Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2013 | Page 20
PROPERTY
Karen: I am not
retiring just yet!
Karen Eeles, affectionately called the ‘fund-raising
champion’, recently left the Earl Mountbatten Hospice after
11 years, following a staff shake-up.
In an exclusive Island Life interview Karen looks back on
her demanding role as fund raising manager, and her highs
and lows, during which time she generated millions of
pounds for the Hospice.
Karen first became involved with EMH in 1997 after her
mother died there. Then in 2002 she applied for the job as
commu nity fund raiser with the task of raising £1million
for a new ward to be built. She recalls: “I was taken on to
do the million pound BRICK appeal to build the new ward.
“When I started it was very hard to raise money. We did
masses of tea parties and then one really big tea party in
June. We had a three-year target but we raised the money
for the BRICK appeal in two years.”
Karen can look back with pride on many fine
achievements, but believes possibly the biggest was to
20
www.visitislandlife.com
Above: Karen pictured with Keiro
n
Cooney, Bobbie Newman, Andr
ew Gibb,
Jane Gibb and Sweetcorn man
.
P21. Middle left - Elaine Harris
(Her dad
Bill Bradley was one of the foun
ders of
Walk the Wight)
P.21 Top: Karen with Major Gene
ral
Martin White
P.21 Far Right: Karen pictured
with
Geoffrey Hughes, David Biles
and Karen
Sheath
P.21 Bottom Left: Karen Pictu
red with
Alex Dyke & Dame Ellen Macarthu
r
introduce the ‘Sunflower’ into the Isle of Wight Festival.
She explained: “I went to the Festival just to earn the
money to pay for the security at the hospice because we
have to have security.
“John Giddings (Festival promoter) said go along and
rattle a few tins. We raised around £300, and we gave out
little sunflowers. People kept asking ‘what the heck is this?’,
so the following year I brought 1,000 big sunflowers, and
we sold them all in one day. Now that has grown to 10,000,
and in all we raised over a £100,000 selling sunflowers.”
Karen maintains there was never a ‘low point’ in her
EMH career, but admits: “There were some things I did
which I didn’t like - I had to row a rowing machine in
Albany Prison, and that was a bit scary! I also went for an
egg-eating contest; I had to be rescued by dog in the middle
of the Solent, and I had to do ‘tea at three’ in a lifeboat and
I got really seasick.”
Karen was responsible for organising the ever-popular