Beneficiaries

We are immensely proud to be enabling this large community of dog lovers to make such a difference to the lives of older dog lovers in their neighbourhoods across the region.

Frailty, bereavement and isolation can creep up on anyone and if you’re a dog lover, when you’re feeling vulnerable you benefit enormously from the love and comfort of a lovely dog, a regular visitor who they count as part of the family. At the same time of course, they get a very nice two legged dog loving friend for a regular chat and a cuppa, a real friend who raises a flag if they are in any trouble. Friends for life.

 We are extremely grateful to the Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust for continued support of the delivery of our unique befriending service in the North East. The latest award has funded 7.5 Visiting Wag Teams (VWTs) for a year, improving the health and wellbeing of our older friends by reducing their loneliness and social isolation.

The impact we are making…

Since we started in 2016 we have made over 96,746 visits and are currently benefitting 2,831 older people across the region. As of 31 March 2023 we have 426 VWTs with 33 applicants in our pipeline, we are visiting 164 people in their own homes and 184 care and medical establishments with another 232 on our waiting list.

We know that Covid-19 has exacerbated the loneliness experienced by so many older people in our region and now they are facing the additional worry about rising living costs – the need is greater than ever. So growing our home visiting service, unique to Wag & Company in the North East, is particularly important because it helps us reach more socially isolated older people. It enables older and vulnerable dog lovers to have safe, regular face to face contact and develop a long lasting relationship with a fellow dog lover and their dog from within the community. Providing them with a positive and constructive relationship to
help their health and wellbeing by being socially connected.

We have also recognised the additional benefits of regularly visiting people who live alone. For instance, noting an empty fridge, a creeping change in physical or mental health, the ignored consequences of a fall, practical issues with carers or home DIY etc. We are always able to assist, raise the alarm or both.

The generous donation from CCCT has enabled us to undertake Phase 2 of the
refurbishment work of the Club.

At the commencement of this project the Club engaged the services of a local architect with
expertise in the restoration of listed buildings. We felt this was an essential element in
ensuring any building work did not detract from the building’s heritage, and complied with all
of the planning requirements.

As we detailed in our submission to you, the key objective was to upgrade the club room and
hospitality area, known as the “Dedans”. This is the main area used by members and was
shared by the Club Professional and Club Administrator. We have refurbished the lean-to
building at the current entrance to the court to provide a workshop, so that many of the
professionals’ tasks making balls and restringing rackets can be carried out there. This has
allowed for the Dedans to provide members and guests with a comfortable club room.
A major part of the Phase 2 works involved levelling of the floor in the Dedans which was
stepped, together with installing a drinks and coffee area. The room has been completely
refurbished, replacing the old radiators, ceiling and lighting and redecorating. Ahead of this,
we had to undertake remedial work to the Dedans roof which had started to leak. We also
refurbished the bench for spectators which we understand was original when the court was
opened in 1894.

We are very grateful to the Trustees of CCCT for their generosity which has made
such a difference to us.

Designability is a charity that enables disabled people to live with greater independence.

Designability is creating a wheelchair-attachable pushchair to allow parents who are manual wheelchair users the opportunity to take their babies and young children out independently.

We are so thankful to CCCT for their support in this project.

“We can’t thank CCCT enough for the funds we have received towards Solar Panel’s for April Cottage. Jessica’s Sarcoma Awareness has a respite holiday home for children fighting Cancer to create beautiful memories.
During the past 12 months our electricity have double in costs so the solar panels are a essential addition”

There are three Ukraine families and one Afghan family benefitting from the CCCT. Seventeen people in all. Ten children aged 4-17 years of age. The CCCT provided the funds for the purchase of four newly built homes to offer sanctuary in Newcastle upon Tyne. The homes were offered ready to live in and are let at social housing rates in line with DWP guidelines. The income derived from the properties is being donated to a church in the city to facilitate its continued interest in welfare of refugees and others. The families are now settled in their new homes and schools and are appreciative of the Trusts initiative.

Thanks to the incredible support of the Trustees at the Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust, we have been able to deliver world-leading research in Newcastle and beyond, which is helping to transform the lives of people facing cancer.

The CRUK Newcastle Centre is home to a CRUK Drug Discovery Programme and the Newcastle Adult and Paediatric Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres which bring together lab scientists and clinicians to speed up the flow of ideas and new treatments from the lab to the clinic. Our senior research nurses in Newcastle facilitate the delivery of high-quality clinical trials and studies, getting new treatments into the clinic sooner.

