Trust history

The Start of the Trust

Prior to Garry returning from America immediate family members and a few close friends had begun fund raising. Julie & Derek Shepherd in Whitworth organised a series of door to door collections round the various estates in Whitworth. These went very and several more were organised round districts of Rochdale.

Family friend Tony Attwood had called to see Garry a few days before the cancer was re discovered to see how things were and to help him look for flights for the proposed holiday. Two days later Garry when phoned to tell him of the reoccurrence and to say they planned to set up some kind of fund. This was to help pay to get Robyn to America to see if treatment was available. Tony set about organising the first website for the appeal and formatting the administration side with first designs for posters letters etc.

Garry meantime contacted Zen Internet in Rochdale the ISP he used and asked for advice on setting up the website and registering a web-address. Mark Halliwell became our contact at Zen and we soon had the first site launched. They donated free web space and helped to register www.robynbrooks.co.uk

The Robyn Brooks Appeal as we now called it was in full swing. It soon became apparent we needed more help, so with help from close friends the appeal committee was formed and everybody assigned tasks. We decided that some form of logo would help our appeal standout from the many other fund raising bodies in the area. As Garry always called Robyn his “ Little Ray of Sunshine” we looked at a sun motif the preliminary design Garry and Tony found was sent to a professional badge company and the Robyn’s Fund Logo was created.

We soon had people contacting us offering to help with events. The response was staggering one person even left £1000 in a jar on Julies doorstep.

The committee now met on a regular basis and large mail shots to all corners of the UK began to bring in money and raffle gifts.

Through a committee contact the first pub to help was the Hare & Hounds Inn at Stacksteads Rossendale.

They put on a fun day including head shaves fancy dress etc with the first one raising a staggering £2106.21p. They went on to raise well over £3000.

The people of Rochdale by now had got behind the Brooks Family with help from the Rochdale Observer who now reported every event.

The Robyn Brooks Trust would like to thank the Rochdale Observer and their staff for their continuing help and support.

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