Record Producer In The Making

Joel Lowe of St Cenydd School in Caerphilly had a ‘dream’ of being in the music industry and creating music and although we have a few recording studio contacts, Al Steele of ‘Shabby Road’ gave Joel a fantastic opportunity to be involved in working on the latest album of Peter Karrie, famous for his West End performances, including the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera!

Peter Karrie, who has been working on his latest album and is currently mastering his work, willingly allowed Joel, along with the help of Al, to take control of the sound desk while he recorded some additional vocals to his work. It was a fantastic opportunity for Joel to build his confidence and interact with others in an environment that he would not normally have had the opportunity to do. Joel’s grandfather said “It’s wonderful to see Joel enjoying himself”

As a thank you, Karrie burnt the songs that Joel had helped record to disk with a special thank you message signed by the West End star!

We would like to thank Peter and Al for their work and time at the studios, and for helping make Joel’s ‘Dream’ come true.

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www.shabbeyroad.com

Focused on Football

Kalar and Joshua from Castledon School in Essex, had ‘dreams’ of becoming football stars! Not wanting to send them to any old club we arranged for Chris Barker, Captain of Southend Utd to meet the boys along with the rest of the team on  one of their training days. Not only where Kalar and Joshua able to watch their favourite team train, but they also got stuck into the session themselves. To finish the day off both boys received a shirt and ball signed by all the players!

A big thank you to Southend Utd for their support, and to Simon’s Buses  who transported the boys in a “Disco Bus”

Shop Online and Raise Money!

Last week we told you about how you can raise money for Follow Your Dreams, simply by searching for things via Easysearch. Now we’re going to show you how you can raise money for Follow Your Dreams simply by shopping online!

Shop Online and Raise Money!
Have you heard about easyfundraising yet? It’s the easiest way to help raise money for Follow Your Dreams! If you already shop online with retailers such as Amazon, M&S, Argos, John Lewis, Comet, Vodafone, eBay, Boden and Play.com, then we need you to sign up for free to raise money while you shop!

So how does it work?
You shop directly with the retailer as you would normally, but if you sign up to www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/followyourdreams for free and use the links on the easyfundraising site to take you to the retailer, then a percentage of whatever you spend comes directly to us at no extra cost to yourself.

How much can you raise?
Spend £100 with M&S online or Amazon and you raise £2.50 for us. £100 with WH Smith puts £2.00 in our pocket and so on.  There’s over 2,000 retailers on their site, and some of the donations can be as much as 15% of your purchase.

Save money too!
easyfundraising is FREE to use plus you’ll get access to hundreds of exclusive discounts and voucher codes, so not only will you be helping us, you’ll be saving money yourself.

We’ve raised £’s with easyfundraising so far but we need your help to keep donations coming in. Sign up at www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/followyourdreams and start making a difference…simply by shopping.

Raise Money As You Search!

Are you one of the 6.4m people that use a search engine every day? Did you know you can raise money for Follow Your Dreams while you search?

followyourdreams.easysearch.org.uk combines the results of several search engines such as Yahoo!, Bing and Ask to ensure you can always find what you’re looking for. But the fantastic thing is that EVERY TIME you search, half a penny is raised for Follow Your Dreams. Search just 15 times a day and you can raise around £25 a year for us.

See what people are saying about easysearch

“easysearch is a great idea and just as good as Google for the results! I’ve recommended it to my friends and I think this site is the best around as it does something for people. Well done!”

“What a fantastic idea! I was using Google anyway but this way I get to raise money for my good cause every time I search…brilliant! I’ve made easysearch my homepage!”

So the next time you need to find something online, please use followyourdreams.easysearch.org.uk and raise money for Follow Your Dreams with every search you make.

A Dad’s gratitude for his sons Dream

We often receive letters of thanks for the ‘Dreams’ that we fulfil, but this one says more about the day than I could!

I Would like to pass my thanks on to you, Follow Your Dreams and Val at Gillingham Football Club for arranging a wonderful day for Carl.

The day started with a presentation of a football shirt with Carl’s name on the back. Carl was so pleased with this he thanked that staff and announced that he was now “A football player”.

After this he joined the day’s mascots for a tour of the stadium. Meeting some of the players and asking nicely for autographs and pictures. The players were great and signed Carl’s autograph book and posed for some snaps.

After autographs and pictures, Carl and the Mascots followed the guides around for a tour of the stadium, before having a kick around on the pitch.

After training, we found our seats, clapped and cheered as Gillingham players entered the pitch.  Eight minutes in and Gillingham scores, Carl jumps up with excitement and cheers along with around seven thousand other fans that packed the stadium.  Gillingham went on to score another four goals, and Bristol Rovers managed just the one.

Carl was engrossed with the game for the full 90 minutes, not once complaining of the cold. Cheering on the Gills throughout the match too.

On the way home, Carl’s words were “Dad, that was the best football day ever!”  A testament that Carl really enjoyed the days event.