Well done to all the winners and runners up who submitted entries to the Forsight Christmas 2011 challenge.

You just carry on amazing us! There were many very commendable answers, but the laurel wreath goes (once again) to our regular winner Chris Chantler of Bath with a magnificent score of 97, winning him a cheque for £50.

Second, and earning a £30 cheque, is Alan Flynn of Hunts Cross, Liverpool, who was pipped to the podium by Chris with just a one point margin.

Third is another old friend, Wayne Allen, of Greasby, Wirral whose score of 94 scoops him a cheque for £20. Very well done to all of them.

Then, in order of their scores, came:
91 Margaret Donald
90.5 Brian Stewart
87.5 Jean Baker
87 G. Clarke
86.5 M.J. Clarke
83.5Sue Batch
82 Debbie Rock
80.5 Diane Humble
80.5 Melanie Garner
79.5 Mrs S.P. Beverley
78.5 Tom Ainsworth
77.5 Brian Stone
77.5 Jean Redsell
68 Jill Wickes
59 Polly Helliar
57 Mrs A. Boulter

To download the solutions, just click here (150kb pdf).

After nearly two years of hard
work by our fundraisers, and the extraordinary generosity of the people of
Wirral, we have reached our target of £150,000 to buy the wonderful EYESI
surgical simulator for Arrowe Park Hospital’s Eye Department.

It fulfils our dream to be one
of the first units in the country to have this marvellous technology – and
junior surgeons will now be able to train in cataract and retinal (back of eye)
surgery in the safe environment of virtual reality.

One of the senior members of the
Eye Team, Mr Mark Watts, is the Royal College of Ophthalmologists’ national lead
on training and leads the training of our young surgeons at Arrowe.

His delight at this wonderful achievement is
clear: “I can honestly say that in the 18 years we have worked at Arrowe
we have never come across such amazing generosity from the public and patients
and I can not find words to express our gratitude both to them and to the
tireless fundraisers who worked so hard to drive this forward and raise an extraordinary
£150,000 in less than two years. 

“We already are using the
cataract simulator on a daily basis to train our junior surgeons and now the
addition of the new equipment and software to allow us to train in retinal
surgery as well will really put us at the forefront of eye care nationally.

“Thank you to every person who
donated money, goods or time to the EYESI. Your generosity has helped us save
the sight of many people in Wirral.”

But the fundraising won’t stop here… 

Eye problems mostly are associated with age, and Wirral has a very high
proportion of older people who need the very best possible eye team near them, protecting their vision when problems
arise.

The Arrowe Park Eye Team still has a shopping list of equipment they
want, to keep them at the very peak of their specialism. If you would
like to join the Forsight team and help raise money to support this crucial
work – do get in touch.

Well done to all the winners and runners up who submitted entries to the Forsight Summer 2011 challenge. 

We thought this last Brainteaser was extremely difficult, and couldn't believe anyone could possibly get 90. Amazingly,  two did and the winner – an old friend of ours – scored a miraculous 97.  How he managed it we really don’t know. A further five scored over 80.  The prizewinners were:

1st with 97: C.T. Chantler, of Bath – £50
2nd with 91; Jean Baker, of Chesterfield – £30
Joint 3rd with 86.5 – and sharing the £20 prize – are Diane Humble, of York
and Margaret Donald of Aberdeenshire.   

Then came:

83     Mr and Mrs G.T.Jones
82.5  Jane Tann
82     Mr and Mrs A. Sanders
81.5  Brian Penketh
81     Barbara Murphy (2nd Attempt)
79     Barbara Murphy (1st Attempt)
78     Mrs D. Rock
77.5  Mrs K. Damen
77     Brian Stone
76.5  Prof. Graham Whitehouse
75.5  Mrs Jean Redsell
75     Dr David  O’Halloran
75     Mr K.W. Beech
71.5  Linda Robson
70.5  Gill Wickes
65     Mr and Mrs T. Kane

Entrants came from all over Britain and only two clues defeated everyone… 

55 is “ECT:  Eleven Choose Two”, i.e. the number of pairs which can be chosen from 11.  (Use your calculator to find “superscript 11 C subscript 2”). 

