In this Olympic new year why not challenge yourself and raise valuable funds for the EPT.

We are now a charity partner to the 100km London2Brighton challenge which looks an amazing event taking place on 12-13th May. It really does look incredible and is being coined as a journey most will walk, some jog and a few hardened types may run it all or a mixture of all three.

What a feeling of excitement and anticipation you’ll get as you set off from London with your fellow challengers, they’ll be replenishment check points every 12km, hot meals will be provided finishing with a well earned brunch in Brighton you’ll certainly deserve this when you get your last burst of energy and your bleary eyes see the stunning coastline come into view.

Join individually or as a team whatever you choose make this your ultimate fundraising endurance challenge of 2012, the Olympic year.

Also don’t forget to Check out our Events Diary for further inspiration.

The EPT is appealing to you because 11,000 women are admitted to hospital every year as an emergency. Many thousands more are cared for in emergency clinics.

If you could support us with a regular gift of a few pounds each month, so that we can continue to support those who already use our services and those who will find us over the coming months of the New Year, we can assure our service in 2012.

If our ‘friends’ felt they could donate £5 a month – this would generate sufficient income to provide our helpline for a year.

If our Facebook friends felt they could support us with £5 a month, The EPT would have more than 2/3 of the income we need to provide all of our services for a year.

If we have helped you, then please consider helping us to ensure our services are there for the thousands of families who will need us in 2012 and the hundreds of thousands who’ve  found us and used us over the last 13 years and continue to do so.

Wising you gentle New Year

So how does an evening of entertainment, champagne, canapés and tastings to kick the Christmas season off to a brilliant start sound? What’s even better; is 100% of ticket sales will go to charity – and you can decide which charity benefits (providing they are registered with theBigGive.org.uk  and of course we hope if you go along, you’ll choose The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust.

For every £50 ticket you purchase, you will receive a £50 charity voucher at the party, to give to any charity registered with theBigGive.org.uk.

So, grab your girlfriend(s) and the boys for that matter, and book some tickets. Tickets will go on sale on the Fortnum and Mason Charity Christmas Party website, at Midday on Monday 19th September.

If you wish to purchase a ticket off-line, please email fortnums@thebiggive.org.uk

Tickets are likely to sell out very quickly so make sure you are first in the queue on the 19th September, to stand a chance of getting a ticket to this wonderfully festive evening out! You can get a reminder first thing on the 19^th September by registering here, http://www.fortnums-christmas.com  so go on, have a fabulous evening out and get in the party mood, on the countdown to Christmas 2011. And if you can’t make it yourself but think you know someone who can, persuade to nominate The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust to benefit from their shopping spree.

The weather was, on the whole, kind and if anything a little warm.  This year we had a slightly smaller team but they were no less committed and all enjoyed the race. Several popped along to see Julie Milan, one of our volunteers, who was on hand to offer pieces of flap jack, fruit and a well earned drink and grab the odd snapshot to remember the occasion by.

Take a look at some pictures of the day and then read on …………………………..

Our heartfelt thanks go to Melody Erb, Jill Ansell, Gaby Ansell, Christie Amobi, Amirah Capillaire, Joanna Pitman, Kate Pye, Nicole Devo, Becky Guile, Erin Murphy, Sheonaidh Johnston, Ruth Kirkpatrick  who chose The EPT, as their charity which means we benefited from £5 of their entrance fee and have also been seeking sponsorship and fundraising for us and 7 more, who chose to remain anonymous but kindly chose The EPT, as their charity which means we benefited from £5 of their entrance fee.

If you were there and running on behalf of the EPT, then send us your pictures and your story we’d love to publish you here on our fundraisers diary.

If you missed the adidas Women’s Challenge this year but think you might like to take part next, keep an eye on our events diary from the beginning of next year for our stop press news, when the application and entrance process opens.

In the meantime, we would like to thank our team again and wish them all as much or little time as they need to recover, after running in this amazing women only race and raising funds for The EPT and awareness of the condition.

Is there a venue near you this year? The runs are in 13 venue’s up and down the UK

Liverpool (Sefton Park) Sat 6th Aug 2011
Sheffield (Rother Valley Country Park) Sun 7th Aug 2011
Leeds (Roundhay Park) Sat 13th Aug 2011
Manchester (Wythenshawe Park) Sun 14th Aug 2011
Derby (Darley Park) Sat 20th Aug 2011
Coventry (Memorial Park) Sun 21st Aug 2011
Cardiff (Bute Park) Sat 27th Aug 2011
Milton Keynes (Willen Lake) Sun 28th Aug 2011
Dundee (Camperdown Park) Sat 17th Sep 2011
Aberdeen (Hazlehead Park) Sun 18th Sep 2011
London (Victoria Park) Sun 2nd Oct 2011
Edinburgh (Holyrood Park) Sun 23rd Oct 2011
Glasgow (Bellahouston Park) Sat 29th Oct 2011

So if you think this is your cup of tea, we could really use your help so register up, join in and we’ll send you an information pack to tell you how you can maximise your fundraising to help us.