Through the world-class research we’re funding with the help of the Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust, our scientists at the CRUK Newcastle Centre are making tremendous progress. From personalising treatment for children’s brain tumours, to making immunotherapy more effective for people with liver cancer, we have been able to fund key research programmes in Newcastle which are vital to our mission to beat cancer. Thanks to the exceptional support of the Trust this year, we have been able to equip our scientists, doctors and nurses in Newcastle and elsewhere in the UK to advance their work at pace and deliver the outcomes that are so desperately needed.

Our vision at Cancer Research UK is to bring forward the day when all cancers are cured – from the most common types to those that affect just a few people. We support over 4,000 scientists, doctors and nurses to find new ways to diagnose cancer earlier, develop new treatments and inform policy makers and the public about reducing cancer risk.

At Evelina London, we support some of the most vulnerable and critically ill children across South London, South East England and beyond.

We are incredibly grateful to The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust for their longstanding support. Over the past decade, there has been a growing demand for our specialist services and a 50% increase in the number of children we see – we now treat over 55,000 children each year. With the help of donors like The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust, we are able to provide an above and beyond service to each and every child in our care.

Donations from the Trust have enabled the purchase of two transport ventilators, which help critically ill children to breathe during emergency transportation to the hospital. This is especially important as Evelina London is home to the South Thames Retrieval Service, which transports over 800 critically ill children to intensive care units in London each year.

The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust has also supported the purchase of life-saving pieces of equipment for our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), which is one of the busiest units in the country, including incubators for very premature babies and those born with complex congenital defects. Through the Trust’s generosity, we were also able to purchase a state-of-the-art ultrasound machine for our NICU. The machine is a vital, non-invasive diagnostic tool and allows our staff to monitor the organs of our tiniest patients, including the heart, brain, kidneys, bowel and liver.

The new machine is part of the daily life of our NICU and we are incredibly grateful to The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust for enabling us to provide the very best care and treatment for critically ill children.

We were thrilled to accept an incredibly generous donation from the Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust towards equipment for our Newcastle Hospice. This support will bring enormous benefit to people with a terminal illness and their families across the North East.

It is vital that patients feel as comfortable as possible within our hospice and are able to cherish each day with their families and friends, which is why specialist equipment such as beds and mattresses are so important. The profiling beds assist in maintaining comfort and dignity during nursing procedures and aid infection control, whilst the use of high specification pressure relieving mattresses can greatly reduce the chance of developing painful pressure damage. With the support of the Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust we were able to purchase 12 specialist beds and 16 specialist mattresses.

We were also able to purchase eight McKinley Syringe Pumps which provide a continuous dose of medication to control symptoms such as pain, sickness and agitation. It is so important we keep our medical facilities up to date in order to continue to deliver high quality care for our patients.

The Marie Curie Hospice Newcastle has been caring for people since 1995 and all our services are completely free of charge. The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust donation means we can continue to deliver the best quality care in a comfortable and welcoming environment. Because when you are living with a terminal illness, every day of your life matters.”

This new building will create a unique opportunity to link UCL’s expertise in immunology research and bio-engineering to specific clinical problems that affect over six million people nationally.

The new research facility will be based at the Royal Free Hospital campus and will combine dedicated, state-of-the-art research, clinical, and teaching spaces. It will provide the best possible infrastructure for research, training, and clinical delivery, and will more than double our research capacity and the number of clinical trials we can run. Furthermore, it will house patient accommodation so that patients can feel comfortable when receiving treatment, ensuring that our translational research is truly “bench to bedside”.

This world-class facility will provide the perfect environment for collaboration. It will house academics from UCL’s Division of Immunity and Infection with their medical research expertise and unparalleled knowledge of basic science, together with clinicians from the Royal Free who specialise in diagnosing and treating patients with a broad range of diseases affecting the immune system. Breakthroughs happen when researchers and clinicians are together and have the freedom to collaborate: the right people, from the right disciplines, with the right knowledge – in the right place, giving them access to the latest equipment and to diverse groups of patients.

This is the environment we are building with the IIT. Practically that will mean spaces for meetings, sharing equipment, receiving training together and building personal interactions to achieve the common goal of advancing research in this area. This collaborative ‘bench to bedside’ approach will be game-changing for patients and something that would not have been possible without the support of The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust.