by as the wine and conversation flowed but just as the coffee was being served the call went up for more raffle tickets: so we obliged. Entire books of £100 were starting to disappear just like magic (no pun intended!) After the prize draw we asked our multi tasking magician/host James Freedman to begin the auction. The bidding began slowly but with James on the microphone the pace began to quicken and by the time we reached the lots for 'Make A Child Smile’ the arms were waving and the heads were nodding. These lots are always popular as it provides the winning bidders with an opportunity to accompany a group of children’s entertainers on a visit to hospitals such as The Royal London , Addenbrooke’s and Sheffield Children’s Hospital.

So well done to our events executive, Suzanne, the evening was a real success and we managed to raise a whopping £60,000 for The SCT. Our little team of Claudette, Jane, Suzy and myself were tired at the end of the night but pleased with the result. A special thanks to our trustee James Rigby who treated the four of us to a full Mosimanns and the best steak I’ve ever had. So well done and thank you to everyone involved for a great FUN-draising evening.