A Wonderful Evening at The Mill Theatre Raises Over £5,000 for Project New Ngoma

Supporters of Project New Ngoma enjoyed a wonderful fundraising evening at The Mill at Sonning on Saturday 2 May, helping raise over £5,000 for the New Ngoma School Project in Zambia.

Thanks to the incredible generosity of everyone involved, the event and subsequent donations have helped raise an outstanding total of over £23,000 so far! This takes us very close to our next milestone of £24,000 enabling us to start the build of the second unit.

Audience member Vickie Squires captured the spirit of the evening perfectly in her wonderful account of the night:

"A fantastic evening was had by all who attended The Mill at Sonning on Saturday 2 May!

The rain stopped just in time so that Polly Vacher could greet everyone at the entrance and thank them for supporting The New Ngoma School Project in Zambia. ( www.projectnewngoma.org) . After drinks we were ushered to our dining tables via a view of the raffle prizes; notably a signed and numbered tiger print by the artist David Shepherd, a leopard print by the artist Dan Channon,   a hand carved African Chief’s chair and two tickets for the next production at The Mill Theatre.

We were able to converse for a little while to get to know our table guests and order our delicious dinner; and then we were introduced to our experienced auctioneer Tom Best.  Tom’s expertise has made over 20 million pounds for charity! (www.theauctioncollective.com) There were only two items to auction, the first being a magnum of Pol Roger Champagne and the second item was a set of very rare books, “Heart of the Antarctic” by Ernest Shackleton. These first edition  (1909) books contained pull out maps and prints of original water colours. Some pages were uncut and the books were in their original bindings.  Tom provided hilarious comments whilst elevating the lot values higher and higher!

Next up were the raffle prizes announced by David Miles . All the recipients were so thrilled to win their prizes during which our delicious desserts were served.

Finally the bells rang and we were summoned to our theatre seats to watch “Jack and Sarah”, a play adapted from the film by Duncan Abel which had both sad and humorous scenes and captivated the audience. Just viewing the life like baby (doll) was fascinating. Two actors stole the show; Anya De Villiers who played the nanny and Rufus Hound the homeless man. We all went home with a warm glow provided by the talented cast!

Many thanks to Polly, Peter and the volunteer events team for a fabulous evening to remember."