NPL Sports Club will be hosting one of these matches as part of a children’s fun day on Sunday 5th September (11am-3pm).

As well as enjoying the day in person, you can help this cause by donating to this worthy cause via their fund-raising website and help them smash their £15,000 target!

In addition to the Cricket 6s match itself with players from the Harlequins team, the day will also feature:

• BBQ, Food & drink
• Ruggerbeez & Dance sessions
• Amazing raffle & auction prizes
• Face painting
• Children’s Entertainer and play area
• Goodie bags & Give Aways
• Cake sale & stalls
• Live Music
• ‘Singing Hands’ class

Sports Lecturer Jason Arday has been running back-to-back marathons from Piccadilly Circus to Teddington and back again over the last month. Various supporters have joined him running and cycling some of the route including Shooting Stars director of fundraising. He smashed his £5,000 target over a week ago but you can still donate to honour this fantastic feat and help this great charity.

A group of 8 amateur swimmers are currently undertaking a non-stop relay along the Thames from the Costwolds and finishing at Teddington Lock today, racking up 3 days of constant swimming along 125 miles of river!

With hour-long shifts, this SwimForHeroes event is no mean feat raising a huge amount of money (currently over £14,000) to support wounded Armed Forces from the UK. After the final leg of the swim, the team (along with support houseboat) will head to the Barmy Arms in Twickenham for a celebratory party.

Destined to turn heads wherever they go, a group of seven ‘near naked’ cyclists have been cycling 100 miles a day for six days wearing these faux-naked suits in order to raise awareness and money for the Male Cancer Awareness Campaign

This blur or flesh-tones was seen speeding down the high street, past the Park Hotel and disappearing into Bushy Park on at 7pm on Monday the 16th to finish their naked journey.

A variety of specially created cheeky costumes and charity campaigns aim to grab attention and fight the culture of embarrassment that surrounds male health issues.

A husband and wife team from Teddington are currently competing in this years British Transplant Games in Bath along with 700 other transplant athletes.

Deborah Chudy will be competing in the tennis and 100m spring categories along with her husband who gave her the ultimate gift – a kidney in a life-saving operation in 2009.

Deborah has rediscovered her love of tennis and has been honing her tennis skills at NPL Sports tennis courts. Her husband, already a Kidney Research fund-raiser will be competing in the 5km run.

The games are held to raise the awareness of organ donation and the positive effect the scheme has on its recipients.

Don’t forget that today at 1pm in Bushy Park, Teddington meet Ealing in the National Club Championship cricket semi-finals. Pop in to the club house, grab a drink and support your local team! Currently the weather forecast looks at least not rainy so it could be good picnic weather to cheer on our boys.

[Update] Sadly Ealing’s fielding proved too strong for Teddington who didn’t managed to match the 202 total during their innings.

Actor, adventurer and President of Dyslexia Action Charley Boorman will be joining in the fun on the day.

This family event is being arranged to help raise awareness about hidden disabilities such as dyslexia and the new It’s ME! appeal. It is open to any age group but there are only a limited number of places so you must register in advance to take part.

For more information check out their website and note that there are very clear rules about how the game is undertaken in order to break the record!

The rules include these delights:

21. One player will be chosen as “It”. The game will start when ‘It’ covers his or her eyes for a period of five minutes, as counted by an official timekeeper.

22. During these five minutes, players must seek out a hiding spot within the play area.

Perhaps players should study the nearby park’s deer to learn how to hide in greenery at a professional level.

You can register to take part in either the 9.5 or 13.5 mile walk – each route starting and finishing at Pools on the Park in Richmond (starts at midnight) and taking in Richmond, Teddington and Hampton Hill along the routes, the shorter cutting across Teddington high street, the longer goes around Bushy Park boundary.

So perm that hair, dust off those leg warmers or fashion a Madonna outfit to join the hundreds of other walkers to help raise money for the Hospice. A useful 80s fashion guide has also been created to help you put together your own outfit.

