Record breaking cash raised for LTC
A record breaking £11,771.61 was raised at the 27th BII Annual Lunch for the Licensed Trade Charity (LTC) - a 35% increase on last year's amount.
The money was raised through a raffle for which prizes were kindly donated by Punch, Waverly TBS, Brulines, Sky, Wadworth, Charles Wells, the Moat House Acton Trussell and the Fountain at Clent.
Phil Dixon presented an additional £1,000 from the Midland LVA and over £100 was donated from the London, South-West and North-East BII regions from collections at the Better Business Roadshows.
"We are just delighted with the amount of money that people contributed - it's a real sign of solidarity of those within the trade," said LTC's Liz Gaffer.
"In the first quarter of 2008, we experienced an 88% increase in the number of people being granted support, so the money raised will go towards helping those people.
"The BII members pride themselves in being socially responsible and in terms of supporting a charity that is linked with the trade and helps their colleagues, they are certainly demonstrating that."
She added: "Interestingly, we have found that the over half the people that contact us are of working age, which is a marked shift from the last three years as many of the people contacting us were of retirement age.
"We believe that this is down to the difficult trading conditions.
"Changes in the industry mean that we have a responsibility towards those who currently work in the industry and not just those who have worked in our industry in the past.
"It is difficult out there and it's hard for some of the current workforce. We hope that people will continue to contact us so that we can help them in times of need."
