On Tuesday November 20th, CRY held its first ever event at the prestigious National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, London – a breakfast and private view of the exhibition “Renaissance Siena: Art for a City”.

On arrival, guests were served a continental breakfast of orange juice, skewer of fruit, a selection of Danish pastries and tea and coffee, while they listened to the short speeches.

CRY Founder and Chief Executive, Alison Cox MBE, thanked all the guests for attending; GlaxoSmithKline for helping with the funding of the event, and the National Gallery for allowing CRY to hold the event at their venue.

She outlined some of CRY’s recent successes as well as plans for the future, including the Coroner/Pathology project; the first CRY Bridges Sponsored Walk led by Patron Kathryn Harries; CRY’s annual international conferences – the first of which was supported by Glaxosmithkline; and the joint Philips/CRY “Save our Athletes” screening initiative.

Kathryn Harries, CRY Patron, very kindly stepped in at the last minute, as our guest speaker, Emily Maitlis, was unable to attend the event. Kathryn gave a short speech on how she became involved with CRY and a moving account of how she felt when taking part in the Bridges Walk with so many bereaved families.

The speeches ended with Professor Greg Whyte explaining the importance of the “Save Our Athletes” initiative.

The guests were then given an informative guided tour of the exhibition led by guide Carly.

The event gave us an opportunity to thank some of our London based corporate and other supporters, and was attended by Patrons Mark Cox MBE and Roger Taylor MBE as well as Kathryn Harries.

Invited corporate guests included representatives from GlaxoSmithKline; Chubb Insurance Company of Europe; Deutsche Bank; Royal Bank of Scotland; Lehman Brothers; HSBC; South East Media Network; BskyB; M S and L; Kiehl’s and shu uemera; and Persimmon Homes.

CRY Staff and Trustees in attendance included Professor Greg Whyte; Dr Timothy Bowker; Alison Cox MBE; Steve Cox; Tony Hill; Anthony Shaw and Rebecca Zouvani.

CRY would like to thank GlaxoSmithKline; the National Gallery; everyone that attended and Vicky Deigman for once again volunteering her services as photographer at the event.