Northern quiz raises over £13,000 for greetings industry charity
The return of the popular Northern Light Fund Quiz has kicked off the industry charity’s 20th year in fine style, raising over £13,000.
Over 160 executives from the greeting card and licensing worlds headed to Hotel Football in Manchester, helping to raise £11,784 and a special auction brought in a further £1,855, with the highest bid being for a signed Manchester United shirt, eventually sold for £300.
The winning team at the quiz on Thursday, 21 March, was a mix of Blues Clothing and Imagine8 executives called Blues Have The Clues who emerged victorious following a tie breaker with the Move It, Feisty Furblets team from Hasbro and Paramount – for which the question was when was the guillotine last used for execution in Franc, and the answer was 1977.
At the other end of the table was the Young Professionals Network team from Licensing International, who had the dubious honour of taking home the big pants.
The Light Fund raised £125,000 in 2023, taking the total to over £2.2million and it will have helped 170 different charities for men, women and children, since it was co-founded by PG directors Jakki Brown and Ian Hyder together with some like-minded folk from the greeting card and licensing industries back in 2004.
The 2023 beneficiaries saw 25 very worthwhile charity projects receiving funding thanks to the generosity of the industries, and Jakki said: “It’s wonderful that through the raffles at The Retas, The Henries and generous donations from those in the industry, including over £8,000 from Belly Button Designs as a result of sales of its Christmas cards, we are able to fund such a great diversity of charity projects, many of which were put forward by those in the greeting card community.”
Funding a helpline for cancer sufferers, providing an assistance dog for an autistic child, covering the costs of a roadshow to raise awareness of prostate cancer, paying for a chicken farm for a village in Kenya, an incubator for premature babies in a UK hospital, a wheelchair for a disabled child and information support for those with Crohn’s and colitis are just some of the ways the charity’s 2023 total will be used.
Submissions were invited from any UK-registered charities, and The Light Fund committee members and other major supporters then voted individually for which charity projects they would most like to see funded. Applications for this year’s grants will be open around October.
The Light Fund chairman Trevor Jones told PG Buzz: “Those in the industry have done themselves proud with their support of The Light Fund since its inception. As the charity celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2024, it’s wonderful to know we’ll see many more worthwhile charity projects going ahead, giving help and support to those in need.”
