£500 for New Horizons, Narrowboat for the Disabled.

We are pleased to announce that our 2010 Calendar sales made a profit of £500, which we have decided to donate to New Horizons, the Narrowboat for the disabled based at Marple Wharf on the Macclesfield Canal. New Horizons was commissioned in 1981 by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales and is operated by a registered charity, Stockport Canal Boat Trust for Disabled People [Reg. Charity no. 1075844]. The charity was created by the then Mayor of Stockport, the late L. Gordon Bayley M.B.E., whose charity appeal raised the money to build this specially designed boat.

Unfortunately sales were not as good as previous years, partly due to us not attending as many events and maybe because we had some competition with a rival calendar being published by others. Anyway, as £500 is around half what we had hoped to raise based on our track record (see below) we have decided to nominate New Horizons to receive the profits from our 2011 calendar too. If we can match this year that will give them a total of £1,000, or more if we can emulate the greater success of earlier years.

If you'd like to help support New Horizons directly yourself read about how to "Float their Boat!".

Would you like a credited photograph of yours to be seen in countless countries around the world?

Marple Promotions in co-operation with The Marple Website are running a competition to find new pictures for their 2011 Marple & Mellor Calendar.

For the first time ever we invited local photographers to submit their own pictures to be considered for inclusion in our 2010 calendar. Some great contributions from Nick Sheldon and Svetlana Roberts made the final selection and we’d like to thank them for their help and support. We’ve decided run the competition again for our 2011 calendar, so your contributions could help us to raise even more money for New Horizons.

Click this link to our Marple Promotions site to find out what you have to do

This year's donation of £500 to New Horizons takes our total raised for local causes to £4,700. 

Our 2006 calendar sales raised £1,200 towards the Iron Bridge Restoration Project funding, a cause close to our hearts.

We were delighted to donate £500 to the Friends of Marple Memorial Park and £500 to Marple Locks Heritage Society from our 2007 calendar sales. The Friends of the Park used their share to create a replica Memorial Stone on the outside of the Bowling Green shelter built by ex-servicemen returning home from the First World War. Marple Locks Heritage Society put their share towards a cast bronze plaque dedicating the 'Lock 17' flowerbed display on Oldknow Gardens in memory of the late Gordon Mills.

We contributed £1,000 to the new Infants Play Area in Marple Memorial Park from our 2008 calendar sales and it's great to see this revitalised facility being so well used every day.

Following sales of our 2009 calendar we were very pleased to hand over a cheque for £1,000 towards the Marple Business Forum's chosen charity, the 'Find a Cure for Martha' Campaign.

Mark, Martha and Peter pictured by Arthur Procter during the 2008 Christmas Cracker event on Saturday 6 December 2008.

To see details of our previous calendars visit our Marple Promotions site.