RAF Coningsby raises £35,000...and are still going

During the last 12 months, they have raised over £35,000 for various charities - and even that figure is set to increase to more than £37,000.

Officer Commanding Base Support Wing, Wing Commander Keri Spencer-Thomas, was full of praise for what she described as a ‘fantastic effort’.

She said: “People across the unit and through the Charities Committee have got involved in support of a number of local and national charities and it has been amazing to see what people around the station are doing.”

Events such as Macmillan Cancer Coffee mornings, the SSAFA Big Brew, a Brew for a Few, National Donut Week have all helped.

Some of the larger amounts raised include the Macmillan ‘Brave the Shave’ (Kiran Attridge raised £8k), the Paris to London Brompton Bike Ride, during which six people raised around £6k.

Staff also held a cake sale which raised nearly £450 to help a family in Nepal whose home was devastated by the earthquake.

A fundraising team, led by Marc Dowd from the base’s Charities Committee, raised over £1,200 for local preferred charities, including Lincolnshire Emergency Medical Response, SSAFA In-Service Volunteers and Rej’s Dreams, a local children’s charity.

Money has also been donated towards cancer research, a LIVES defibrillator for Coningsby and Tattershall and Christmas presents to children at Lincoln Hospital.

There have been some remarkable individual efforts.

Happily, there appears to be no let-up next year when events include a charity Boxing Night in February. It is already a near sell-out.

There are also plans to host a bigger version of the inaugural ‘Battle of Britain Challenge’, possibly called the Typhoon Challenge, along with a charity calendar, while 59 people have registered to become Anthony Nolan stem cell donors.