Welcome to Hassocks Life’s Hassocks Goes Gold event page. Here you will find our most recent information for everything Gold in Hassocks.

Every September, something rather special happens in the village: Hassocks Goes Gold. While many of you are aware that, in 2017, a much-loved Hassocks resident and Windmills pupil, Pearl Dixie Bartlett-Bundy died from bone cancer, aged ten, but newcomers to the village may wonder what this is all about. Back in our August 2019 Hassocks Life issue, Rachel and Jamie Bartlett-Bundy introduced their wish for Hassocks to go gold in memory of their daughter, Pearl Dixie to fundraise vital funds for research to stop similar tragedies affecting other families.

Introducing Hassocks Goes Gold for 2025

By Rachel Bartlett-Bundy

This year, Hassocks Goes Gold returns for another fabulous month of gold fundraising. This year’s theme is goldfish! Be they ornate and elegant or fairground and fun, your pictures of these wonderful golden creatures will be brightening up the village and helping to raise money for the newly-named Children & Young People’s Cancer Association. The PearlPower fund stands at over £125K and has funded its third research project, this time into Ewing’s Sarcoma - the very type of childhood cancer that cut Pearl’s life so tragically short, aged just ten.

Sunflower Competition

The competition is on to to grow the tallest or prettiest Sunflower in the village. See if you can spot sunflowers growing around the village or nurture your own blooms. How tall will this year’s winner be?

Bank Holiday Fun

The Greyhound pub will be in full music mode over the whole August bank holiday weekend with the money raised split between Hassocks Goes Gold and St Peter & St James Hospice.

Poster Competition

Everyone is welcome to join in the annual drawing competition for the gold poster – open to all ages! Adults included too; don’t be shy, as there are never enough entries from adults. Draw your very own goldfish or colour in the pre-printed one on the entry form. It’s free to enter, and, in September, the winners from each age category will receive fabulous prizes and be featured on the Hassocks Goes Gold poster! Plus all entries will be included in the annual Parklands Road Art Gallery. Free entry forms are available to download on the Hassocks Goes Gold Facebook page, via Hassocks’ schools, or pick one up from QD Stationers. The deadline for entries is Friday 4th July.

Go Go Gold

In September, the sponsored trail of Giant Gold Bows will be back, along with the ever-popular daily FaceBook auctions. There will also be craft, Face-painting and tombola stalls at the village markets, culminating in the Golden Gala extravaganza on 26thSeptember and the popular Wine Tasting event on the 3rd October, organised by the wonderful Amanda Felix. September in Hassocks is all about gold. It’s about raising awareness, and the research funds desperately needed to find kinder and more effective treatments for the childhood cancers with such poor outcomes. It’s all about community fun and this year it’s all about goldfish!

Intrepid brothers, Jamie BartlettBundy and John Bartlett completed their Paddle4Pearl challenge earlier this month, despite the appalling Scottish weather! Torrential rain stopped trains and emergency services across central Scotland, but the determined duo continued to paddleboard!

After three days, they had covered 100km from Bowling Harbour on the West Coast to Edinburgh on the east. Covering first the Forth & Clyde Canal and then the Union Canal, their journey took in 20 locks, several tunnels, high aqueducts, and navigation of the Falkirk Wheel. Their heroic efforts were the finale of an amazing month of fundraising in Hassocks, raising funds for research into childhood cancer. Jamie and Rachel lost their ten-year-old daughter Pearl to cancer in 2017, and have since been fundraising to find kinder and more effective treatments for childhood cancer. To date the #PearlPower fund, overseen by the Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group, has raised enough to fund not one but two new research projects to fund kinder and more effective treatments for childhood cancer. With the efforts of this year’s Hassocks Goes Gold campaign raising over £13,000 and the recent Paddle4Pearl, they have smashed the incredible milestone of £100K. Rachel says:
“September is always an exhausting but very exciting month of gold in Hassocks, and the Scottish paddleboarding adventure has been a wonderful finale. Although the reason behind our Hassocks Goes Gold is the worst tragedy for our family, it’s important to us we fundraise by creating events that are fun that the entire village can get behind.”

Find out more: www.bit.ly/2FZK1RF