News for 2011
This year we are proudly celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the Kickstart Award and we have a specially designed certificate to mark the occasion.
Certificate border kindly designed by Beccy Blake and Steve Rawlings
News for 2010
Cellist and viol-player Richard Tunnicliffe has enjoyed a long and varied career at the forefront of Britain's thriving
period instrument movement, combining this with a lively involvement in modern performance.
Richard is a trustee of Caitlin's Kickstart Award. On September 25th 2010 and in aid of CKA he played
a selection of suites from Bach's heroic Six Cello Suites. This concert realised £500 for the charity.
His complete
recording of the Suites will be released in 2011/12.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750)
Music for solo cello RICHARD TUNNICLIFFE Richard’s performances of Bach’s Six Cello Suites have been admired in venues such as London’s Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room, Berlin Schauspielhaus, and the Warsaw Philharmonic, as well as countless smaller venues in Britain, Europe and Australia.
Richard came with his family to Clun in 1965. He attended St.George’s School and Bishop’s Castle Community College.
Here is an article in The Ludlovian 2010, the journal of the Old Ludlovian’s Association. This edition celebrates the centenary of the years when Ludlow College was Ludlow Girls’ High School.
[from 1910 –1966]
CAITLINS KICKSTART AWARD: A UNIQUE LOCAL GEM by Linda Hurcombe
In 2001, three years after the death by suicide of my daughter Caitlin, I found myself making a (at the time) feeble attempt to transform parental grief into something positive. As a mother, teacher and author I began to ask what I could do to turn an unimaginable personal loss into something helpful, inspiring and life-affirming. Part of the answer came from Ian Millward, Ian Barge and other colleagues at Ludlow College, people who had taught/inspired Caitlin, and continue to inspire me too.
Thus the seed of Caitlin's Kickstart Award was planted.
Caitlin died in the year that university grants were supplanted with student loans, so there was a desire to try and alleviate this coming burden, albeit on a modest scale. I also wanted this Award to be different from other Funds and scholarship schemes; it had to be something logical and practical.
I wanted to distance the Award from statistics and grade point averages and to concentrate on students who might 'slip through the net' for a variety of reasons: young people who might have overcome difficulties not easily dealt with in the classroom, who contributed to College and the wider community in ways that percentage points and most traditional awards were not equipped to reflect.
In our first year and from eight applicants, including Amy Burns, Tamara Cullen, Rebecca Gibbs, Alex Hudson, Donna Morris, Joanne Pugh, Claire Underwood and Tiffanie Wright, Amy was the first recipient. In 2001 Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite, a grand supporter and honorary patron of the charity from its inception, presented the Award of £800 to Amy Burns.
Below is a list of Kickstart recipients over the years. 2011 will mark the tenth anniversary of Caitlin's Kickstart Award. I hope to trace and contact as many awardees as possible, with a grand celebration in mind. The list includes recipients from the Community College, Bishop's Castle.
2001: Amy Burns, Ludlow
2002: Lukas Pytel, Ludlow College, Laura Morris, CCBC
2003: Lee Jones, Ludlow
2004: Richard Horton, Ludlow, Chris Evans, CCBC
2005: Joel Stone, Ludlow, Lucy Cutler, CCBC
2006: Dominic Caton, Ludlow, Megan Robinson, CCBC
2007: Nicholas Collis, Ludlow, Megan Pritchard, CCBC
2008: Amy Bywater, Ludlow, Samantha Gregory, CCBC
2009: Adam Aspbury, Ludlow, Holly Davies, Ludlow,
Graham Clarke, CCBC.
2010: Sam Martin, Ludlow, Jessica Haddigan, CCBC
2011: Rosie Gregory,CCBC, Jack Rowe, CCBC
Hannah Dean, Ludlow, Rebecca Warr, Ludlow
Since the Award's inception we have gifted £25,000 to students from Ludlow College and Bishops Castle Community College. In 2009 for the first time, we were in a position to gift a total of three awards of £1000 each to recipients from Ludlow College and CCBC.
Caitlin's Kickstart Award cannot function without the administrative skills of people in the College. Every year Vanessa Greatwich, with the help of Ian Barge, organises the selection process. She is a total treasure, as are the teachers who give their time to the selection process at a high-octane point in the College calendar (June). Here in an edited nutshell is what we ask of student applicants:
WHAT IS THE AWARD? The award is intended to help you with expenses in your first year at University/Higher Education and is administered by the College. It is not available for a gap year.
WHO CAN APPLY? Any student from any discipline who plans to continue studies in Higher Education. Financial need is taken into consideration.
HOW DO I APPLY? - You will need one sheet of A4 paper. Tell us about yourself, your dreams, your hopes. The piece can be a traditional sort of brief autobiography and not the Personal Statement you use on your UCAS form. It should tell the selection panel what you want them to know about you.
