News

The Jane Goodman Charitable Trust donates £100,000 to Headcase!

  • Posted: June 2021
  • Posted by: col@headcase.org.uk

Headcase is delighted to bring you news of the biggest single donation that we have received to date.

The Trustees of the Jane Goodman Charitable Trust recently agreed a donation of £100,000 to support our Thanks a Million! campaign to raise £1 million to help fund a human trial of the cancer vaccine being developed by the Wizards at NTU.

The incredibly generous donation was made in memory of Dr Jane Goodman, a key figure in Paediatric Dentistry, after she sadly passed away at the age of 70 in 2019 having suffered from a GBM.

The Trustees decided to use some of the Trust’s funds to make a donation to GBM Research. They found Headcase on the internet and liked what they saw. The donation, principally, will go towards commemorating Jane by sponsoring the Research Nurse on the upcoming cancer vaccine Trial.

Colin Speirs, Head Fundraiser, at Headcase commented:

“I’m blown away by this, and very grateful indeed for a donation that makes a huge difference to our campaign. All of us here at Headcase feel proud that the Trustees chose us to help keep Jane’s memory alive, and believe this will inspire others to donate and raise more funds in our quest to find a cure for GBM”

The Trustees of the Jane Goodman Charitable Trust commented:

“Jane Goodman was a woman of many talents. Professionally an eminent paediatric dentist. When she died, a colleague wrote from Australia, “She was a true force in our speciality with an inspiring, if at times terrifying, strength of character. I am just one of the many hundreds of dentists who she influenced and in doing so she impacted the lives of countless children around the world”.

She was interested in everyone and everything. She had an appetite for travel and culture. She became a brilliant silversmith, and developed her talents for jewellery-making and ceramics.  Her cooking was legendary – always a treat, and never knowingly under-catered. She was a proud Jew; she believed in tradition, which in part manifested itself in valuing and caring for other people.  Though she did not, as they say, have her troubles to seek, after her retirement she put a lot of time and effort into volunteering for charity, but never boasted about it. Her humour was of the self-deprecating kind.

Above all, she made friends wherever she went and whatever she did.  She had not just a talent for friendship, she worked at it.  She cherished her friends.

Jane was one of those people who made a difference.  Her brain tumour was huge, inoperable and of course out of the blue – devastating for anyone, but she did not complain about the illness or, what she must have felt particularly, the loss of independence.  She left money for charity, and we are glad to be able to contribute to Headcase, whose way of going about things we feel appropriately reflects our dear friend’s approach to life.”

The Future Gets Written Today!