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ASPIRE: Pals Chapel fund soars past £30,000

18/ 4/2008

OUR appeal fund to save the Accrington Pals Memorial Chapel crashed through the £30,000 barrier this week.

That’s three fifths of the way to the £50,000 which would enable the re-opening of the beautiful and historic St John’s Church in which the chapel is situated.

Caroline Lee’s magnificent marathon run and a table top sale at Willow Close Comm-unity Centre, Clayton-le-Moors, were the main fund-raisers.

And several other major money-spinning events are now in the pipeline.

The latest event to be organised is Jon Garon singing live as Elvis in the Accrington Stanley Sports Bar from 8pm to midnight on Saturday 10 May.

The night includes a bottle raffle, penny auction and roll-a-coin.

Jon, a brilliant Elvis impersonator, is donating his services free, and the room has also been donated free of charge.

Admission for the adults-only evening, which includes supper, is £5 and tickets are now on sale from the Observer offices at 103 Blackburn Road, Accrington.

Meanwhile, 120 tickets have already been sold for the evening with TV antiques expert Eric Knowles at Accrington and Rossendale College’s new state-of-the-art theatre on Wednesday 30 April.

Eric will give an entertaining presentation, and tickets costing a bargain £5 can also be obtained from the Observer offices.

A reminder, too, that a number of people from St John’s Church are doing the Great Walk, organised by Church and Oswald-twistle Rotary Club, on Sunday 11 May.

More walkers and sponsors for the trek along the Leeds-Liverpool canal towpath from Clayton-le-Moors to Burnley are urgently needed.

This week’s other donations are the Rt Rev Lawrence Singleton £100; Anon £20; and To Bill with love from Ruth £10 – bringing the grand total to £30,405.

Merchandise currently on sale includes books, keyrings, pens, pencils and bookmarks.