is a unique, memorable and altruistic way of donating to our amazing charity.

Dancer Laura Amy Maplebeck did just this when her husband set up a

as a surprise gift for her 30th birthday.

Inspired by the story of Ava Fletcher (pictured in the inset above) – one of her students who has had open heart surgery at LGI for CHD, Laura wanted to do something special to celebrate reaching 30 years old.

Laura told us:

I am a professional dancer based in Barnsley and founder of StarMovers Dance Academy. We teach dance to children from 6 months to 6 years old and have approximately 200 students attend our classes each week. I teach Ava Fletcher, a little girl who had heart surgery and whose parents credit you guys hugely. This little girl melts my heart and seeing her smile in class is like a beacon of light! I want to send your fund the money raised for my birthday because children are such a big part of my life and to think there are children out there who have such battles in life is so sad. What you do is a beautiful thing and I would be happy to donate these funds to mark turning 30.

It will be 4 years this June since Ava had lifesaving open heart surgery at Leeds Congenital Heart Unit.

The surgery was unsuccessful at the time and Ava needed more procedures 8 weeks later to remove an aneurysm.

Ava’s parents told us they are eternally grateful for all the time they’ve had with her since.

The family are huge advocates of Children’s Heart Surgery Fund, and are currently raising money to support the heart ward and help fund our state-of-the-art theatre (through our

) as Ava will require more surgery in the future.

As an alternative to presents,

is a terrific, heartfelt way of asking others to commemorate your special occasion.

.

In July 2016, NHS England published a set of proposals regarding the future commissioning of congenital heart disease (CHD) services for children and adults.

Earlier on this month, NHS England published a consultation document setting out their implementation plans.

The effect of the proposals, if implemented, will be that some hospitals will carry out more CHD surgery and catheter procedures, while others, which do not meet the relevant standards, will stop doing this work.

For Leeds, the proposal is that we continue to provide all our current services, and there is the possibility that we will be asked to increase our activity, depending on the outcome of the consultation.

The consultation document and details of how to respond are available at

.

The aim of this public consultation is to provide staff and the public with information about the proposals, and the potential impact they may have, if implemented, on the delivery of services, and to seek views about the plans.

The consultation period runs until 5 June 2017 and during the consultation period NHS England will be attending a range of events, and hosting three large-scale face to face events and a series of webinars, details of which can be found at

A meeting has been arranged in

on

from

in the

at

.

• There’s no need to register for the Leeds event
• The format is going to be: presentation at 5 and then Q&As afterwards
• It would be useful if you read the consultation document before attending

Please share this with anybody who you think will be interested.

Our Christmas cards have now sold out on our online shop, and consequently in the CHSF office.

But our Christmas eCard (see the protected version above) is now available in return for a donation.

It’s the perfect way to spread festive greetings without the hassle of stamps, postal addresses and final postage dates.

, but add “please can I receive a copy of the eCard” within the Additional Comments box at the bottom of the page.

As long as you’ve supplied an email address we’ll send it to you straight away.

A massive thanks to everyone who bought our regular Christmas cards, we really appreciate the support!

We have thoroughly enjoyed working with Harrogate’s Belmont Grosvenor School for the past two years!

Not only they have raised an amazing £10,832.25, but they have also made a massive difference to children affected by Congenital Heart Disease in our region.

Belmont Grosvenor School’s involvement began after Jack Hartley was born with a hole in his heart in 2014, and had open-heart surgery when he was only a few weeks old.

His aunt, Mrs Fearn, is Speech and Drama teacher at the Harrogate independent prep school.

She suggested the school chose Children’s Heart Surgery Fund as their charity for 2015.

One of their members of staff underwent open-heart surgery that summer, cementing their decision to support our charity for a second year.

The pupils, staff and parents have taken part in many activities to support us, here’s just some of them:

• The school organised a sponsored swim each year to raise much-needed funds.

• They also took part in an Easter Hunt in 2015, and brought lots of Easter eggs for the children and their families on the wards and outpatients in 2016.

• In 2015, Belmont Grosvenor organised a drawing competition, and the winner of each class saw their work framed and displayed in the newly refurbished Outpatients Playroom and Waiting room. It was an honour to officially open the room in the presence of the winners, their families and members of staff. We particularly enjoyed the children explaining their drawings of ‘A Grand Day Out in Yorkshire with the Family’. The pictures look fabulous!

• That same day, the children also made a little girl’s day – she had been on the ward for a very long time and it was nice for her to see and talk to other children.

• Mrs Merriman, Headteacher, braved Ben Nevis to raise further funds for the charity – well done and thank you very much!

• We have also really enjoyed the two Summer Balls organised by the school’s PTA – outstanding events in the breathtaking environment of Belmont Grosvenor School!

• The money raised by pupils, staff and parents funded 14 INR self-testing kits in 2015…

• and the school made a subsequent contribution towards our Keeping the Beat appeal this year.

We can’t thank the pupils, staff and parents enough. It has been a real pleasure to work with them all, and we’re very grateful for their fantastic support and kindness.

Thank you Belmont Grosvenor School – you’re a class act!

Our fellow heart charity Tiny Tickers is filming some patient experience videos in Yorkshire.

And they’re looking for a family that wishes to take part.

The series of short films will be used on the

to help families when they receive a diagnosis.

The charity is looking for a family who received a diagnosis during pregnancy that their baby had a heart condition, and whose child is now aged anywhere up to 3 years old.

Filming will take place in south east Leeds on Saturday, November 26 and all expenses will be paid.

If you’re able to help or would like more details, please email Vicky at

.

