Burns Supper in Bristol, February 2025 

On the 8th of February 2025 Gilly Wilson (Hanking Evans) and Andy Vaughan organised a Burns Supper in Bristol for the Jo Walters Trust and the local Scouts, and boy they did a wonderful job!

The sell out event brought together a wonderfully diverse group of people who ranged from people in the local area involved with the scouts, to former Bristol students and friends of Jo, and some of us even travelled from Scotland to be there. Many people had never danced a reel before and were guided through these intricacies by a very skilled reels organiser, dancing to a super band. It was testament to his enthusiasm that the floor packed for every dance with young and old(er!). The haggis was addressed in no uncertain terms by Eliza and Peter, who took great delight in cutting it up 'wi’ ready slight' and conveyed with feeling its 'warm-reekin, rich' splendour. Burns would have been proud, and Jo would have been thrilled.

So many people worked exceptionally hard to bring it all off, including the bar 'staff', raffle ticket & (delicious homemade) cake sellers, the sausages/onions and haggis disher outers, not to mention those who had to deal with the plumbing. Many hands also helped with lights, decorations, furniture, carrying supplies, sweeping / cleaning and raffle drawing.

It was wonderful to see so many people having a great time celebrating Burns and all things Scotland. Jo would have loved everything about it: one of her favourite things was getting people together especially to dance reels, and particularly if they were novices. 

Not only all of that but it also raised £1,440 which was split between the Scouts and the JWT. This is all the more impressive given the tickets and food/drink were all kept to the lowest possible cost. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Gilly and Andy who made it all such a success!

The Jo Walters Trust held a

St Andrew's Ball

at

Rossie on the Earn

Forgandanny, Perthshire, PH2 9HR

on

Saturday 30th November 2024, at 7 p.m

On the 30th of November, the Jo Walters Trust held a St Andrew's Ball at the stunning Rossie on the Earn in Perthshire, raising money for both the Jo Walters Trust and Hopefull. It was a superb evening of dinner, an auction, and dancing to the terrific SuperGrouse band. 

We are delighted that the evening raised over £10,000 which will help fund more grants for outdoor education maths and send young people sailing with the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust in the coming years. 

Thanks in particular to:

• Leonie and Matt from Rossie who provided such an equisite venue. We are incredibly grateful to them for everything they did to make it such a successful and fun evening. 
• Georgina Coleman and Katie Peters who donated their enormous experience and valuable time to bring off a(nother!) fabulous evening.
• SuperGrouse who survived breakdowns and another long journey from the south to delight us all with their awesome music once again.
• The Pickled Haggis Catering Company for providing such delicious food, served by their lovely team
• David Fox Pitt for inspiring us about the plight of Ukraine and being a fabulous auctioneer and Jo who made sure everything came off as it should. 
• Charlie Bradford for his lovely piping as the guests arrived
• SHL Photography for taking such stunning pictures. If you need a Perthshire based photographer she's just starting out and we would recommend her very highly

And to all the generous donors of auction lots and raffle prizes. For a copy of the brochure, please click here)

The Jo Walters Trust held their

St Andrew's Ball

at

The Edinburgh Academy

42 Henderson Row, Edinburgh, EH3 5BL

Saturday 26th November 2022, at 6 p.m

On the 26th of November, the Jo Walters Trust held a St Andrew's Ball in Edinburgh at The Edinburgh Academy, It was a superb evening of dinner, an auction, and dancing to the terrific SuperGrouse band. Just so lovely to be back 

We are delighted that the evening raised over £8,500 which will help fund more grants for outdoor education and maths in the coming years. 

Thanks in particular to:

• Established Events - Georgina donated her enormous experience and valuable time to bring off a truly memorable evening. 
• Bruce Walker for being such a superb auctioneer,
• SuperGrouse - WHAT a band.
• The Edinburgh Academy who were a dream to work with
• Finesse Marquees for the twinkle lights
• Lark Rose for the stunning (sustainable) table decorations
• Blackthorn Salt who supplied their delicious Scottish sea salt for the tables 
• Bread and Butter Marketing for sponsoring the wine

And to all the generous donors of auction lots and raffle prizes. For a copy of the brochure, please click here)

What is it?

The trustees of the Jo Walters Trust will head out for a fund-raising Yuletide yomp, every day between Boxing Day and Hogmanay. But it will be so much more worthwhile if we can persuade our friends around the world to do the same. So sign up, get outside, increase your festive footfall and rack up some mince-pie fuelled mileage! With prizes on offer and oodles of kudos available, we'd love you to do a walk, perhaps make a donation and help us reach our overall mileage target for the six days from Boxing Day to Hogmanay.

Following on from last year’s stellar efforts, we shall be striding out with The Proclaimers’ “but I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more” ringing over ben and glen (or hill and dale, for those south of the border).

And the small print: be sure to do this in a COVID safe way, adhering to whatever regulations are in place where you are.

Boxing Day to Hogmanay December 2020

Everyone loves the idea of a family Boxing Day walk, but the reality is often overtaken by turkey leftovers, the lure of the new presents and re-runs of The Snowman. In December 2020, we came together virtually to walk as many miles as we could to raise money and have a nice time for the Jo Walters Trust. We had initially hoped to walk a combined total of 500 miles or so - the distance from where Jo grew up in Aberdeenshire, to Bristol where she went to University, but in the end we managed over 1000, and raised £2,983.25 for the trust - to put this into context, it should fund our annual round of Maths grants for 2021.

The trustees are so incredibly grateful to all the walkers, mince pie eaters, ploggers, scavenger hunters - and hugely importantly - the wonderfully generous people who sponsored all the above!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

On the important point of prizes - the prize committee, after deliberated long and hard came to their final decisions as follows:

• The prize for furthest distance walked (6 jars of award winning marmalade from Kincardine Castle Kitchen): Hugh Lort-Phillips.
• Most mince pies consumed (2 x Mr Roberelli CDs of your choice) - Team Socks and Sandalls
• Best Plog-olution Plogging (some chocolate brownies again from Kincardine Kitchen): Team Bristol (Gilly Hanking-Evans).