David Scott, treasurer of The Light Fund, looks back on 20 years of the industry charity, which has raised almost £2.3 million since its inception in 2004.
It was early in 2004 when a number of licensing business executives received an invitation from Jakki Brown to attend a meeting at the Shillibeers pub next door to the Max Publishing offices on 10 March.
The subject of the meeting was the proposal to create a licensing industry charity, something that had been missing in what was still a relatively small specialist industry in its own right, as opposed to being a part of numerous other industries, e.g. toys or publishing which each had their own charities.
Thus was The Light Fund created. The word ‘Light’ is an acronym of Licensing Industry Giving Help Together. The agreed mission was to provide support and help to Children, Women & Men less fortunate than us. A secondary objective was to create great events for this notoriously socialising industry to enjoy and to create opportunities for networking and developing the friendships for which this industry is renowned.
Two decades further on and we are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the birth of The Light Fund. From being a small charitable fund at its inception, it became a registered charity in 2012 and the five founder members still serving from that first meeting are now part of a much larger cohort of enthusiastic trustees, themselves supported by so many equally determined volunteers, without whom The Light Fund would never have achieved so much.
The Light Fund has supported 168 charities so far, that have each changed people’s lives for the better. It is also honoured to make donations in memory of those industry members, or members of their families, that we have sadly lost along the way, to show that the industry shares their loss. It also makes a point of supporting charities which provide research and/or relief for specific diseases or challenges affecting our industry members e.g. Brain Tumours, Breast Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, Bowel Cancer, Neonatal Care, Pancreatic Cancer etc.
But what fun it has been along the way! The annual Quiz Nights are a fixture for many people, with Ian Hyder’s early suggestion of big pants for the losers now acquiring legendary status as ‘the thing that must be avoided’. The equally loved Treasure Hunt notably increases the takings of many London pubs, as well as The Light Fund coffers.
Allied to this we’ve had Golf Days, Comedy Nights and numerous other similar fun events, but it is perhaps the big events that have drawn the biggest support and a feeling of togetherness within the licensing industry.
It started with a bobsleigh trip in Innsbruck where the main challenge seemed to be to drink the hotel dry rather than survive the bobsleigh descent – success on both counts! A massive bicycle ride from London to Holland – of course! Let’s make it harder and do a four-day cycle ride to Dublin – why not?
Too easy, you say, then let’s row a boat from London to Paris – seriously? And who can forget some of the crazy swimming challenges proposed by Stephen Gould, culminating in the great English Channel Relay in 2022 that gave the industry a day we’ll never forget, when we pretty much downed tools to follow the social media feed as our two teams, who’d trained so hard and were so splendidly sponsored by the whole industry, finally made landfall in France and raised £288k into the bargain.
So thank you to all of those who’ve supported The Light Fund in its endeavours. The generosity of the licensing industry is amazing and continues to be so, even when times are tough. Here’s to another 20 years!!
The Light Fund has so far raised almost £2.3 million and details of its activity and donations can be found on its website (www.lightfund.org) where you can also buy tickets for the next Light Fund event, the Treasure Hunt on 18 July.
