15 Dec 2015

Tanya Bocking Memorial Fund Closing Accounts


After operating the Tanya Bocking Memorial Fund for ten years, the administrators have decided it is now a fitting time to close the fund and will use the balance of the fund to support its host Adventure Unlimited. 

There were a variety of reasons for this; a principal one being that Tanya believed in keeping things simple and with the members of Adventure Unlimited who knew Tanya moving on elsewhere, the fund's administration was becoming complicated and while AU faced financial challenges it was fitting to make use the funds to support the organisation Tanya loved and had benefited. 

In these days when many billion-pound charities spend less than 50% of their income on charitable causes, the administrators are proud to have met the challenge Tanya would have set them to ensure that donors' money wasn't wasted. As and when recipients report what they have done with their grants their stories will be published here (but for many good reasons some may not want to publicise their receipt of a grant).

INCOMES
Anonymous £4,117.00
Abseil £5,708.00
Brent Alpha Fund £250.00
Gemini Foundation £5,000.00
regular donor £1,040.00
regular donor £1,288.00
regular donors £107.00
collection 2007 £151.00
donor 2004 £30.00
donor 2005 £250.00
donor 2006 £120.00
donor 2006 £140.00
donor 2010 & 2011 £650.00
donor 2011 £500.00
donor 2013 £100.00
gift aid £1,994.00
total income £21,445.00
GRANTS MADE
grants 2015 £785.00
grants 2014 £2,424.00
grants 2013 £2,566.00
grants 2012 £3,125.00
grants 2011 £1,250.00
grants 2010 £300.00
grants 2009 £393.00
grants 2008 £3,224.00
grants 2007 £908.00
grants 2006 £1,504.00
pledged 2016 £525.00
EXPENSES
admin £502.00
printing £199.00
abseil site £190.00
RESIDUAL
residue to AU £3,550.00
total expenditure £21,445.00

5 Apr 2015

Noël Brown remembers



I used to teach guitar at Elliott School and remember Tanya as a bright individual who actually wanted to learn, unlike others who came to me so they could get out of a lesson they didn't want to do.

Like Tanya’s friend Louisa, another pupil, I recently searched Google to see how people I used to know got on in the intervening years. It came as a big shock to learn about Tanya’s passing.

I have good reason for remembering Tanya as, at the beginning of one lesson, we both discovered that we were fans of MAD magazine. I mentioned that I particularly liked the work of Don Martin who drew silly action cartoons for them. Without further prompting Tanya handed me an A4 sheet of Don Martin sound effect cartoons, printed as stamps and gave them to me. I was extremely grateful for this gesture as I hadn't known of their existence.

Having read of Tanya after leaving school I am impressed. In the short time I knew her I recognised her confidence and thought she would go on to better things after school. I expect I'm somewhere in a long line of people who were lucky enough to know her and her generous gesture regarding the cartoons will be with me always. I am still a musician, the cartoons are still funny and I still think of Tanya’s unprompted generosity.

Dr. Noël Brown
SW17 7HH

In the event that anyone wants to contact Noël about Tanya please get in touch with Tanya's brother Nat.

30 Mar 2015

Lesley Thomson


Tanya figured significantly in the life of novelist Lesley Thomson or is it the other way around? They both grew up in the same road and I recall Tanya credited Lesley's mother May (a former headteacher) as a tutor and mentor during her 'O' levels. Lesley was a bit older - nothing now in relative terms - but in pre-teenage years someone four years older was practically grown-up and Lesley was looked up to as someone both fun and clever and wise.

Lesley's latest novel The Detective's Secret mentions Tanya in the author's acknowledgements and the settings in the story in Chiswick and Hammersmith are all places very familiar to both Lesley and Tanya.


29 Mar 2015

Time for T


I can't think of a photo which better encapsulates Tanya in her element.