This year's Defence Academy Music and Fireworks evening raised a heartening £13,700 for charity, which is a grand total given the atrocious weather on the day of the event.  Driven by the proverb that ‘charity begins at home’ the organising committee decided that both Service charities and local charities should be the benefactors from the event; the three Service benevolent funds were awarded £8700 between them and two local charities, Freyabeya and Tantivy, each received £2500.

Freyabeya is a small musical charity, formed in memory of Freya, a local Watchfield girl born in 1999 with several life-limiting conditions who died when she was only five.  Freya’s mum, Sarah-Jayne Dawes, set up the charity to raise money to enable special needs schools to buy live music, ranging from resonance boards through to high-tech sound beams and live musicians - depending on what is needed to motivate the children.

Tantivy is a respite home in Stanton Fitzwarren operated by the Swindon Primary Care trust NHS that provides care for families with children with learning disabilities and additional complex needs. The £2500 donation is contributing to a fund to purchase a dedicated mini-bus for the centre to enable them to take the residents out on local excursions.

The committee would like to thank all those who attended and supported the event, and urge you all to put Thursday 15th July 2010 in your diaries for next year's Defence Academy Music and Fireworks which promises to be bigger and better than ever before.

Photograph Paul Coombe