This year, Ashgate Hospicecare is pulling out all the stops for Chesterfield’s biggest fundraising event. The Hospice is hoping to smash last year’s records and reach over 3,000 walkers for this year’s Markovitz Showroom Sparkle Night Walk, enabling Ashgate Hospicecare to get one step closer to funding a 24/7 Hospice at Home team to keep people at home.

Emma Wilson’s husband, Terry, was cared for by Ashgate Hospicecare. Throughout his time at the Hospice, Terry was able to spend precious moments with his family at such a difficult time.

Emma said:-

“Terry always thought hospices were for older people, but having spent a week in here he couldn’t believe how caring all the staff were. From the dieticians to the rest of the staff, they were all amazing.”

Once Terry’s symptoms were effectively managed, he was discharged from the hospice and returned home after just one week on the Inpatient Unit. Terry was able to have a week in Cornwall and a weekend in the Lake District.

“The last holidays we had were amazing, Cornwall was one of Terry’s favourite places. He’d been going down to Cornwall since he was a child, and he and I always went once a year without fail. So, our wish of going back there, as a family was able to go ahead and I will never forget it.”

“The two holidays that we had post Terry’s admission into Ashgate, were to be the last of his life. But, had it not been for his week in Ashgate Hospicecare, they wouldn’t have been possible, so for this, we will be forever grateful. The Hospice turned Terry’s life around.”

“Memories are not only in your mind but are also on photographs and I have lots of memories of Terry on our last holiday in the Lake District, mostly with our little grandson, Max. I look back on these photographs and sometimes I’m in tears and other times I just look back and think, “Gosh, thank you Ashgate Hospicecare for letting this happen. Thank you for extending Terry’s life and thank you for giving us the holidays of a lifetime.”

In November 2015, Terry was readmitted to Ashgate Hospicecare and on the 15th of November, he sadly passed away.

Emma said:-

“Ashgate Hospicecare gave us all the facilities we required to be able to not leave Terry’s bedside in his final few days. None of us returned home for around 4 days, we had food, beds and showers. It was such a relief to know we had everything there that we could possibly need. This enabled Terry’s close family to be at his bedside during his final days which was one of his final wishes.”

“I cannot fault anybody at this hospice. It is clean, it’s tidy, it’s well supervised and the nurses were fantastic with Terry.

“I’d like to say thank you to everybody at Ashgate Hospicecare for what they did for us whilst we were here and the support and care they have given me since. Thank you everybody.”

Since Terry died, Emma, along with family and close friends, have been heavily involved in fundraising for Ashgate Hospicecare.

“I’ve personally done a few sponsored walks, but one of the best I went on was the Sparkle Night Walk. It was amazing and the atmosphere from start to finish was so much fun with lots of laughter whilst raising money for a great cause.”

A partnership has been agreed between Chesterfield Junior Blues FC and the Chesterfield FC Community Trust.

The agreement will further strengthen the existing relationship between the two organisations.

Oliver Couch, Chairman of Chesterfield Junior Blues, said:-

“It’s very important that we as a grassroots club have a connection with our local professional club.

“We use the facilities at the Proact for our presentation nights and committee meetings and we want to keep on developing our club. We want to set up a soccer school at the stadium for youngsters aged from five to seven years old.”

Chesterfield Junior Blues have 23 football teams and ten futsal teams, from Under-7s to Under-16s. They have teams playing in the Sheffield & District Junior Sunday Football  League, Rowsley League and Chad League.

John Croot, Chief Executive of Chesterfield FC Community Trust, said:-

“It’s the first of what we hope will be many partnerships with grassroots clubs.

“In many ways we’re formalising what we’ve done for many years with Chesterfield Junior Blues, who have always been an innovative club with a good ethos. It’s an exciting project and I’m sure there will be some great outcomes.”

When staff and students from Chesterfield College’s travel agency, Explore, were asked to make some travel arrangements for local opera star Carly Paoli from Mansfield, they never imagined that 3 years later they would be her travel agency of choice helping her perform all over the world with some of the biggest names in opera.

Carly Paoli is making huge waves in the world of classical crossover music and has even performed with world famous opera singers Bocelli and Carerras. She’s had some very high profile audiences including Mohammed Ali, HRH Prince of Wales and Pope Francis.

Her hectic performance schedule has taken her to Los Angeles, Canada, Kuala Lumpur, Florence, Rome and Monaco, to name just a few. Over the years this has given the team at Explore some exciting tasks to complete including arranging travel and accommodation for a 28 piece orchestra, from all over the world, for rehearsals and a performance in Monaco.

Carly’s mum, Tina Hopkinson, an ex-travel agent herself, now has the huge job of making sure her daughter and the musicians she works with get to all the places they need to be at the right time, for the right price. She chose to use Explore to help her with this huge task because she knew the staff had the industry expertise to handle the unusual requests.

Students work alongside Explore managers to organise Carly’s exciting travel plans giving them the opportunity to experience the intricacies of organising tailor-made travel arrangements. Tina used to train new recruits in her job as a travel agent so knows the value of developing new recruits to the industry.

She told us:
“The team at Explore are very efficient and the staff are very experienced. I know I can rely on them to help me manage Carly’s travel arrangements. My requests aren’t always straight forward; I’ve given them some challenges over the years. Finding a travel agency who understand the demands we are under and can deliver is really important. They do a great job and it feels good to know that we are helping the next generation of travel experts get some experience too.”

Carolyn Paisley, Travel Manager at Explore said:
“The reason we set Explore up in college was to make sure our students were getting real industry experience to prepare them for the world of work. Working with us to help clients like Carly and Tina who have more unusual and complicated travel requirements gives students a chance to test different skills, including maths and English when planning transfer details around the world. It’s also really exciting to know that we are playing a part in helping Carly take her amazing talent to audiences across the world.”