Tiny Tickers focuses on improving early detection and treatment of CHD across the UK.

25 nurses from Ward 51 joined our Lottery a little while back.

They all have a number each and decided that the money they’d win would go towards their staff Christmas Party!

They have already won 3 times, and are looking forward to their night out in December!

Like them, you should join our Lottery as a team (colleagues, friends, family, etc.)

It’s ONLY £1 a week and you have a chance of winning £100 or more every week!

And because our lottery is smaller than most, you have more chances of being the lucky winner!

To join our Lottery, register online,

, or call the office on 0113 3925742.

Now you can send a special message straight from the heart with a CHSF Christmas card.

Our cute new Christmas cards are a perfect way to send your wishes to the ones you love this season.

They’re just £3.50 for a pack of 10.

Not only will you be saving yourself money to stock up on mince pies but you’ll be helping the heart families here at the LGI.

Here at CHSF, every donation helps, and what better way to share the festive cheer than supporting the Children and their families while sending love to your own!

All of our cards come with envelopes.

They can be purchased either:

• online at chsf.org.uk/shop
• over the phone 0113 3925742
• or, even in person if you fancy meeting our fun and friendly staff in the office at B floor, Brotherton Wing, LGI.

We are elated to offer six heart families the chance to take part in a unique Christmas competition!

Multi Flight and Monarch Airways have very kindly given us 12 places to fly on their

voyage.

The festive treat will take flight from Leeds Bradford Airport on Wednesday 7th December.

This competition also celebrates our future partnership with The Yorkshire County Cricket Club – more of which very soon…

• Santa is keen that only children treated at the Leeds Congenital Heart Unit are are to be offered this special voyage
• All passengers must bring a passport or photo ID driving licence to check in
• Local media will also be accompanying us on the flight and taking pictures and broadcast footage. By entering the competition, gives us consent given this to be shared on and after the day
• If one of the six winners is unable to take part I’ll be willing to step in and take part at the last minute. CHSF will endeavour to give you as much notice as possible.

1. The full name of each Santa searcher: 1 x adult name 1 x child name
2. The child’s age:
3. Any special adjustments required and medical needs, including whether you are travelling with a wheelchair or an oxygen cylinder:
4. Any dietary requirements:
5. How many car parking spaces you require on the day:

Only entries with the answers to

five questions above will be eligible for the random draw.

We will conduct the draw using

on the morning of Thursday 3rd November, and immediately email the winners. So if you haven’t heard from us by midday, you unfortunately haven’t been successful!

Full details of the

voyage will then be shared with the winning families.

To give you a flavour of past voyages, here’s some links to news stories from yesteryear:

We wish you the very best of luck, and look forward to seeing you there!

A team of cyclists led by York dad Gary Duncanson completed an epic fundraiser for us in June this year.

He channelled two loves in his life – football and fatherhood –  by cycling 250 miles from Wembley Stadium to the Stade De France in Paris.

Gary’s son Billy received heart surgery at the LGI when he was just 2 weeks old and is now a fit and healthy 18 months old.

From left to right above: the cycling team also included Steve Castle, Jonny Handley, Darren Rudge-Cox and Daniel Howarth. Gary’s partner Jen is pictured with Billy, while Gary himself is with their other son Lucas.

We asked Gary to give us the lowdown on his trip – which will have raised over £5,000 for CHSF, once we add Gift Aid to their donation:

Brilliant and a great experience. Bearing in mind 3 of us had to buy a bike for this challenge you can see how much of one it was. Before I started my training the furthest I’d ever biked was 5 miles to work! 272 miles in total (after getting lost a number of times) and it was incredibly hard at times, but we all loved every minute of the ride and it was well worth it.

Hills! I thought France was supposed to be flat. Getting out of London!! We got lost so much at the beginning which added so much unnecessary mileage and no matter what Boris Johnson says, London is not bike friendly. Also getting into and around Paris was just as bad especially when the banks of the river Seine had burst causing all the flooding not long before we set off and therefore destroyed a large part of our route. This alone added 30 miles. Darren hit a small hidden wall whilst in the middle of nowhere going at some speed. He blew both tyres and spun round, somehow majestically came off his bike and landed on his feet unscathed. His back wheel was a mess but we were only 3 miles away from the nearest bike shop which were few and far between in northern France.

Definitely not. It was more of a symbolic route giving the fact we went from the heart of English football to the heart of French football and with the Euros been on we knew the media would love it and pick up the story. This way we hoped for the publicity and donations for such a great cause so we definitely didn’t regret the destination. We also picked a few donations up on route. Besides, when you met other England fans and they asked how you got there, you should have seen their faces when we replied; we biked!

You can read more about his extraordinary trip in

!

We’re so pleased to have funded a new sofa in the Cardiac and Neuro Outpatients waiting room.

It not only looks fabulous but provides a signposted area for teenagers to wait and relax.

The new space contains higher-backed seating which allows this older patient group a degree of separation from the younger children.

There’s also a leaflet rack and table which will be used to display relevant information.

Senior Sister Judith Shackleton explained:

This new area is to allow a greater degree of privacy for the older children (11-16 year olds) that attend the clinic for outpatients appointments. We had already addressed the needs of the younger children attending clinic however, we wanted to give the older children their own designated space.

In 2014 we funded the refurbishment of the waiting room as a whole, transforming it into a modern paediatric waiting room.

It’s great to see the overall results, making hospital visitors feel that bit more comfortable both physically and mentally.

It’s thanks to you, our supporters, that we’re able to make such positive updates to the hospital environment, so give yourselves a pat on the back!