MAJORCA´S CHARITY EVENT SEASON...

By Humphrey Carter
MAJORCA starts getting into celebrity charity mode this week with both the annual Robert Winsor charity golf tournament and the Pirates Adventure charity premiere both being launched this week. The Pirates Adventure premiere raised 75'000 euros for Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital (GOSH) last year and on May 6, with the help of tour operators Thomson and First Choice, will be hosting this year's charity premiere. A number of key celebrities have already agreed to fly to the island to lend their support to the exciting night and spend time with a group of child patients from the hospital who are invited down to the island with their family every year for the event and a holiday. Ex-Olympic winner and BBC presenter Sharron Davies, actresses Claire Sweeney and Angela Griffin, ex-footballer and presenter John Fashanu, ex-Olympic athlete and BBC presenter Sally Gunnel, tv presenter Sian Lloyd, Liberal Democrat MP Lempic Opik, former world champion boxer and tv personality Nigel Benn and Coronation Street star Sally Lindsay are just the first names on what is going to be a star-studded guest list all over again this year. The Pirates Adventure has raised so much money for GOSH and channelled so much energy into helping the hospital, a Pirates Adventure Majorca wing is being built at the world-famous hospital. May is also the month for Robert “the million-euro man” Winsor's celebrity golf tournament at the Real Golf de Bendinat.
This year's event will be Winsor's 8th in Majorca having already raised a staggering 1'216'650 euros for handicapped and disadvantaged children in the Balearics. On June 11th last year, Winsor was awarded the MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours for services to the handicapped both here in Majorca and in the UK where he held eight celebrity tournaments before moving to Majorca. Winsor's celebrity golf charity has just paid 5'000 euros so local girl Nuria can have a desperately-needed operation at a special clinic in Guadalajara on the mainland. Last year the clinic rushed to the aid of a disfigured child whose mother made a plea for help on prime time television. Celebrities helping Winsor this year will be “Big Ron” Atkinson, Jasper Carrott OBE, Brian Close BCE, Jess Conrad, Phillip deFreitas, Mike England MBE, Joe Goodman, Norman Hunter, Kenny Lynch OBE, John Miles, Johnny Moore, Paula Randell, Rocky Taylor and Peter Stringfellow. Many of the celebrities have pledged their support to Winsor's charity right from the very first Majorca tournament and return year after year to help further the cause which, as always, is backed by the Real Golf de Bendinat and Santa Ponsa Country club as well as a host of local and international residents, personalities, sporting heroes and businesses who donate items to the charity auctions.