The World’s Biggest Coffee Morning takes place every September and is Macmillan’s biggest fundraising day. This year, the event has raised more than eight and a half million pounds – and that’s just what’s been counted so far.
From cafes to banks, and places of worship to people’s own homes, there were coffee mornings happening at a variety of venues all over the country. Coffee mornings also took place outside the country – we had tweets and emails from hosts as far away as Italy, Denmark and Dubai, making it a truly international day.
Naturally, those of us at Macmillan HQ didn’t want to miss out on the action. Some of us from the cancer information development team took a break from the office and ventured out to events around London. We were especially keen to speak with people about our information and gather any feedback.
Among other things we found ...
A dancing bank manager at Barclays, Westminster branch. Maybe he was pleased that we have information about financial issues that people may face when they’re affected by cancer?
And the Mayoress of Enfield, pictured third from the left with our head of information development, Anna Leibowitz.
One member of our team, Joanne, went to a cafe at the UCH Macmillan Centre, where she volunteers when she’s not busy editing cancer information for our team. She ended up giving an impromptu tour of the centre for around eight Macmillan staff. The cafe raised £454 in just two hours. Joanne spends Monday afternoons speaking with people at the centre and helping direct them to information and support. They may have questions about anything from their particular cancer type to healthy eating, or support with the emotional effects of cancer. You can read more about Joanne’s experiences at the UCH centre in her blog post.
Sarah and Emma went to Tooting Junction Baptist Church where they met Rosemary (all below). Sarah says, ‘Emma and I took cakes out into the streets of Tooting and sold cakes to people at the train station.’
Meanwhile, our cancer content coordinator Genevieve told us that she and our information nurse Hermanus (below), ‘had a fabulous mini coffee morning at the Cancer Survivorship Conference at Queen’s College, Oxford. His homemade cheese & bacon muffins and banana & walnut loaf almost brought the 14th century house down!’ Mmm, cheese and bacon muffins. Sounds like something that would have been good to include in our recipes booklet.
Those of us in London came back to the office buzzing from all the caffeine and the excitement of the morning. It was great to speak with people about Macmillan and see how much wonderful support there is out there for what we do.
We’re always looking to connect with and consult people affected by cancer to make sure our information is as good as it can be; for example, we get loads of help from people affected by cancer who review our publications. Getting out of the office is a great way to meet people who can help us improve our information, and we look forward to more chances like this in the future.
