Forget Me Not News

We have just received confirmation that Flava (as seen recently on Britain's Got Talent) will be attending our Forget Me Not Day to perform.

Plans are well underway for our Forget Me Not Day. In Cornerstones 9-1pm we have stalls, Clarins pamper treatments,, kids activities and a 5 ft chocolate fountain ! A very special guest will appear with popular TV Character Fifi Forget-Me-Not to open the event at 11am at the top of Fore Street on the stage area. Fifi will make guest appearances at intervals during the day. There will also be street stalls, face painting, nail art, balloon modelling, quality raffle, scheduled entertainment on our stage area at the top of Fore Street, and in the afternoon we are holding a character tea party with bubble machine and games in Cornerstones Community Centre. Limited places, so to avoid disappointment on the day, tickets can be paid for in advance £3.50 per child. Cheques made payable to' Forget Me Not' and posted to our PO Box address. We have provision to move everything indoors if the weather lets us down, so rain or shine come and enjoy the fun !

Thanks to Jen Elson for recently holding a Body Shop party to raise money for us, and to Mo the Body Shop Consultant who ran the party.

We have almost completed the recording of our compilation CD. It has taken 6 months and there have been many hours put in by people you have kindly offered to donate their time to record for us. It has been a long journey, and quite an emotional one, listening to so many lovely songs dedicated to babies of Forget Me Not members. The launch of the CD will be 26 July in St Austell Town Centre at our Forget Me Not day and then the CD will be stocked at HMV Truro and available mail order. Update soon ........

We are holding a concert at The Keay, St Austell on Saturday 13 September to celebrate our new charity compilation CD. Vocalists from the CD will be performing their tracks plus some extras. Price per ticket £10 to include welcome drink. If you would like to reserve seats, please email us and we will let you know when the tickets are available to buy.

We have re-assessed the services we are currently providing and have decided to temporarily stop the above two groups from May 2008, which can re-start should demand increase. We are still offering our befriending service to people who have experienced a loss, or need that extra support during a future pregnancy.

Rachel Williams who runs a local jewellery party business has contacted us and said 'I am pleased to say that the jewellery evening of March 5th enabled us to buy 100 baby shoe charms to donate to the local charity Forget Me Not. These baby shoe charms are £1.50 each. There are two designs, one with a teddy, the other coloured spots. To purchase please send a cheque made out to 'Forget Me Not' and a 40p stamped addressed small jiffy bag and send to our PO Box as shown on our contact us page. PLEASE STATE TEDDY BEAR OR SPOTTY DESIGN OF SHOE! (BULK ORDERS ACCEPTED!!!!)

I would like to trace the parents of Billy Christopher Handley who died of Cot Death on 5/7/2006 (posted on our Memorial Book). I have a lady who would like to make contact with you who has also lost a baby around the same date to cot death. Please email us if you read this. thanks. Jenny

We have experienced problems with our online forum which will be rectified with the new web site that is being worked on at the moment. We apologise for this interim period where there may be responses listed but none showing. Hopefully it will not be too long before it is up and running again. Jenny

My friend Esther Baker who lives near St Austell has kindly recorded her version of Sarah McLachlan 'Arms of an Angel', accompanied by her friends Alison on piano and Nigel on flute. It is beautiful ! To order a copy please email us. Price £3. Thanks to Kenny at Par Recording Studios for recording it for us. To hear a sample click here

We would like to thank Jo for her kind donation of £250. The money was collected at the recent christening of her daughter Bethan.

We are delighted to let you know we have teamed up with Karen of Pebble Portraits, who has kindly offered to provide a service to anyone who has lost a baby, and will donate 10% to our charity for any commission received. Karen has produced two beautiful illustrations, one of which can be viewed on her web site. You will need to go to 'for more illustrations' and you will find a link to 'Forget Me Not'. http://pebbleportraits.mysite.orange.co.uk/

Yvonne and Gill organised a coffee morning and raffle on Valentine's Day to raise funds for our charity. The morning went really well, the office decorated with red heart shaped balloons and banners. Alex my 4 yr old enjoyed helping out serving cake and biscuits ! £130 was raised. Thank you to everyone who came and made us so welcome. Jenny

I would like to welcome Mandy Chesterfield and Penny Prisk as new members of our committee. Sue Welch has also joined us acting as Treasurer and has been a great help to date assisting us with our book-keeping.

Thanks to Carolyn and her team for their kind donation of £200 raised at the 2007 Its A Knockout Competition.

We are VERY proud to announce we will be launching our new rose this year, named Forget Me Not. We were only able to do this following two generous donations from Warrens Bakery. Details of the rose will be posted on the web site in due course. Watch out for our official launch in the Spring. For every rose purchased our charity will receive a donation.