- You are also invited to submit a sample of work you are proud of and which represents who you are. Past submissions have included architectural models, powerpoint presentations, music lyrics, poetry, experiments, choreography, collages. It might be a picture, a dvd of your work, an original poem or the lyrics of a song.
There it is in a nutshell.
Given the enormous pool of student talent on our doorstep, CKA sometimes feels like a drop in the ocean, yet we know it can make an enormous difference to recipients.
Fund-raising is my personal Achilles' Heel, and we've not achieved the original goal of a minimum £50,000 endowment fund, or indeed a situation where the Award is continued yearly and in perpetuity from the interest accumulated.
There are so many worthy charities out there and our scale of operations is modest. At present we work with a budget of £11000 for 2010. This is your money donated freely. Every penny goes into the Award. It goes without saying that we welcome donations at all times. You are cordially invited to check out our new and developing website at: www.caitlinskickstartaward.co.uk
Thank you for your past and continuing support. (Caitlin's Kickstart Award is a registered charity, no. 1092350)
Update from Megan Pritchard
" This is Megan Pritchard and I received the award for Bishops Castle Community College in 2007. I have successfully graduated with a second class honours division one in Sceneography and Theatre Design / Performance Studies. I am very pleased to say that without Linda's help, and the money through Kickstart award, university would have been a lot more difficult, and it was indeed a great help and generous contribution towards my future. I have had a difficult year and was saddened not to have achieved a first in my degree, being literally one mark under the required level, but I am pleased to have survived university and have come out with a good degree! "
Hello Julian ...........
Friend of the Kickstart Award Julian Clary will make another appearance in October as part of his tour. Although this is not a fundraising event it will certainly be a fabulous night out!
"Julian first performed in Ludlow back in 2008 at a special gig to raise money for local charity, the Caitlin Kickstart Award, which gives bursaries for students at Ludlow College and Bishop’s Castle Community College going on to further education. His appearance at Ludlow Assembly Rooms raised £4,500."
(Shropshire Star. 16th August, 2010) Read more: click here
News in 2009
Thanks to a donation from then Hobson Charitable Trust of £350 we have been able to offer three awards.
Through the auspices of a friend Carol Small, Deutsche Bank has added the Caitlin Hurcombe Kickstart Fund to its database. This means a monthly amount will accrue to enable the charity to promote continued scholarships well into the future. We are very grateful for this.
Update from one of 2009 recipients
Holly Davies
"I struggled to begin with in my first term at University, however the last 2 terms I had an amazing time. With Law it was a lot of hard work, and the last term I must have spent virtually every day getting up at 7am starting work at 8am and then not finishing till gone midnight. At Warwick this seems to be the norm, and the library is packed during exam period.
I have got involved with lots of extra curriculum things at Uni. Next year I am Social Secretary for the Brass Band so will be organising all the social events and the Music centre ball. I play music still with various groups about three times a week on average. I also got in the 1st team for the ladies football! We play about four times a week, and they are great fun.
My studies are going well, and I managed to obtain 69 this year which is one mark off a first! I never thought I would get this close to a first, so was incredibly shocked but also slightly annoyed that I just missed out. I was just pleased to pass because out of 300 of us on my course 150 people failed!
Your donation you gave me has enabled me to carry on with my sport and music and also do well in my academic studies (books cost a fortune). So I have still managed to maintain my balanced lifestyle.
News in 2008
A very successful fund raising evening was held at the Ludlow Assembly Rooms on November 13th, An Evening with Julian Clary was enjoyed by a ' packed house ' ....thank you Julian, Peter Hayter and all those who supported this event.
Julian with Peter
Julian and Harry
Julian and the ' Two Simons '
2008 Ludlow College Kickstart recipient Amy Bywater
Amy ran the Cardiff half marathon on Sunday 19th October, 2008 and will be donating her sponsorship money to the Caitlin Kickstart Award. Amy describes her experience:
The day has now been and gone ! What a fantastic experience it was too ! I'm sure you'll be glad to hear it went extremely well....With barely any training I ran 11 miles straight off...I couldn't believe it and it must have been the adrenaline!! After about 9 miles the old muscles started to ache a bit but it felt like there wasn't far to go after that. I walked from 11 miles to 12 miles then ran the last one......it was absolutely amazing! Aerobically I felt like I could of run 30 miles, but muscularly...well- OUCH ! OOooo and of course...I neally forgot...the time...by my watch was 02:23:57, which was from passing under the start banner, til the finish banner..However my chip reading on the website reads 02:33:00.....either / or...I was very pleased !
Well done Amy ! Here are some pictures she would like to share.
