Celebrating a year of successful fundraising

Director’s Year End Blog:  Professor Tim Elliott, Director for the Centre for Cancer Immunology, looks back on 2017, a year celebrating successful fundraising.

In 2016 we saw the new Centre for Cancer Immunology (CCI) building rise from the ground as a concrete skeleton, reaching its final height in October – marked by a celebratory ‘topping out’ ceremony attended by the University, the Hospital and Kier (the builders).

This year, it was watertight by January, and by the summer we could see the internal architecture coming together. Our fantastic fundraising team has been running at maximum speed – bringing in a further £5m to the campaign this year. It has been a real pleasure to work with such inspiring and professional colleagues as they have motivated hundreds of University and hospital staff, students, alumni and members of the local community to get involved.

A good example was in February. When the building was wearing nothing but its silver thermal underwear, the rest of us wore white for World Cancer Day and the team launched a successful social media campaign to raise awareness and engagement.  There will be another #WearingWhite day on 1^st Feb 2018 but, in the meantime, check out last February’s blog.

Another example was the ABP Southampton Marathon, Half Marathon & 10k in April, where the “You’re it” campaign fielded a team of over 230 runners who together raised an amazing £40k for the campaign.  Look at the pictures on our Facebook page and you’ll see many faces from the Faculty of Medicine – including stalwart runners Mark Cragg and Andy Steele.  You might even catch sight of the odd Faculty Dean among them!

In July, the band Coldplay made a donation to the campaign, thanks to drummer Will Champion’s connections with the University of Southampton.  Will’s mum and dad were both professors here and after he lost his mum to cancer, he brought the band behind him to support cancer immunology in his home town.

In October we announced our largest single gift after the original seed-donation:  £2m from a Guernsey resident.  It brought massive media attention, and the 10th was one of those days when we just had to put normal business on hold to make sure all the radio and TV requests got seen to.

In August, just five months after she visited us for a lab tour, we had the very sad news that Dame Helen Alexander, formidable chancellor of the University since 2011, died of cancer.  You can read about her life as a leader in the Guardian obit  and on Wikipedia. In November there was a fundraising concert in her honour, by the Great Milton Singers and Wheatley Singers. They performed Brahms’ German Requiem, with two other choirs and a full orchestra. Dame Helen’s husband Tim spoke and sang with the choirs at the concert, raising £1,000 for the campaign.

Looking ahead, 2018 will be a busy and exciting year for our new world-leading Centre for Cancer Immunology.  We are looking to move in on 18 March, are planning an event to mark the Centre construction completion for 24 April, and are hoping for an official Royal opening event in early summer, followed by a day of ‘first-look’ tours for our key supporters. With a final fundraising push, we hope to raise the £25m and close the campaign by end July.

So with these key dates in sight, and having reached 96 per cent of our target, we leave 2017 behind on a high and look forward to making the final six months of the campaign even more fun and productive!

Tim

Professor Tim Elliott, Director for the Centre for Cancer Immunology and Professor of Experimental Medicine

PS: On the campaign website, you can also see all the news stories, including the research stories.