Please join us in supporting them on the day by watching or cheering them on. And you could even show your support by donating to their fundraising page at Virgin Money Giving. Just chose a runner and sponsor them.

Team members with fundraising pages, can be sponsored by clicking in their name which will take you to their fundraising page.

Emyr Blease, Julia Boyle,  Keith McAleese, Matthew Piff, John Rednall, Julia Roberts, Natasha Watts, Vaila Smith

The NEXT EPT team event will be the Women’s Challenge in Hyde Park, so if you are inspired to take up running, walking or jogging, why not sign up for the 5k Women’s Challenge for The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust, on 11th September 2011 – Admissions are open now SIGN UP and remember to select Ectopic Pregnancy Trust from list A when you register online, so we receive a donation from your entrance fee. Tick the we may contact you box and we’ll send you a t-shirt and information on how to maximise your fundraising, if you want to fundraise for us but even if you don’t, it’d be wonderful to have you on the team anyway.

Did you start this year with lots of good intentions?

It’s easy to make New Year’s resolutions but hard to carry them out. If you promised yourself to get fit, lose weight or just live a slightly healthier lifestyle, why not sign up and do it for charity?

Do you fancy a run, walk, cycle, swim or even a leap from a plane? See our 2011 Events Diary for inspiration and food for thought (low calorie of course!)

If you can’t quite face a new fitness and exercise challenge, how about donating a bottle of wine or box of chocolates to The EPT? Not literally of course, another way to get a bit fitter is to donate the price one of those treats to The EPT once a month. So instead of drinking a  bottle of wine a week, you are drinking three bottles a month and donating the price of the fourth to The EPT in a win- win deal. You consume a few less calories and it’s better for your health and you help us continue our work here. It might amaze you to know, that most of our donations are for an amount of less than £10, proving that small regular donations, make a very real difference. Click here to find out more

This can be a very profitable way of raising funds for a charity, so before you throw those envelopes in the bin when your post arrives,  remember to cut off the stamps! It only takes a few seconds, and if you keep a used envelope in a handy place you can pop your trimmed stamps in there until you have a quantity to send to us.

You could also make it your job to coordinate collections from among your family, friends and work colleagues. If you feel a little more ambitious, perhaps approach local businesses too? Drop us a line to find out about a letter of authorisation to collect stamps on our behalf, which you can show to local businesses and your employer.

For those of you that can help, here’s a quick checklist:

• Stamps from anywhere in the world are valid so long as they are still in one piece with no rips, tears or pieces missing.

• Ideally the stamps should be mounted on single sheet paper, so please cut your stamp from your envelope on a single thickness of the envelope.

• The stamps need to be trimmed to around 1/4inch from the edge of the paper to the stamp perforations – trimmed any closer are accepted but not always ideal. See the photo example:

• Collect your stamps and when you have around a kilogram, contact us to find out what to do next.

Stamps do not need to be sorted in anyway – just send them all together in the same envelope, regardless of where they are from.

Remember, even if you only collect one or two stamps a week – it all mounts up – imagine how many we would have if everyone collected a few stamps a week!

If you think you can help us by collecting stamps and want to know more or if you’d just like to now where to send your stamps now you have collected them, drop us a line and Shelly who coordinates all this for us, will get back to you.

Read more about Alison’s reasons for wanting to help the charity that helped her.

“I suffered an ectopic pregnancy 8 years ago in 2002 when I was 23. It ended with emergency surgery after my right tube ruptured and after weeks in and out of hospital with doctors not really knowing what to do with me and with conflicting opinions. I found it increasingly difficult to understand my situation and what it all meant when even the professionals around me couldn’t give me a straight answer. After months of struggling to come to terms with what had happened and not being able to talk about it, I found the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust forum. Talking to other women who had similar stories helped me to get over the guilt and grief I felt…and whilst even 8 years later I wouldn’t say I’m ‘over it’, I truly don’t think I would’ve recovered as well as I have without the support of the EPT. This is my way of giving something back to everyone who played a part in helping me through a difficult & sad part of my life and also in remembrance of what I lost.”

If you would like to sponsor Alison and support the Trust, visit her online giving page.

The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust is thrilled to offer you our new design Charity Christmas cards, for the second year. These high quality cards in three different designs are offered in return for a donation of £4.99 per pack.

Each pack contains 10 quality cards in one of three designs,

1. Bringing Home the Tree: 2. Kings of the Orient: 3. Winter Berries

Every card  has the legend that its purchase has supported The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust. Just as importantly, each one discreetly displays the link to our website and details of how to contact us, so your festive gesture will also promote the organisation among friends, family and colleagues who may in turn be able to direct others to us for the help and support we offer in the future.

Please consider ordering our cards to send in 2011.

Ordering is simple. You do this by making a one off donation for the suggested amount of £4.99 per pack and selecting option AA, from the additional details drop down menu. Then contact us telling us the donation you have made and the quantity of packs you’d like to order and in which designs. We’ll tie up your donation with your order and get them out to you by return.

New for 2011 we also have calendars. These do not carry the EPT logo but do raise income for us and are available for £4.99

We hope you’ll be as delighted with our 2011 designs as we are.