Wooden Spoon Dinner Reaches £100K Fundraising Milestone

What a way to start 2024 for our Glasgow region as they hosted their annual dinner on 7th March at the Hilton Hotel. With 540 guests attending, it was inevitably going to be a fantastic night, but no one could have expected it to reach the fundraising levels it did.

The venue was excellent, with both food and service highly commendable, ensuring a top-class environment for guests to enjoy. Wooden Spoon stalwart ambassador Andy Nicol was in charge of the mic for the evening’s entertainment, and as always, he orchestrated the flow of the evening brilliantly.

Guests had plenty of opportunities to engage in fundraising with traditional raffle envelopes, a game of ‘Heads & Tails’, a ‘Stop the Clock’ game with a donated £1000 watch as a prize, and a ‘Team of the Six Nations’ game. Our auction partners Impulse Decisions managed the silent auction, which was a great hit. The region also pulled together six auction items, which were very popular and totaled £13K in profit on the night.

A poignant and core part of the evening was listening to one of the many projects funded by the Glasgow region, as Sharon Craighead spoke about the impact made by Wooden Spoon donations to her project ‘Chattersense’.

Guests were also treated to two guest speakers: firstly, a Q&A with Glasgow Warriors Head Coach, South African Franco Smith, and the main event of the evening was legendary figure and recently retired international referee Wayne Barnes. Wayne spoke about his incredible career and shared some experiences of being in the middle for some of the greatest rugby games in history.

Wooden Spoon Glasgow Chairman, Al Kellock, welcomed guests and finished the night with a heartfelt ‘Thank you’ speech. He was visibly moved by the support on the night. Once all fundraising was accounted for, the event itself generated £165,000 worth of fundraising, with the final total profit granted to projects in the Glasgow region just exceeding £100,000. A HUGE congratulations to everyone involved for this exceptional event.

The region would particularly like to thank the Hilton Glasgow, sponsors Malcolm Group, HF, Caledonia Industries, FORROC, OCO, Peter Vardy, Livingston James Group, and Cairnhill. Finally, a big thank you to the Glasgow Committee, event volunteers, and in particular Robyn and Jana for leading the organisation for the 2024 Dinner. Until next year!!