Latest news
TCF volunteer, Hugh McAninch, honoured with MBE
Huge congratulations to Hugh McAninch who has been made an MBE in the King's New Years Honours for services to bereaved parents and their families in Scotland. Hugh volunteered for The Compassionate Friends for over 30 years after the death of his son, Christopher. He was nominated for the honour by the charity's volunteer team in Scotland and we are all delighted that all his hard work on the behalf of bereaved parents has been recognised on the national stage.
READ MORE HERE
Hugh told us:
"On hearing the news of my MBE, I felt both humbled and honoured to be nominated and to receive this award. I take enormous pride in The Compassionate Friends (TCF), and the great privilege of being one of its volunteers in Scotland for over 30 years.
I am certain that it was through my voluntary work that I was eventually able to face up to the tragic loss of my dear son Christopher in 1989 and start the long and difficult road to living a near normal but different life again.
I was extremely fortunate to work with the most fantastic people including bereaved parents, co volunteers, staff of TCF and other kindred bereavement charities like CRUSE and Child Bereavement UK.
I was privileged to be Scotland’s TCF Regional Coordinator for over twenty years, to be involved in things like induction training and the selection of new volunteers, chairing and being an active member of the emerging committees who have organised the annual Scottish Gathering since the first in 1998 in Perth.
One of my many highlights within TCF was the creation of the children’s memorial garden in Scotland in association with the then involved local charity Beautiful Perth led by the wonderful John Summers OBE.
I shall always be grateful to those within The Compassionate Friends for their incredible support and the invaluable understanding that they have given me and my wife Maureen since the loss of our dear son and for all the opportunities offered to me as a volunteer.
Finally, I want to say a huge thank you to the kind and thoughtful person or persons who nominated me for this honour and privilege of a lifetime. THANK YOU".
READ MORE ABOUT HUGH'S VOLUNTEERING WITH TCF HERE - PAGE 1 and PAGE 2
Carolyn Brice, CEO of The Compassionate Friends UK commented "This honour for Hugh is hugely well-deserved. All of us at TCF are so proud of you. You have made so much difference to so many parents over the years, Hugh – including me. I still quote some of the things you said to me when I was first in contact with TCF and began working for the charity. Your impact on many, many grieving parents has been vast – not only with all the ways you have offered peer support over so many years – the Scottish Gathering, the support group, training volunteers, one-to-one support, the beautiful memorial garden in Perth and more, but all the thousands of pounds you have raised for TCF which has enabled the charity to continue the lifeline of peer support. I feel honoured and privileged to know you and to have worked with you Hugh. And, I can think of no better person to receive such an honour".
Annual General Meeting 2023
The Big Give - November 28th - December 5th
5TH DECEMBER UPDATE
Thanks to your amazing generosity we have exceeded our target and made a whopping
£12,857.50.
Thank you so very much for donating and sharing our Big Give campaign. We can't wait to use the funds to train more volunteers to support bereaved parents and siblings in 2024.
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For the first time ever we are part of The Big Give Christmas Campaign.
This is an incredible opportunity for us to double our donations from 28th November at midday until December 5th.
Thank you to the Julia and Hans Rausing Trust and our trustees for supporting us. This amount will be matched during the campaign period.
So if you donate a £1 we will get £2 during this time. Please share our campaign far and wide.
The link is now live https://donate.biggive.org/campaign/a056900002RXp6qAAD
To build our support in 2024 we need to ensure we can train enough volunteers, keep support groups running, run retreats nationwide and of course run our Helpline. This film shows you some of the parents and siblings we have supported and how vital The Compassionate Friends has been to them:
Thank you to the parents and siblings who shared their stories in this film.
Sign up to one of our fundraising events in 2024!
Drumroll please! All our active fundraising events for 2024 are now live so if you want to plan ahead-1698760098-0-250.jpg)
. So if you want to take on a 5k in Edinburgh, a 10k in London or go for the full marathon in Manchester have a look now. There is a cost to enter, but you will get one of our snazzy Compassionate Friends tshirts free, lots of support during your fundraising journey and know you are helping fund support for bereaved parents.
Take a look here: https://www.tcf.org.uk/events/?catid=6
"I had the booking information open on my phone for months"
In August we held a retreat weekend for parents who are bereaved of an only child or all their children in a venue close to Bath. 45 parents gathered together in the heart of the Somerset countryside to spend time together, sharing their stories, their precious children and their grief. Bereaved mum, Elizabeth came to a Compassionate Friends retreat for the first time and she has written about her experience at the weekend here.
"I had the booking information for this retreat open on my phone for months – reluctant to book it; reluctant to go anywhere and talk about this pain that was stuck in my throat and suffocating me since I lost my wonderful son in October 2021 aged 24. He was my only child and my meaning for life. Very last minute I did book this retreat and arrived on the Friday evening still feeling that I had made the wrong decision – I really did not want to talk about anything to do with my son and my loss; it was my private pain.
I am writing this review because I know now that going to this retreat was the best thing I could have ever done to be able to accept my situation.
Why is that you may ask?
Well for the first time I was around a group of people ‘who got it’!!! How we lost our children was different but we were all in the same boat – I did not have to explain the feeling; try to shield the person I was speaking to; manage the uncomfortable responses when people realise your plight. I could be free of all that pressure and for once just be with the pain I carried without filter.
It was the first time since that fateful day that I actually spoke about my beautiful boy. Two volunteers also in the same position of having lost their only child sat with me during breakfast on the morning of the second day and I found myself opening up and we shared tales of our children and we laughed. Laughing has been very rare and it felt good.
The rest of the weekend we had small groups where I felt safe to share and to be blessed by the courage of other parents to share their pain as well as how they were trying to put one foot in front of the other every day. During the weekend we had a group talk which echoed this sentiment of putting on ‘comfortable shoes’ to go on the journey of grief. During the weekend I also opted to attend a writing session this was very helpful – again another way I could manage my pain and move the crushing thoughts from out of my head onto paper.
On Saturday evening we gathered together as a group of parents; with the pictures of our children; read poems and lighted candles for our beautiful children. There was not a dry eye in the room but it was so beautiful.
Everybody’s own experience will be different but for me on this journey that I am walking on my own without any meaning, going to this retreat has helped me in so many ways. I left in awe of all the parents and in some ways it served as a new beginning for me, an acceptance that my heart is forever broken but that I have to find a way to keep going.
Thank you to all the wonderful parents that I meet for their bravery and also to the volunteers too. I also must mention the staff at Ammerdown who looked after us all and feed us so well.
I hope this helps someone decide to go on a retreat with the compassionate friends it might just be a first step to help you breathe again even if they are only shallow breaths".
RSSSupport our work
Each year thousands of parents suffer the loss of a son or a daughter. Please help TCF to support families in their time of greatest need.
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Whatever your contact with TCF we encourage you to give us feedback so that we can continue to improve our support.