The walk is open to all – boys and girls – check out their site for more info. Volunteers are also always needed to marshal the route, help register participants and hand out refreshments – you can register to help out at this fun even and bag your very own Princess Alice Hospice T-Shirt (also for those raising more than £150).

Click on image for full poster

Last year an incredible £66,000 was raised and this year hopefully a similar amount will be reached. Prizes are given out for categories such as the best dressed individual or team. Goody bags and sandwiches are given out after the walk and also walkers can take up the offer of a free swim and massage after they finish.

For further information email events@pah.org.uk or call 01372 461 869.

Hope HIV works in Sub-Saharan Africa through local partners in order to support vulnerable children and young people through: education, emotional support, economic empowerment and child rights. During their ten years of work the charity have touched the lives of countless young people in places a world away from leafy Teddington. It has turned them from victims into educated and enabled young people who are motivated to transform their local communities.

The teenagers at Teddington Baptist Church are pretty motivated themselves, and rose to the challenge. They baked cakes, printed invitations, organised refreshments, and put on a Summer evening of music and entertainment at the church. The evening, billed as “The Summer Session” included music from contemporary singer-songwriters, as well as their own compositions. In the end the sum raised by cake bakers, singers, song-writers and musicians amounted to an impressive £1000 – not a bad return on an investment of £30!

Church minister, Richard Littledale, was very encouraged by the whole experience. “Teenagers today get a lot of harsh and unwarranted bad press. Here we have seen a group of talented teenagers giving of their time and skills so that others a world away might benefit. It is a privilege to know them”.

Those wishing to donate to the charity can find further details at www.hopehiv.org.

Some of the fund-raising team members, left to right: Sonia Stead, Nathan Blyth, Charlotte Blyth, Luke Littledale, Louise Higgins

** NOTE: the planned party for the 7th August has now been postponed until September – update to follow **

Over the past year thanks to generous donations the shop currently has 10,000 books in stock and has sold an incredible 122,000. A quarter of these were children’s titles and to thank those who have been bought titles or been entertained by bedtime stories over the last year, there will be a party in the store next Saturday that will include:

• Face-painting
• Fancy dress competition
• Free refreshments
• 3 for 2 offer on kids books
• Story-telling

Pixie the rocking horse looking after the children’s book section

Fara Books would like to say a big Thank You to all their regular customers and warmly welcome anyone visiting them for the first time. You can pick up books in the shop at roughly a quarter of the price you will find them new elsewhere. Amongst the more common titles are hidden treasures including rare box-sets and first editions.

The anniversary festivities will take place on Saturday 7th August 2010 from 9:30am to 5:30pm. Why not have the kids dress as their favourite book character and pop down to join in the fun!

FARA Children’s Charity is holding its third annual 5km Fun Run on Sunday 5th September (starts 10am) to raise funds to extend the new FARA St. Michaels Centre in Romania enabling young adults and children with disabilities to receive the specialist education and help they deserve.

The South-West London-based charity raises money for this fantastic cause through its 48 shops and various fund-raising events held each year. Shop staff, family and friends will be taking part in this fun day out and those not running are encouraged to cheer on participants and picnic in the park after the race.

If you would like to take part or for further information call Sacha on 07960 070650 or email sacha.faracharity@yahoo.co.uk to discuss participating and sponsorship.

This year’s 7k Wedding Race will take place on Friday 30th July at 7:30pm in Bushy Park (near Hampton Hill Cricket Club).

This charity race always causes a few double-takes because some participants take the fancy-dress competition as seriously as those chasing their personal best time.

The park often sees the bizarre and delightful sight of brides, grooms, vicars and other wedding-related costumes whizzing by. A children’s 1.5km race is also held at the same time as the main race for those with smaller legs.

Organisers Stragglers are looking for volunteers to help marshal the race – contact Tony at stoak@btinternet.com if you can help out (particularly bicycle owners).

