2015 Hospice House Tour
The 2015 Hospice House Tour organised by The Girls' Club raised a staggering $22,000 for North Haven Hospice.
The 2015 tour showcased some of Whangarei's most interesting private homes. The Girls' Club selected from a wide range of homes that provided something inspiring for all who attended the tour. Old and new, large and small, modern and traditional homes. We had everything from family homes, to possibly the most stylish retirement apartment in town! We were also able to offer the opportunity to view the brand new Quest Hotel. Wow!
We had overwhelmingly positive feedback from our tour goers. Great weather, great people, and fabulous houses. Many thanked us for the inspiration they got from the selection of houses. Others told us which house they dreamed of being able to live in. Most of all they loved being with their friends, or partners, and creating a very memorable weekend together.
The 2015 tour showcased some of Whangarei's most interesting private homes. The Girls' Club selected from a wide range of homes that provided something inspiring for all who attended the tour. Old and new, large and small, modern and traditional homes. We had everything from family homes, to possibly the most stylish retirement apartment in town! We were also able to offer the opportunity to view the brand new Quest Hotel. Wow!
We had overwhelmingly positive feedback from our tour goers. Great weather, great people, and fabulous houses. Many thanked us for the inspiration they got from the selection of houses. Others told us which house they dreamed of being able to live in. Most of all they loved being with their friends, or partners, and creating a very memorable weekend together.
2013 Hospice House Tour
The Girls’ Club looked long and hard at fundraising this year as money was tight in both businesses and personal incomes. We relied on our very good systems from the past to support us getting started and decided to encourage a major sponsor to be part of the naming of the event and individual sponsors for each home. Educare became our first major sponsor and they had flags flying for the cause all weekend.
We had the idea to welcome the sponsors and other house owners plus ticket holding guests in a Friday night event at the beautiful home of Richard and Julie Crum. This was a one off event with the house only open that night and it looked spectacular. We had glorious music, trays of canapes and the wine flowed. This was a fabulous way to kick-start the weekend which was as successful as ever.
Because the small stalls had always been successful we extended this to a large Fête held in the beautiful French grounds of one of our houses on tour. The marques looked stunning and the music, food and merchandise was a real treat.
The feedback was as complimentary as in the past and people were now clammering to be on the tour, offering their house or have a stall at the Fête. What a wonderful team of women working all hours to hold the reins of their day jobs and still fund raise and collaborate with the Hopice for the successful sum of money to build a new memory garden in the Hospice grounds. You are welcome to sit in the gazebo and admire the garden knowing this was a result of The Girls’ Club fundraising 2013.
We had the idea to welcome the sponsors and other house owners plus ticket holding guests in a Friday night event at the beautiful home of Richard and Julie Crum. This was a one off event with the house only open that night and it looked spectacular. We had glorious music, trays of canapes and the wine flowed. This was a fabulous way to kick-start the weekend which was as successful as ever.
Because the small stalls had always been successful we extended this to a large Fête held in the beautiful French grounds of one of our houses on tour. The marques looked stunning and the music, food and merchandise was a real treat.
The feedback was as complimentary as in the past and people were now clammering to be on the tour, offering their house or have a stall at the Fête. What a wonderful team of women working all hours to hold the reins of their day jobs and still fund raise and collaborate with the Hopice for the successful sum of money to build a new memory garden in the Hospice grounds. You are welcome to sit in the gazebo and admire the garden knowing this was a result of The Girls’ Club fundraising 2013.
2012 Christmas Tree Raffle
The Girls’ Club women always have their thinking caps on ready to raise some dollars for North Haven Hospice so when a huge (2.1m) and beautiful Christmas tree was donated by “The French Hen” we decided to make it a fund raising exercise on its own rather than attach it to a house trail. And then we hand made ornaments for the tree! Jenny Wilson used her computerised sewing machine to make wonderful angels that looked like fine crochet. Briar White made paper balls with antiqued paper strips featuring musical notes. Levonne Smith filled clear balls with lots of white feathers and Annabelle Frear made decorated biscuit houses wrapped in cellophane. Wendy Ruddell filled all the gaps with designer wine and silver globes. The tree looked amazing and featured for six weeks in the Whangarei Public Library prior to the draw in December. Second prize was a place at Jo Seagar’s cooking school in Oxford with accomodation and car hire provided. And a third prize of a $100 Christmas Hamper helped sell those tickets and raised $4,000 for North haven Hospice. Not bad girls for your ‘off’ year of fund raising!
2011 Hospice House Tour
Our Girls’ Club changed again with the addition of Gemma Buchanan (superb organiser and worker), Giuliana Hardie (great raffle seller and food promoter), Annabelle Freer (amazing cook and great with presentations). Faster, higher, brighter seemed to be our moto and we almost burned ourselves out with the thrill of it all! We had lists of hostesses keen to be there again on the day, we had goodie bags with all the sponsors logos on them and filled with products, we had homes with design and flair, a lakeside home, a French villa with panoramic views, an original art deco home, a cheesemakers B&B, coffee vans, and stalls to fill your Christmas stockings with. We had beautiful tea towels designed and printed with a Christmas subject and some were framed to show how versatile the humble tea towel can become. There was a team of ten stitching women who made 5 white padded doves each so we could have a Christmas tree covered in doves. These were sold for the Hospice funds as well and looked glorious.
