‘This year’s Batemans catering stall at the Truck Festival in Oxfordshire was as crazy and brilliant as ever,’ writes trustee Alex Jacob.

‘With 45 wonderful volunteers enthusiastically helping to chop, cook, stir, open tins, wash up and serve about 2,000 portions of food and helping raise more than £17,000. And there was an additional £200 raised by the lovely porridge ladies who used our stall in the morning before people were ready for curries!

‘Trustee Marion Mills masterminded the purchasing so skilfully that we only ended up with a few spare tins at the end (having started with a hall-full of them!). Marion had even managed to procure lots of donated coconut milk after befriending someone on the bus to Oxford!’ (Ed’s note: proof that it’s always worth chatting about Batemans’ charity work to new faces.)

Alex continues: ‘Rachel and Ruth managed to juggle all the volunteers into a timetable of shifts and with a team who had nearly all done it before, we were pretty efficient… but the favourite job for many is still towing the ‘Truck Wagon’ up to the stall laden with steaming tubs of curry! Thank you everyone who made it possible!’

Marion adds: ‘One of the most rewarding elements is the number of return customers – not just during the event itself, but also year after year.’