Many thanks to the Fowey River Lions for their kind donation of £250 raised at their recent Swimathon in St Austell.

Our Robbie Williams and Take That Tribute night on the 12 Jan at the Hall for Cornwall proved a HUGE success. Take This, Robbie and the Millenium Band were professional and really entertained the audience. The atmosphere was brilliant, with over 850 people present, almost a sell out. We raised just over £500 on our raffle. Press release is in the Cornish Guardian dated 17 Jan and a brilliant review in the West Briton. Photos will be posted on our new web site when completed.

We would like to thank the St Austell Round Table for their kind donation of £1,000 from funds raised from their charity Golf Day in aid of Forget Me Not and the Childrens' Hospice. Photo of cheque presentation will appear on our new web site when completed.

For some the lead up to Christmas and the event itself will have been a difficult time, and you may feel relieved it is all over. Personally for me 31 December is hard as it was when we had our scan where we were told our baby Lucy would not survive birth due to severe abnormalities and out of love for our little girl, we made the decision to let her go. Whenever you lose your baby, this time of year can be hard, reflecting and thinking about what you have lost. Everyone at Forget Me Not would like to send our love and thoughts to you all, and wish you a very peaceful 2008, and to remind you that we are here whenever you need us, no matter how long ago you lost your baby. Jenny Moore

A big thank you to Karen Notley, Mum to Oliver, born 19 Dec 2006. Karen kindly sold our badges recently and raised £33.20. Everyone at FMN sends our thoughts and love to you and your family today.

We are now registered as a nominated charity with Charity Flowers. For every order placed we receive a 15% donation. They have a lovely range of Xmas bouquets available. When ordering please quote Charity Source Code ' FMN'. 24hr order Hotline: 08705 300 600, or order on line at: www.charityflowers.co.uk

Thank you Marion at the Baby Loss Awareness Campaign for telling me about a lovely web site - www.gratefulness.org. On this site you can light a virtual candle in memory of your baby, which will remain alight for 48 hours. I thought it would be a nice idea to create a special Forget Me Not Group on this site. If any of you would like to light a candle, please type in the group name FMN and this will take you into our own special section. You can also light a candle for a friend or family member, following which there is an option to email the candle to them with a space to type in a personal message. I think it is lovely idea and I hope many of you will find comfort from using it. Jenny

Well, that time of year has come and gone again. We held the first Baby Loss Awareness event for Cornwall, and are delighted it is now established and we celebrate our third year. Last weekend we held a new service at Penzance for those unable to travel to St Austell. The event was warmly received by those attending. Yesterday we held our St Austell event which was made very special by the candle lighting for the global Wave of Light and music by the Melegari String Quartet. This year we invited parents to bring photos of their babies to display which was welcomed and I personally found it very moving, making everything very 'real', seeing our dear little babies there in the candlelight. Penny Prisk, County Council Registrar led the service for her second year, she does such a good job and is so lovely, I think our annual event is now her 'baby' and I am touched by her sensitivity and passion to our cause. There are so many people to thank ! As you are aware we are having our web site redesigned at the moment. This will include an events page, where we will be putting photos on line for you to view and more detail about each event, so watch this space ! We raised £33 in total by the sale of Baby Loss Awareness Ribbons. This money is donated direct to national baby loss charities. Thank you everyone for supporting us again this year, it means a lot and makes my hard work over the year all worth while. Jenny

On the 9 October we were interviewed by Westcountry TV, to promote our charity and Baby Loss Awareness Week 2007. I would like to thank Julie, Mandy and Brenda who have all attended our support group for coming to share their experience with myself and Kelly our St Austell support group leader, you were very brave. The feature is due to go out on air Weds 10 October on the 6pm news, with a short bulletin 11am.

This year we raised over £800, the draw took place at the Hall for Cornwall on the 1 September. First prize winner was Jim Povey who will be enjoying a chauffeur driven limo to the Tregenna Castle Hotel, St Ives for a meal for two. We would like to thank all those companies who donated some fabulous prizes this year.

