• Home
• Aims
• Projects
• Impact
• Support Us
• News

• Who we are
• Funding Guidelines
• Contact Us

The SHINE Benefit Dinner

The 2011 SHINE Benefit Dinner took place on Thursday 17th November at Old Billingsgate. It was a huge success, with SHINE's friends and supporters raising more than £500,000 in just half an hour before enjoying a superb performance by music legends Nile Rodgers and Chic. Thank you very much to everybody who helped make the evening so incredible.

Since 2001, SHINE has held regular Benefit Dinners for our supporters and their families, friends, colleagues and clients. Stylish, sophisticated and oozing with atmosphere, SHINE's Benefit Dinners have earned a reputation for superb hospitality, top-notch production values and an attention to detail that gives every single guest a great night out.

Most recently, the 2011 Benefit Dinner was another superb evening for SHINE's supporters. Egged on by the BBC's Nick Robinson, guests pledged a huge number of donations towards our work, before finishing the evening dancing to 70s disco legends Nile Rodgers and Chic. Click here to read more about the night.

Location, location, location

The 2011 event was held at Old Billingsgate market - an enormous venue that we transformed into a stylish, intimate space (think candle-lit dinner for 450 people). We were last at Billingsgate in 2004, when Kool and the Gang (pictured below) played a barnstorming set that even saw guests singing and dancing up on stage. It was this amazing experience that prompted us to approach Nile Rodgers and Chic in 2011 - with equally memorable results.

Past Benefit Dinners have also been held around the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum, among the autumnal trees of the Royal Hospital Gardens, amid the echoes of rock legends at the Roundhouse in north London and underneath Rubens' magnificent painted ceiling at the historic Banqueting House.

Whatever the location, guests can always expect a warm welcome and superb service. The evening kicks off with champagne, cocktails and canapés, often accompanied by live music, such as jazz bands, string quartets and up-and-coming singing talent. Guests then sit down to a sumptuous four course dinner with unlimited wine (or champagne, if you prefer) before having their ribs tickled with comedy from names including Rory Bremner, Jon Culshaw and Jimmy Carr.

To see the menu and wine served at SHINE's most recent Benefit Dinner, click here. Download Now

Going once, going twice

Then there's the auction, live drama, unfolding right before your eyes. We've offered guests fantastic holidays and unrivalled access to major sporting events. Some have gone behind the scenes to meet their favourite sporting teams; others have had the thrill of a lifetime. Previous auction items have included:

• A private dinner for 8 people with BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson, Today Programme and Dragons Den presenter Evan Davis, Sir Gus O'Donnell - Cabinet Secretary to three prime ministers - and Gavyn Davies, formerly Chairman of the BBC
• A private dinner for 12 people with SHINE Patron and Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, together with another football manager, chosen by the successful bidder
• A round of golf for two people, joined by Gary Lineker and Alan Hansen
• A private dinner for eight people with Nobel Laureate and former US Vice President Al Gore, along with A-list couple Richard and Ruth Rogers at their Chelsea home
• The holiday of a lifetime on two private islands in the Bahamas
• Amazing behind-the-scenes tour of Manchester United to meet Sir Alex Ferguson and his team
• A weekend of golf for five at Valderrama, via private jet
• Exclusive behind-the-scenes access with BMW Williams F1 Team at Monza
• A week's safari for eight people in Kenya in utter luxury: ensuite bathrooms, 24 hour tent service and swimming pool (honest)
• The chance to scream through the Swiss Alps in a Hawker Hunter fighter jet
• Skiing for four people in Colorado with Olympic super-legend Franz Klammer and World Speed Skiing Champion, Franz Weber

To view the programme for SHINE's most recent Benefit Dinner, click here. Download Now

Confessions on a Dancefloor

Once the auction has concluded, it's time for live music from famous bands, guaranteed to get you on the dancefloor, strutting your stuff and shaking your booty, while the drinks continue to flow on the sidelines. SHINE events have played host to intimate concerts by Bryan Ferry, Gabrielle, Mick Hucknall and Beverley Knight, not to mention rip-roaring sets from Sister Sledge, Lulu, Status Quo and, as mentioned above, the legendary Kool and the Gang and the equally fantastic Nile Rodgers and Chic.

Finally, when you have had your fill and your feet can take no more, it's time to go home, your body tired but your mind tingling with memories.

Looking ahead

Frankly, we're not as young as we once were and, after a series of very late nights (and some pretty strong cocktails), we're taking a short break.

If you would like to be kept up to date about future SHINE events, please contact Paul Carbury or call him on 020 8393 1880.

In the meantime, if you are sufficiently impressed by our in-house impresarios, making a donation online is quick, safe and secure, so please feel free to give what you can.