Lighthouse Construction Industry Charity Christmas Lunch was held at the Park Plaza Hotel in London and raised £227,000 for construction families in crisis, which was a record amount for the event.

To get the celebrations underway, there was ice cold Guinness in the drinks reception and soon afterwards, guests were being welcomed into the grand dining room by London Irish Voices singing seasonal renditions.

Doug Oakervee CBE was bestowed with a Lifetime Achievement Award by Cormac MacCrann, Chair of the Board of Trustees and awarded a bespoke diamond embossed gold Lighthouse pin.

BBC commentator and former Scotland international Ian Robertson was Master of Ceremonies for the day and kept the audience entertained with insightful rugby stories. The fundraising kicked off with a heads and tails competition, a golden ticket prize worth £1000 and a raffle. Both the winner of the £1000 golden ticket and one of the raffle prizes donated their prize money back to the charity.

The afternoon also saw HQR London (High Quality Residential) awarded with the ‘Peter Capel’ Cup to recognise their substantial fundraising contribution this year. The “Peter Capel” Cup has been awarded each year to acknowledge outstanding contribution to our charity. HQR have raised over £80,000 in the past two years by holding an annual Summer Ball.

The star of the live auction was a JCB 19C-1 Conventional Tailswing Mini Excavator which was very kindly donated by Lord Bamford. Bidding was very competitive but it was John Martin Hoyes, Managing Director of JMH Environmental and Construction Ltd, that scooped the coveted excavator with a bid of £16,500.

Guests were then treated to some top class entertainment with our special, ‘Live at the Lighthouse Club’ feature. As well as being our fantastic auctioneer, Russ Williams was the anchorman for top comedians Henry Paker, The Chase’s Paul Sinha and Welsh tenor, Wynn Evans, all of whom had the guests cheering for more.

Bill Hill, CEO of the Lighthouse Construction Industry Charity said: “We are continually astounded by the generosity of our supporters and we are truly grateful to everyone that attended the lunch and dug so deep. A special thank you goes out to all the volunteers that help on the day itself and to all our sponsors who make these events possible, we couldn’t do it without you. This ongoing support means that we can continue to help construction families in crisis and make a real difference to people who may have nowhere else to turn.”

Next year’s event is set for the same location on Friday 7th December.