The ever popular Christmas Quiz has been won by a local library lady!
It’s going to be cakes all round at Sudbury Library, as librarians celebrate a four- year act of kindness that has reaped an unexpected dividend.
When members of Sudbury’s Kernos counselling centre arrived at the library in autumn 2003 to ask librarians if they would help out by selling copies of the charity’s first ever Christmas Quiz sheet, the answer was a sad and regretful “No”.
“It was against regulations,” says librarian Sandra Curtis.
“But they looked so disappointed that a group of us quickly agreed to buy copies of the £2 quiz sheets for ourselves.”
Since then the librarians have faithfully bought quiz sheets every year, counting among Kernos’ best customers. And now the original kind- hearted act has paid off.
Sandra who lives in Great Cornard, has just won the 2006 Christmas quiz, giving the competition a definite local flavour again, after last years win by an 11 year old Brussels school boy.
The first call on her £40 prize money will be the cakes treat for library colleagues.
“Anything over will go towards my holiday”, says 60 year old Sandra, who should by rights have retired last year, but instead joined the growing army of over 60s who believe that work is just too interesting and too rewarding to be given up in a hurry.
So with the Kernos fundraiser Snowy Evans already turning his mind to the 2007 quiz, does Sandra have any helpful hints for next Christmas ‘would-be winners?
“I do quite a lot of competitions, and I say Think Laterally and Think Twice, especially where Kernos is concerned” she says “Sometimes the answer isn’t quite as obvious as it looks.”
This year’s quiz has raised monies for Friar Street based Kernos, which provides a professional Counselling & Psychotherapy service, to people affected by a wide range of emotional and psychological problems, including depression, anxiety, trauma, sexual abuse, domestic abuse, eating disorders, bereavement, stress, and work related issues. The charity’s AGM earlier this month heard that 144 people were referred to the Kernos Centre in 2006 by community mental health teams, GP’s, and other health care professionals. The charity offers financial support to those unable to pay for the service and no one is turned away through lack of means.
Treasurer and Trustee of the charity Andrew Landsdown says “The quiz is one of the many ways Kernos looks to increase our desperately needed funding and the money will be quickly put to good use”. With the demand for counselling support growing every year he says ”We are deeply grateful to Delta Print Sudbury for printing the sheets free of charge, and individuals, and organisations, such as the library, for buying the quiz. .Extra money will go towards reducing the waiting time which can be as long as 6 months for regular counselling sessions.”
Our thanks again must go to Deltaprint of Sudbury who produced this quiz without charge so that all monies raised can go to our Charity.
Last year our Winner was a very bright young man called Thomas from Belgium, so you can see we have support from International places!