Tony Molloy cycled round all the East Dorset CAB offices and outreaches, taking just three hours. He has raised around £130, and you can still donate to this event on his web page.

Seven intrepid, sponsored CAB santas ran for fun at Badbury Rings, raising over £500.

The Call My Bluff evening was held on Friday, 28 October at Corfe Mullen Village Hall. This was an old theme with a new twist. The Call My Bluff team who come from Stalbridge bring with them some unusual items. There are three members of the team, A, B and C, and each will tell you what they think the item is. Each member of the audience has to write down which of A, B or C gives the correct description. Fourteen items were described, and the highest score achieved was 7!

The event was attended by 45 people, who enjoyed the evening and requested a return visit. It raised £190 for the CAB, and the Call My Bluff team charged £40 which goes to the Weld Hospice in Dorchester. To date, they have raised £11,000.

Sunday the 17th April saw the start of another “Glade Experience” where surrounded by woodland, colourful azaleas, rhododendrons and the humming of bees and the scent of roses our cheerful band of helpers for four Sundays sold teas to many hundreds of visitors who visited this delightful corner of Ferndown owned by Mary and Roger Angus.

The sun shone on their efforts and to the cry of “is there honey still for tea but no there is plenty of cake” the visitors gladly relished the refreshments. In the kitchen accompanied by the continual washing of china, mathematical discussions were held as to the size of cake slices to be cut!

The garden is opened under the National Gardens Scheme, which raises money for various charities. Those of us who help enjoy doing so, and this year we raised £727 for the Bureau. Thank you to those who made the cakes. If you wish to enjoy the "Glade Experience" do think about volunteering next year.

For our main fundraising event this year we decided to try something completely different and it turned out to be a most interesting evening.

Antiques expert Eric Knowles started off the evening by valuing “antiques” bought by people attending and picked out various items which he talked about and valued in the second half of the evening. He gave a most informative and amusing talk in the first half, not only on his work in the antiques world but also about his family, and showed various slides relating to what he was talking about.

Eric Knowles generously gave a copy of his book as a raffle prize and the lucky winner had it personally signed by him at the end of the evening.

We are grateful to the local companies who gave us sponsorship for this event, which was well publicised in local press and in a window display at the Tourist Information Bureau, who kindly sold the tickets for the event. Those who attended had a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

Jenny James, Lady Captain of the Canford Magna Golf Club in 2010, chose East Dorset Citizens Advice Bureau as the charity for the ladies section of the club to support during her term of office. She said that during the 9 years that she had been a volunteer advisor at the bureau she'd seen how much help it gives to people in the local community, and the cause had become very dear to her heart.

She presented a cheque for £921.10 to Diann March, Chairman of The Friends of East Dorset CAB. This money was raised though raffles, cake and book sales, and donations. Diann commented that this money is very welcome, particularly as the local CABs get no government funding for their voluntary work, and so rely heavily on donations such as this.

We had six Santas taking part in the Santa Fun Run at Badbury Rings. The weather was ideal - relatively mild and bright and sunny - but despite this there was still a bit of snow on the far side of the course. Our Santas all enjoyed the event, and are now collecting their sponsorship money which we estimate will be £462. The heavily disguised Santas in our picture were (left to right) Joan Taylor (Treasurer of The Friends of EDCAB), Gillian Dawson (Employment Specialist), her husband Adrian, Tony Molloy (Bureau Manager), Pat Temple (Advice Services Manager) and her son George.

Along with five other mad colleagues clad in full Santa suits (including beards) I lined up on a rather cold and frosty Sunday morning in mid-December to tackle the annual Santa Fun Run, which I felt was a strange name because I didn’t anticipate a lot of running, and certainly not much fun!

On a course that involved circling the Badbury Point-to-Point Course twice I was relieved only to hear that we didn’t actually have to negotiate the fences. Following a half-hearted warm-up led by a presenter from BBC Radio Solent whose name escapes me, I resolved to start at the back of the field and use the first circuit to ‘ease’ myself into what would be my first race for more years than I care to remember.

I needn’t have worried, the field quickly divided itself up into those ‘hares’ who departed at a frightening and frankly, given the underfoot conditions, dangerous pace, and those ‘tortoises’ who had no intention of doing anything other than walking the entire 4 miles. I thus found myself somewhere in the middle of a ribbon of red and white clad entrants of all shapes and sizes marvelling at the eccentricities of this island nation that leads us to do such things.

In a relatively short, and surprisngly pain-free time it was all over and I found myself smiling at my fellow competitors and exchanging notes on ‘that frozen bit down at the bottom of the field’. I was amazed – I’d enjoyed it, and I’d helped to raise some money for the Bureau. It hadn’t been at all what I had expected. I’ve kept the Santa suit and who knows I might even do it again this year........

There was a new venue for the Swimathon this year. Canford School has a lovely, modern pool in which we had the luxury of one lane per team. Two teams were entered supporting the Friends and although we didn’t do the most lengths on the day we had fun and felt that we had pushed our swimming skills to their farthest extent. We were encouraged in our endeavours by the promise of supper cooked by Gillian Dawson who had to complete her quota of lengths early in order to prepare it. We are grateful to everyone who sponsored us and for the excellent supper.

The Bridge Day hosted by Katie Norman on 14th January was a great success. 48 people played bridge at her home in Sturminster Marshal and all enjoyed themselves immensely. Katie provided a superb lunch and ran a raffle. She was ably assisted by her old CAB colleagues, Chris P, Jan D-C, and Chris I and his wife. The day raised £645 for the CAB funds.

Here are some photos taken when the garden was open.

A very enjoyable evening with the Chicago Jazz Aces at Cranborne Village Hall in May raised a total of £1214, including Barclays Bank's generous sponsorship.

This was the third year this event has been held and money raised exceeded the previous 2 years, netting £304.

The weather improved as the afternoon progressed, as did the event in general. As always, there had been a wonderful turn out of Friends and advisers to offer support, so that at first the helpers outnumbered the customers. But before long we were all rushed off our feet; barely able to keep up with demand.

Two small complaints were received – some took a dim view that the crusts had been cut off the sandwiches and other thought that there weren’t enough meringues! We’ll try to do better on both counts next year – yes, it will all happen again next year, folks, be there or be square!!