83 is “Parts to Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah”, a code of Jewish law roughly equivalent to the Bible.

And now… to check out all the other clues which drove you potty all summer – click here to download the solution (188kb PDF). This is the last brainteaser that the incomparable David Lennard is going to compile for Forsight, but if enough followers plead with us(!) we will try to find something similarly devilish for you all for Christmas.

Thanks to you all – buying our brainteasers, raffle tickets, cakes, plants and jams has helped raise the £150,000 for the wonderful EYESI Simulator in just under two years. So when you have finished checking these solutions – take a bow!

The Eye Team at Arrowe Park Hospital are keen to buy more equipment to keep them at the forefront of eye care, so Forsight will be continuing raising funds to help save sight in Wirral and beyond.

Those fantastically generous people at Rapid Hardware in Liverpool have ensured that Forsight's plant sales this year will break all records…

This week we have fantastic news to report… Arrowe Park Hospital League of Friends has donated a stupendous £30,000 towards the £150,000 EYESI Simulator. The cheque was presented to Mr Mark Watts by League of Friends representatives Ellen Clark,  Beryl Dare, Ken Robinson and Jean Kaye.

“I cannot thank The League of Friends enough for their wonderful generosity in supporting Forsight.  Anyone in Merseyside who needs an operation to save their sight will owe these wonderful people a lasting debt of gratitude.”

We have just received a bumper parcel of 100 packets of flower, vegetable and herb seeds from the fantastic staff at Suttons… for us to grow on into plants for sale in aid of Forsight.

We have basil, lemon coriander, thyme, chives and sorrel, 'Hundreds and Thousands' tomatoes, yellow hanging basket tomatoes, chillis, peppers, outdoor cucumber, courgette and onions as well as phlox, marigolds and pansy…

We can't thank Suttons enough for their unbelievable generosity – they have ensured the Forsight plants sales are set to break all records this year.

If you would like a full list of plants available for sale, email jenny@forsightappeal.org.uk

Intrepid runner and Forsight supporter Mike Dowsett is also a very keen gardener and allotmenteer, and he sent us pictures of the Forsight plants he bought and grew on – and news of their success…

Mike’s allotment is not only his main source of food all summer, it is the site of his very own memorial garden to the Hillsborough disaster victims (Mike is an avid Liverpool supporter). All spring and summer last year he bought plants which had been raised for sale in aid of Forsight, with a special request that we grow more red flowers this year to fit his Liverpool FC theme! (Everton supporters are welcome to try to out do Mike with orders for blue flowered plants.)

Mike wrote: “Please find attached a couple of images of your wonderful plants I grew last season. With your help, I came 3rd out of over 100 allotmenteers in the flower category of the Caia Park Environmental Group. This, I’m sure will go down well on the Forsight website, encouraging more people to buy what are now award-winning flowers!!!”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Our gardening team will be growing an even wider range of plants this season – salads, herbs, vegetables, plus annuals and perennial flowers. If you would like to be notified when the plants are ready for sale to avoid the disappointment of discovering your favourites have sold out, or you would like to put in special requests for plants, email jenny@forsightappeal.org.uk.

We are very grateful to all those who are organising events in aid of Forsight, and this month we are particularly calling for support for a marathon runner, as well as looking for takers for a golf day and a quiz night…

Here is the long-awaited solution to the absolutely MADDENING Christmas 2010 Brainteaser.

We were delighted at how many we sold, and astonished that so many people spent such a long time unravelling it.  Our  Brainteaser compiler David Lennard received 28 answer sheets, with 11 people scoring more than 90. Fantastic!
For the full list of answers, click here (122KB pdf download).

After all the hard work of our fundraisers, old and young, and the generosity of the people of Wirral, we have now taken delivery of our EYESi cataract surgery simulator in to the Eye Department at Arrowe Park.

Mr. Arun Sachdev, who is currently training at Arrowe Park, practising 
some advanced skills on the simulator.