The marques on the lawn of a country home leant themselves to dreams of an endless summer picnic. Umbrellas, gardens, matching chairs, picnic rugs, gazebos, packed lunches, cooks doing demo tastings, coffee and lots of ticket sales . . . Once again this successful event raised $20,000 for North Haven Hospice which went towards A Suzuki Swift for the Hospice staff use. A real joy for us all to see such a resource achieved.
The marques on the lawn of a country home leant themselves to dreams of an endless summer picnic. Umbrellas, gardens, matching chairs, picnic rugs, gazebos, packed lunches, cooks doing demo tastings, coffee and lots of ticket sales . . . Once again this successful event raised $20,000 for North Haven Hospice which went towards A Suzuki Swift for the Hospice staff use. A real joy for us all to see such a resource achieved.
2010 Jo Seagar Events
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One of our Girls’ Club members Jenny Wilson was a good school friend of Jo Seagar so we created a wonderful weekend in August 2010 to raise funds for a van for North Haven Hospice.
Jo is reknowned for entering into events wholeheartedly and she did us proud with what we planned for her! The Girls’ Club staged three stunning events – from Tea with Tiaras (held in the Kauri Function Room at the Hospice), Watch and Discover on Friday evening (held at the Elim Church Events Centre) to the Face to Face cooking school (held in member Jo Crawford’s modern kitchen) where paying guests got to mix and mingle with the Star herself cooking up a storm! Jo thrilled Saturday morning Growers Market customers by cruising the stalls for ingredients for our show and at every opportunity showed her marketing skills to add dollars to the funds for the Hospice. She auctioned off the biscuit dough on stage, auctioned off her apron(!) and smiled her way through dozens of book signings and photographs leaving everyone sure they had been with their best friend for the evening. We culminated in a breakfast at the Town Basin to celebrate the Girls’ Club/ Jo Seagar event and announce to the Hospice we had raised another $20,000! It was such a successful weekend whirl of food, books, recipes, tips and friendship and we could see why Jo has been made the NZ patron for Hospice. She was amazing and people are still talking aboout it. |
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2009 Hospice House Tour
A small group of six women who all loved homes and décor threw an idea around long enough for it to catch fire and become The North Haven Christmas House Tour. The idea was to have 9 homes done in style as we would for Christmas dinner and festivities, to give people a shot in the arm to be ready for Christmas, learn some new festive recipes, purchase gifts at the marque full of stalls, see some wonderful homes and raise funds by a self drive tour Saturday or Sunday.
Three of our members had homes in the Tour – Jo Crawford had a glorious modern home overlooking their farmland and the marque with individual stalls, Briar White’s central city bungalow and pool were skilfully dressed with flowers, candles, baking and soft furnishings, and Levonne Smith’s Kensington art deco home introduced a story line of outdoor gift giving, do it yourself decorations and black and white structure.
We asked the house owners to challenge the expected arrangements of red and green and Christmas trees, and to come up with a thoughtful mix of design style and personal lifestyle that was not the expectation of others .
And it was wonderful. Here are some of the comments we recorded from people:
"It ran like clock work".
"The homes were such a good variety".
"We missed some houses out and didn’t care. We were having such fun!"
"We won the 4 free tickets and a chauffeured limousine and loved the whole day!"
"We talked all day and were with our friends and loved all the ideas!"
We had organised wonderful volunteers at each house to be a hostess for both security and to give information about the home. The hostesses all wanted to do it again they had such a good time. There were goodie bags from sponsors and everyone loves a surprise or something free. That’s what kept us going into the next decade of house tours for the North Haven Hospice.
Three of our members had homes in the Tour – Jo Crawford had a glorious modern home overlooking their farmland and the marque with individual stalls, Briar White’s central city bungalow and pool were skilfully dressed with flowers, candles, baking and soft furnishings, and Levonne Smith’s Kensington art deco home introduced a story line of outdoor gift giving, do it yourself decorations and black and white structure.
We asked the house owners to challenge the expected arrangements of red and green and Christmas trees, and to come up with a thoughtful mix of design style and personal lifestyle that was not the expectation of others .
And it was wonderful. Here are some of the comments we recorded from people:
"It ran like clock work".
"The homes were such a good variety".
"We missed some houses out and didn’t care. We were having such fun!"
"We won the 4 free tickets and a chauffeured limousine and loved the whole day!"
"We talked all day and were with our friends and loved all the ideas!"
We had organised wonderful volunteers at each house to be a hostess for both security and to give information about the home. The hostesses all wanted to do it again they had such a good time. There were goodie bags from sponsors and everyone loves a surprise or something free. That’s what kept us going into the next decade of house tours for the North Haven Hospice.