Pocket App and serial entrepreneur, Barney Quinn, hosted a fun-packed wine tasting night and raised over £6,000 for charity.
18th July 2016, Reading – Last Thursday, over 80 business people got together for an evening of wine tasting at Forbury’s Restaurant in Reading in support of the Thames Valley Byte Night for Action for Children. In total, more than £6,000 was raised by the local business people, who bid for auction prizes as well as entering into a raffle, while sampling fine wines provided by the restaurant.
Longstanding supporters of Byte Night, Paul Swaddle, Chairman of Pocket App, the UK’s largest independent app developer, and Barney Quinn, serial entrepreneur and non-exec director for a number of AIM listed companies, were the organisers of the event. Xavier Le Bellego, owner of Forbury’s Restaurant, hosted the evening, giving guests an excellent overview of the wines being sampled.
Byte Night is a fundraising challenge which sees hundreds of businesses across the UK sleep rough at ten different locations, including Reading, to raise vital funds for youth homelessness services delivered by Action for Children. Last year, simultaneous sleep outs took place in Reading, London, Cambridge, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Belfast and Edinburgh.
Paul Swaddle, Chairman, Pocket App, comments: “I’ve worked with Action for Children and Byte Night for seven years and the wine tasting evening that we have been running in support of the charity for the past six years has proved very successful. So successful in fact, that this year we had to turn a few folks away as we simply had too much demand from people who were keen to attend and be involved. Not only does the event raise the profile of Byte Night and Action for Children, but it is a great networking evening and most importantly, it raises large sums of money which can be put to local projects across the Thames Valley region.”
Barney Quinn, serial entrepreneur, added: “I am keen to do what I can to make a difference to a young person’s life and to spread the word so that others can learn more about Byte Night and how they can get involved in this great initiative. The wine tasting evening is the perfect vehicle for us to do this. On the night, we gave away some fantastic auction and raffle prizes, many of which had been generously donated by local businesses. These included VIP tickets for Reading Festival, test match tickets for England versus Pakistan, hundreds of pounds’ worth of wine and dinner vouchers at a number of local restaurants and even a Star Wars light sabre!”
This year, Thames Valley Byte Night is taking place on Friday 7th October in Forbury Gardens. If you are interested in getting involved or sleeping out, please visit the Byte Night website via http://www.bytenight.org.uk/ or call Paula Elliott on 01189 497736.
