Softball and more: the Harris Hill Charity Series

As part of our commitment to the sector, we sponsor a hugely popular series of inter-charity events including a giant quiz night, ten-pin bowling and the London Charity Softball League!

Collectively known as The Harris Hill Charity Series, the contests get more popular by the year, with co-sponsors Bluestep Solutions, RNB Group and Bright Spot Fundraising now also providing fantastic support, while the tireless organising committee (all from charities themselves) do an outstanding job of organising the hotly-contested events each year.

We're delighted that the events really bring charities together: more than 120 charities now take part in the softball league every year, with well over 1,000 participants and supporters getting involved from charities like RNIB, CRUK, Sparks, Muscular Dystrophy UK, the British Heart Foundation, Mind, CLIC Sargent, Marie Curie, Diabetes UK, Macmillan Cancer Support and many (many!) more.

Not forgetting of course the cup-winning champions of both 2016 and 2017, CoppaFeel and Movember UK, collectively known as Tits'n'Tache!

Aside from the series' events, staff at Harris Hill regularly organise and participate in our own array of charity fundraising activities, from dress-up days to sponsored walks, the London Marathon, rugby matches and the occasional attempts at baking. 

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July 2018: Latest from the softball league

Hard to believe it's here already but this year's league has hit the quarter finals!

It'll be a super-competitive couple of weeks as the 24 remaining teams are knocked down to the last few standing, who'll be tussling for one of the tremendous trophies at the grand finals on Thursday 16th August.

There could be some new names taking the honours too, having already said farewell to half of last year's finalists, including a surprise knockout for the British Heart Foundation last week, while things finally went Tits'n'Tache up for last year's winners too.

You can keep up with the build-up on Twitter and we'll be talking to the teams who've made the finals on the Harris Hill blog very soon.

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February 2018: Charity Quiz Night

February's annual inter-charity quiz night was another huge success this year, kicking off the 2018 Harris Hill Charity Series in style!

For all the details of what went down and who came out on top, check out our blog via the link below:

The 2018 Charity Series is off to a winning start!

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November 2017: Striking it lucky

2017's Charity Series bowling night was an absolute ball, full of friendly competition and surprises galore on the scoreboard too.

Over on our blog, you can get the lowdown on the throwdown in our post-match report.

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Get ready to roll!

As the nights draw in and the clocks go back, that little beacon twinkling through the darkness can only mean one thing: yes, it's time for Age UK to comprehensively thrash everyone at bowling again!

Or will they? Last year a strong challenge from Macmillan Cancer Support came close to toppling them, Action on Hearing Loss maintained their impressive top three placing, and with strikes to spare from Anthony Nolan, St Mungo's, St Joseph's and many others it really could be anybody's game..

We'll be there with the beers, pizza and those all-important medals for the players, while selflessly keeping the bottom end of the scoreboard warm (totally intentional, of course). And with an enormous 39 teams taking part this year, selling out in record time it's all looking set to be a big, big night on November 23rd!

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The London Charity Softball League finals, August 2017

Well, another summer season of softball may have shimmered into the September sunset (ok, late August but we're anyone's for a little alliteration, look at our name) - but what a fantastic finale it was!

The pitches at Hyde Park were probably the busiest and undoubtedly the buzziest we've seen in our long history of supporting the league, with the cheers of the hugely supportive crowd carrying far and wide as the three tightly-fought contests reached their conclusions.

Taking second places but nonetheless able to hold their heads up high - or as high as possible under the sheer weight of an almost-priceless 100% genuine imitation silver Harris Hill medal - were the valiant teams from Muscular Dystrophy UK, Save the Children and Mind.

But the grand honours went to Cancer Research UK for the Harris Hill Plate, a nailbitingly close finish saw the Raptors of British Red Cross raise the BlueStep Shield, and taking home a trophy for the second consecutive year, this time the mighty Harris Hill Cup, the seemingly-unstoppable Tits & Tache! Can they bust their way to a third win next year or will their chances finally get a little hairy?

We'll be back in 2018 to find out for sure - our thanks as ever to the brilliant organising committee who do the really hard work (not forgetting founding father of the league Leo Visconti who couldn't be there for the first time ever but was surely somewhere in spirit!), our fellow sponsors RNB Group for the post-match pints, BlueStep Solutions for our fantastic new tent, t-shirts and much more, and above all the sheer energy and enthusiasm of the hundreds upon hundreds of players and supporters of charities from all corners of the sector, who continue to make the league such a pleasure to be part of.

If you'd like to register an interest in getting your charity involved in next year's league, the aforementioned Mr Visconti is the man to talk to - or just get in touch if you'd like the details of how to do so.

Meanwhile you can check out more pictures from the grand finals over on our Softball Gallery page!

Last but not least, here at Harris Hill we ran something of a softball-themed contest of our own over the summer, and the result was revealed on Friday 1st September. So it's congratulations to the winning player in our prize draw, Jonathan Birrane of The Children's Society, who are the team we'll be taking on a great night out to celebrate very soon!

That's all from us for softball this season but with the approach of autumn it's almost time to bring on the bowling - look out for details of the next event here soon...

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Charity Quiz Night - February 2017

We're delighted to say that this year's quiz night on 21st Feb was a record-breaking success! Packed to capacity as ever, a fantastic selection of prizes from fellow sponsors Snap Print Management, together with the teams' generosity, helped us to achieve record sales of raffle tickets, contributing to a grand total of more than £1500 raised for the Mental Health Foundation.

Huge thanks to everyone involved in organising, our excellent hosts Patch Bar, Snap Print Management, and many congratulations to the team at Friends of the Earth UK who can legitimately claim to be the smartest people in the charity sector, at least for the next 12 months! Obviously as key sponsors, our very own Harris Hill team were playing just for fun, deliberately trying not to win: clearly the only possible explanation for our score so we're sticking to it!