We were very lucky with the weather for our fun day. Various stall holders came to support us, so thanks to: Captureit, Glasswing Jewellery, Yoga Bugs, Curves, Devon & Cornwall Independent Midwives, Little Dippers, Smallprint, Just 4 Girls Jewellery, Truly Madly Baby, Baby Information Bank, Meerkat, Float SW. Busy Bodies and Monkey Music provided activities for the kids, and Yoga Bugs organised a couple of taster sessions during the day. Many thanks to Gills and Geckos Exotic Pets from Mount Charles, St Austell, who bought along a variety of animals, including an 8ft boa called Bob who decided to shed his skin that day, making for good entertainment ! The Mummy and Baby skunks proved a huge success for the little ones. The National Trust, Devon and Cornwall Police and West County Ambulance came, as well as Kellys Ice Cream to help cool us down. Quite a few entered into our fancy dress and the first prize of a pop up tent went to Jack in the Box. Everyone who came were entered into our free end of day draw, first prize was a trampoline. We would like to thank Stacey from Worlds Apart in St Columb who donated some great prizes for all our competitions. Allan Fleckney from Pirate FM came for 2 hours to broadcast his show. He did some interviews which was a brilliant opportunity to raise awareness of our charity across the county. Thanks to our sponsors Glynn Valley Crematorium, MPAD, Ginsters, Devon & Cornwall Glass & Glazing.

We have just been awarded £300 from the Health Promotion Service. This money will be used to purchase T-shirts and have them printed with our charity logo, ready to wear at our forthcoming events.

We have just been awarded £1,750 from the St Austell Brewery Charitable Trust. This will now enable us to progress the redevelopment of the web site to meet the changing demands of the site.

Many thanks to Warrens Bakery (again !) for their generous donation of £1,000. This money combined with their previous donation of £1,000 is to be used for an exciting venture for the Charity. All to be revealed in 2008 !!!

We have registered with Recycle 4 Charity to raise money on returns of used mobile phones and ink cartridges. If you have any old supplies, please let us know and we will send you a pre-paid bag to send them off. We receive £1 per cartridge and £3 per phone. Alternatively, there will be a collection point at our Fun Day on the 5 August at the Dragon Leisure Centre, Bodmin.

Local Mum Jaynie Inns supported her friend in 2006 when she sadly lost her baby boy. She was with her at the birth and felt she wanted to do something to help parents of the future who suffer the devastating loss of their baby. Jaynie organised a sponsored abseil/canoeing event on 4 May 2007. I met with Jaynie today for the handover of the monies raised. The fantastic grand total came to £965.71. Pregnancy loss is often a subject ‘ignored and brushed under the carpet’, people worried about what to say and then saying nothing. I personally found it very moving that these people openly showed their love and support by participating in this event in memory of her baby. Well done Jaynie for organising it all and most of all for being there for your friend. Love from us all here at Forget Me Not.

Many thanks to the Portbyhan Ladies Group for their kind donation of £20.

We would like to send our thoughts to those Dads out there who are not lucky enough to be celebrating Father's Day this year. Dads are often not given the care and attention deserved following a loss, the focus often on the Mum. So, this entry is for you all.

SANDS (Stillbirth and Neonatal Charity) are touring a very special play, details are on our events page. David, the Father of the little boy Calvin, will be performing in Plymouth on the 22nd June at 7.30pm at the Plymouth Congress Hall, Armada Way, Plymouth. This is an honest, compelling and even humorous trip through one father’s experience of stillbirth, which has received wide critical claim in the USA. As it is only just over the border, thought some people may like to go and see it. Jenny

Forget Me Not were interviewed for a national magazine Real People, available to buy on the High Street, Asda/Tesco 60p (Issue No. 21) dated 31 May. I gave an interview on my experience, and they also interviewed Julie, a bereaved Mum who has attended one of our meetings. Our thanks to Julie for agreeing to help us with this. We are all thinking of her and her family during her pregnancy, which is all going well.

We were priviledged to be asked by Joseph's family to attend his funeral on Monday 31 April to organise a collection for our Charity. Joseph died of cot death on 9 April 2007, only 6 wks 6 days old. I attended the service on behalf of Forget Me Not. A total of £285.48 was raised on the day. Our love and thanks to Joseph's family. Jenny

On 27 April we attended Steven Holbrook's show at the Pavilions, Falmouth. On the night we collected £74 in donations. Many thanks to those of you who donted that evening, and of course our thanks to Steve for agreeing for us to be there. Jenny

We would like thank Ocean Housing for their kind donation of £500. These funds have enabled us to have 10,000 of our information leaflets printed ready to distribute countywide, and 1,000 posters.

Myself, Bridget and her husband Andy were interviewed by Spotlight last week, to promote our befriending scheme and Forget Me Not as a local charity. I was delighted Andy could participate in the interview, to represent those Dad's out there, who may have felt neglected following the loss of their baby. The interview will go out on air Monday 16th April during their 6.30 pm programme.

Our thanks to Esther Baker for organising a Charity Easter Egg Hunt at her home on the 4 April. The weather was glorious and many people turned up to enjoy the event. A total of £135 was raised.

