Hospice Heroes help at revamped club

Chequers Social Club, Harbour Lane, Warton. Committee member Dave Nicholls.

Chequers Social Club, in Warton,has recently had a major revamp, the first in 40 years, and inspired by the lift it’s given the place, members are now supporting The Gazette’s Hospice Heroes  campaign.

Committee members at the club on Harbour Lane are keen to be able to help Trinity Hospice and Brian House children’s hospice have their own refurbishment.

Hospice Heroes is aiming to raise £200,000 to be spent on revamping the facilities on Low Moor Road, Bispham.

Committee member Dave Nicholls said four collection buckets around the premises are just the start of the club’s support for the palliative care unit.

A beer festival planned for January will also help to raise funds.

He said: “The social club has always supported the hospice, we’ve had a whisky bottle we’ve been filling that’s almost full.

“Reading The Gazette’s support triggered the idea for me, I thought, ‘Hang on, we can do something here’, and the whisky bottle’s not really the way to do it.

“Now we’ve got four buckets too.

I’ve weighed one and it’s pretty heavy already.”

The club’s own revamp was done mainly by its 400 members and has seen the rooms redecorated.

At the hospice, The Gazette’s campaign funds will be put together with a £280,000 grant from the Department for Health to convert rooms to single occupancy in the adult unit and to make the children’s area brighter and safer.

Mr Nicholls added: “You can’t not be impressed by them at the hospice. It’s satisfying to help them.

“We’re all on the Fylde coast so let’s all do this fund- raising together.”