Cast Away Cancer 2016 - £21,000 raised

The annual Cast Away Cancer event took place in the form of a 48 match from 8th-10th of April 2016 at Packington Fisheries’ Broadwater Carp Syndicate raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support and what a weekend it turned out to be. The organises of the event were amazed, by Friday morning when they added up the totally from the sponsorship money the anglers had worked hard to raise over the past 6 months had hit last year’s target of £12k. It was a shock to everyone that was involved. The target for this year’s event was £15k and before the match had even started the charity was sitting on a healthy £18k with all the online auctions & blackouts accounted for.

The highest individual fund raiser was Craig Stannard who raised over £2360 and had the honour of fishing alongside Darrell Peck for the duration of the match with John Butcher in 2nd place with an amazing £2350 raised who had the delight of fishing with Chris Appleby. Jimmy Hibbard and Joe Turnbull also provided tuitions throughout the weekend from auctions that were won on social media.

The event was supported by Trakker Products for the second year running and the organisation team at Cast Away Cancer cannot thank Trakker enough for their support. The family and friends BBQ took place on the Saturday afternoon with Midland’s retailers Fosters of Birmingham supporting Trakker showcasing a selection of their bivvies, shelters and many more products to the public. The BBQ was a great success and visitor’s had the opportunity to pick the brains of Darrell Peck, Chris Appleby, Joe Turnbull and Jimmy Hibbard. Many raffles took place throughout the afternoon with prize of the day going to Nathan Tilsley who won the Grand National sweepstake and took home a Trakker Tempest brolly, overwrap and groundsheet that Trakker kindly donated to the charity. A big thank you must also go to Ian Catharell from Capturing Memories who kindly photographed and filmed the whole event for us, you can watch the video by visiting the ‘Capturing Memories’ YouTube channel and see any photos taken by Ian on the Cast Away Cancer Facebook page.

The match was eventually won by Lee Walker who travelled all the way from Scotland to fish the event. Second place went to Nicki Lea who also won the prize for biggest fish with Tom Baker taking third. The Cast Away Cancer event is organised by Jonny Robins, Matt Wright, Ricky Bates, Michael Ward and Richard Huckvale; the lads are still blown away that the event raised a staggering £21,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support. The organisers are overwhelmed by the support received from the angling industry and public; all the hard work has paid off. Planning for the 2017 event is already underway as the Cast Away Cancer team hope to raise even more money. You can follow all the latest news on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

Jon Robins: "After starting the charity three years ago with Alan Tring & Ricky Bates we did not expect to be where we are today our target for year 1 was £6k and we doubled it and we haven’t looked back since. I always remember sitting in the Carp Talk HQ with Bev Clifford and I mentioned that we are looking at starting a charity. She warned me that there were loads of charities out there and if we wanted it to be a success we had to be different to the rest and be very professional. Well I took that on board and we came up with the concept of highest fundraised would fish with a star angler. Since the first event we have grown and we will continue to grow with the backing of all our sponsors and the guys who take time out of there weekend to come and help us. The 2017 event is going to be bigger and better than any year so far we have decided to take a huge step and I am confident it will pay off for us. I would personal like to say a massive thank you to Matt Wright for all his hard work this year on getting the prizes in for us. If it wasn’t for him I don’t think we would be where we are today. Plus the help from Michael Ward and Richard Huckvale by stepping in and helping out through the year. "