We now have a contact phone number 01726 820115. Please note this is not a manned helpline. Details of our support group meetings are on the recorded message.

Our second support group is now up and running. Held every 1st Monday of the month at Falmouth Hospital 7-8.30 p.m. Located in the library on the first floor off main reception

We would like to thank Sara and Simon for their kind donation, in memory of Baby Lily Evelyn. We feel very priviledged to have supported them shortly after the birth at the Royal Cornwall Hospital, Treliske, where we took clay footprints and provided a special Forget Me Not gown for Lily after her discharge from hospital.

We are delighted to announce that Allen Heath, a Penryn based company have offered to be our sponsors for 2007.

Our thanks to St Austell Lions Club and Falmouth Lions Club, for their kind donations.

Our thanks to the Fowey River Lions Club, who raised £400 by organising a Treasure Hunt.

I am pleased to let everyone know that our raffle was a success. We raised £505 in total. Many thanks to everyone who offered to sell tickets for us. If anyone is interested in helping us with any fundraising during 2007, please contact us. We are a self funding charity, and need funds to enable us to continue to develop our services countywide. Jenny Moore

This time of year can be very difficult for us all. I would like to send thoughts to all of you on behalf of everyone here on the Forget Me Not Committee - Jenny and Eric Moore, and Kelly Childs. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported us over the last 18 months, without your support we would not be here. Wishing you a peaceful Christmas. Jenny Moore

The formal opening of the Baby Remembrance Garden will be on Saturday 25 November 11 a.m. A light lunch will follow the dedication service. All welcome.

I would like to thank everyone who participated and attended our second Remembrance Event, which was held at the Carlyon Bay Hotel on the 15 October. The attendance was very good. Penny Prisk, registrar volunteered her time to lead the Service and the hotel once again donated the function suite. Representatives were present from the Forget Me Not Committee, ASBAH (Spina Bifida/Hydrocephalus), CRUSE Bereavement Care, Ectopic Pregnancy Trust. It is hoped as we become more established in the county, this event will continue to grow and become even more successful. Jenny - Chair

I visited St Michael's Hospital this week and met with Jenny Ford, Supervisor of Midwifery and two of her team. They were all very interested and enthusiastic to hear about what we are trying to achieve in the County. I was very impressed at the level of care and sensitivity shown to bereaved parents who are admitted to the Unit.

Our thanks to the St Austell Breweries Charitable Trust, who have kindly donated £300.

We have been funded £150 from the Health Promotion Initiative, Restormel area. This money has been used to fund Forget Me Not T-shirts for volunteers and our runners in the Truro Half Marathon.

Many thanks to the staff of Warrens Bakery, who have kindly donated £1,000. The cheque was presented at our Rummage Sale at Threemilestone on the 29 July.

We would like to thank Elizabeth Sanders for her kind donation and for her ongoing support and encouragement with our project

We now have a supply of badges available to purchase. Send a SAE and £1 to our PO Box No. and we will forward one on. They are also available at our support group meetings.

Our Charity Registration is now complete ! Our Charity Number is 1115056

We would like to thank A C Richards Funeral Directors and the Lions Club of Truro for their kind donations.

Paypal is now available on our web site for anyone wishing to make a donation to Forget Me Not by card payment.

We are pleased to announce we have received £250 funding from Restormel Borough Council. This is from their Voluntary Organisation Grant Scheme.

We are pleased to announce we have been awarded £500 funding from the South West Foundation.

Our thanks to the Water Wheel Restaurant, Flowers by Diane and the Inn for All Seasons for their kind donations from Mother's Day bookings.

Many thanks to the Britannia Inn, Par for their kind donation from Mother's Day bookings.

13 March. The first piece of grass was lifted in readiness for work to commence. The North Cornwall Advertiser and Cornish Guardian attended to take a photograph. This was printed in the Cornish Guardian 16 March 2006.

Thanks to Drew Memorials, Bodmin.

A Baby Remembrance Book is now available. This has been kindly funded by Bodmin Funeral Services. The book has been produced by Hilton Studios, supplier to Penmount and Glynn Valley Crematoriums. I am in the process of trying to find a calligrapher who will maintain the book. The book will be available to view at support group meetings and Remembrance Events.

Thanks to the following organisations who have kindly forwarded donations towards the development of this Web Site:- Co-operative Funeralcare, John Nicholls Funeral Services Newquay. Also to midwife Beverley for her generous donation which will be used for the development of a library providing information and books for bereaved parents and their families to borrow.

A Forget Me Not Baby Remembrance Garden is being developed at Glynn Valley Crematorium near Bodmin, Cornwall. Work on this will start during Spring 2006, for completion later this year. Visit this page for regular updates.