APSCo charity ball raises over £67,000 for ChildLine

APSCo charity ball raises over £67,000 for ChildLine

The Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) rose over £67,000 at its 2011 charity ball for ChildLine. The ball was held on Friday 25th November at The InterContinental on Park Lane, London and sponsored by First Choice Software.

This year’s black tie event saw over 450 guests from the professional staffing industry taken on a trip through time with a mystical Mount Olympus theme. Guests arrived to a champagne reception and were treated to a special surprise performance of ‘authentic’ Greek dancing by Britain’s Got Talent finalists Stavros Flatley. Stavros Flatley also kindly preformed for free for ChildLine.

Other entertainment from the evening included a disco after dinner, a full size Formula 1 car driving simulation, karaoke, casino, fun photo booth, auctions, lucky dips and more.

Subita Mahtani, a counsellor from ChildLine and the evening’s guest of honour, was on hand to deliver a moving pre-dinner speech on why ChildLine is so important to children in the UK and how the money APSCo Members raised will help. Subita also shared some of her own experiences of working for ChildLine. 

The £67,000 raised by APSCo members will be enough to help ChildLine to: recruit and train over 40 councillors; cover nearly 1,000 hours of running costs for volunteer shifts; provide over 1,595 counselling sessions for children; or to answer over 16,750 children’s calls for help.

Ann Swain, Chief Executive of APSCo, comments: “The ball was a huge success for both APSCo and ChildLine. The £67,000 raised will be a great help to ChildLine’s cause and it was wonderful to see everyone in attendance digging so deep for such a worthwhile cause.”

In September 2011, APSCo was announced as an official partner of the NSPCC. The NSPCC’s ChildLine, APSCo’s chosen charity, was formed in 1985 and since then has lent help, support and practical advice to all children under the age of 18. In 2006/7, ChildLine provided counselling to over 600,000 children. By 2011 it aims to provide counselling support for 1.2 million calls plus 380,000 online and SMS contacts.