If the thought of even a half an hour run in the park scares you then spare a thought for Jason Arday – a sports lecturer from London who will soon be starting the mammoth challenge of completing 30 marathons in 35 days to raise money for Shelter.

Starting from Monday July 19th, the 24-year-old will test his endurance to the limit by running the London Marathon route every day for 15 days followed by a run from Piccadilly to Teddington and back again for the second part of the challenge.

To follow his progress check out Jasons blog or help him out with this worthy cause via this fund-raising page.

Also don’t forget that parkrun have a weekly 5km in Bushy Park 9am Saturday mornings. The event is kept free by sponsorship and being volunteer driven (helpers are always needed! email BushyHelpers@parkrun.com for more info).

Photo: Lloyd England

The run is as relaxed or competitive as you wish – pace-runners keeping to clearly labelled finishing times can keep you on track with a particular goal in mind, or just bring along the dog for a pleasant walk, run and sniff along the route.

Participants are also welcome to join the post-race coffee at the Pheasantry Cafe. You must register in advance and have your bar-code with you on the day – it’s the only way that the 500+ runners can automatically have their times recorded and accessible online each week.

parkrun Bushy Park also holds a junior 2km race on the first Sunday of each month to get the kids interested in keeping fit – the next is on 1st August 2010.

In addition to the sponsored Horses for Heroes ride at Ascot on the 10th of July, a ‘Heroes’ themed party is being held at Teddington Town Cricket Club (within Bushy Park) this Friday at 7:30pm.

Admittance is by ticket only which you can pre-book by emailing parklanestables@googlemail.com.

Prizes will be given out for the best dressed hero – which could be someone famous, an inspiring family member or friend. A band will be playing on the night, nibbles will be available and a raffle will be held with some fantastic prizes donated generously by local businesses including:

You don’t have to dress up and if you can’t attend, fear not you can still take part in the raffle by popping in to the stables and buying a ticket (or a few!). The prize-list is growing by the day and includes several restaurant meal vouchers, Teddington teddy bear, personal training power plate training session, acupuncture session, voucher for health treatments, breakfast for four, belly dancing meal for two, fine chocolates, full english breakfast for two, horse-riding vouchers, three Bowen treatments, £100 of theatre tickets, Build a Bear goodness and two months membership to Fitness First and a two tickets to the members enclosure at a Cowdry Park Polo match.

If you are a local business and can help this worthy cause by adding a raffle prize to add to the list then please get in touch by emailing

Thanks also go to:

[Update] Thanks again to businesses who donated prizes and the generosity of those attending the evening – raffle ticket winners were extremely pleased with their prizes and over £500 was raised for Help for Heroes which will be added to funds raised to this weekends Horses for Heroes day at Ascot.

Also recently covered is the official completion ceremony which closes the chapter on Bushy Park’s 10-year Heritage Lottery-funded restoration project. This has included the restoration of the Water Gardens, creation of the popular Welcome Centre alongside future planning such the planting of 1000 new trees. The ceremony can be found here in parts one and two.

To celebrate the shop’s two-year anniversary and the launch of their new website they are hosting a party on Saturday 12th June from 4-9pm.

If you haven’t yet been to the shop then you are most welcome to browse the wonderful treasure trove of clothing with a glass of bubbly in hand, just like in the 1950s boutiques that the shop is designed to emulate.

Die-hard fans are encouraged to dress vintage on the day for a change to win a prize for the best outfit. As well as 10% off their first purchases, guests will also enjoy a raffle for a gorgeous 1950s vintage beaded bag and bubbly and nibbles for everyone and their guests.

Mela Mela will also be drumming up support for their on-line charity auction of an original Christian Dior coat with all proceeds going to Fara Children’s Charity

Those with little vintage fans in tow will also be pleased to hear that there’s a sale across the road at Tedds children’s clothing store.

Mela Mela Vintage
74 High Street
Teddington
Middlesex
www.melamela.co.uk