Charlene (a Newcastle Royal Victoria Infirmary Ward 2 children’s haemodialysis patient) completed a fun day out at Metroland by winning a prized GOLDEN TICKET for a trip to a local chocolate factory.

Radio Lollipop Newcastle enjoyed a great day out at Metroland in Gateshead courtesy of local charity, Just for Kids. We were provided with 40 free day passes to take patients and siblings for a day out at the theme park based in the North East’s biggest shopping centre, the Metrocentre.

As always, volunteers and children joined in the fun and games and won plenty of great prizes. However, none could top Charlene’s golden ticket, which she received after winning a competition to wrap up her sister in toilet roll!

The ticket entitles Charlene and three guests to visit the Nestle Chocolate factory and metro Radio studios for the day.

Charlene said “We’ve had a great day and it’s all possible because Radio Lollipop passed the tickets on to us. It was fun to meet Wayne and be involved on the stage. We are so pleased to take part and want to encourage other teenagers to get involved in their local Radio Lollipop events!”

It was great to see so many people sporting their Radio Lollipop badges on the day. Thanks to Jo and Steph from Just for Kids for their continued support for the Newcastle branch of Radio Lollipop and for arranging a great day out.

Pictured above: Charlene Henry (far right) with her sister and nephew, Metro Radio presenter Wayne Tunnicliffe and Radio Lollipop Newcastle’s Play Co-ordinator Helen Hudspith.

For the 17th year running, Radio Lollipop caught festival fever and took part in the massively popular Festival Cavalcade in Edinburgh.

The gang at Radio Lollipop Edinburgh took on the theme of ‘Under the Sea’ and transformed an ordinary tourist bus into a magical underwater scene – complete with pirate ship and dancing pirates on top!

Almost 100 floats, marching bands, dancing troupes and all manner of other groups of performers took to the streets to launch the annual Festival.

More than 3000 performers travelled a route around the city centre to the joy of over 150,000 spectators who lined the streets watching the moving spectacle free of charge.

Radio Lollipop helped celebrate National Playday 2005. It was a huge event, organised by Activ8 (www.london.gov.uk), held in London’s Hyde Park on 4 August 2005, with five different zones: an under-5s zone, a teen zone, food zone, body zone and mind zone. Many thousands of children and adults went, including runner Linford Christie and the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone.

There were lots of fun activities throughout the day at the Radio Lollipop roadshow – including professional dancers from Pineapple Studios, music, games and competitions – and lots of prizes were given out!

In other parts of the park, there were lots of exciting things to do including obstacle races, bubble shows, cycling, cooking experiences and an extreme skating and biking show.