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Annual Reception 2008
Annual Reception 2008
22nd October 2008
Painters Hall
Our Annual Reception brings together all our supporters to thank them for their involvement and to remind them how much their support means to us. This year's Annual Reception was an amazing evening, held in the historic Painters Hall in the City of London.
The Programme
Host of ceremonies was Sir David Walker – Senior Advisor, Morgan Stanley International and Chairman of the Community Links Leadership Group. Sir David spoke about his own experience with Community Links and the power of collaboration which enables us to help vulnerable people build a more positive future, day in, day out.
The next speaker, David Robinson, Founder and Senior Advisor of Community Links recounted just a few of the many stories we hear every day in our work. Mentioning the current economic climate, David urged the audience to give new meaning to the phrase “the age of responsibility” and bring us closer together for a better, cleverer and kinder way of doing business.
Guests enjoyed our film, ‘Community Links: a day in the life’ , featuring staff and CEO Max Weaver which showed a snapshot of a "typical day" through a colourful collection of photographs and film footage. It's not easy to understand the full depth and breadth of our work, so this new film aims to illustrate the huge impact our projects have on disadvantaged local people, in east London and across the country. In the film Max urged everyone to come and experience the work first hand to truly experience what we do.
Samuel Jimah, an 18 year old who is involved with our ASTA Centre recited his original poem, ‘Tears Gone Cold’, and gave an emotional and inspiring testimonial of the devastation that comes with violence and knife crime, and his desire to provide a positive role model to younger children.
Proudly introducing Samuel's performance was Jason Forde, Manager of the Asta Centre. Jason, aged 24, started coming to Community Links when he was ten years old, and is a perfect embodiment of how our staff understand and can empathise with local needs.
Sir David concluded the programme by thanking everyone for supporting our work, and urging people to pick up their goodie bag, which also had some fun and informative tools in order to spread the word.
The intense discussions on the floor afterwards demonstrated the impact of this programme and the feedback has been our best yet. On leaving, each guest received their fabulous and coveted "Plastic Ain't My Bag" canvas bags. An enjoyable, and according to one guest "eye-opening" experience was had by all.
Thank you to everyone who was involved in making this years Annual Reception one to remember.
If you missed out, we'd love to have you attend next year. Please contact Ruth Uwimana for how you can involved in our work
For more photos of the event, please visit our Flickr page here.