MORE than £11,000 was distributed to as many charities by a group of female fundraisers.

Mayor of Southend Andrew Moring was among those attending the North Thameside Ladies’ annual general meeting at The Exhibition Inn of Great Wakering High Street on Tuesday.

Mr Moring received a cheque for £2,000 in aid of his chosen charity, The Samaritans, which had been raised by Janet Hills and her staff at The Castle in Eastern Esplanade, Southend, while Hattie’s Heroes, a campaign for two-year-old with leukaemia Hattie Seymour from Leigh, received £1,500 with granddad Ian Southgate picking up the cheque.

Mum Katie, 30, said: “We have an activities fund and now have a holiday fund and, when my dad arrived with the cheque on Wednesday, I was just pre-booking a holiday to Harry Potter World.

“It’s really nice to go somewhere and not have to worry about the money.

“It’s a really nice thing to do and we’re very grateful.”

The North Thameside Ladies was founded as a group of landladies raising money for local charities though, with a dip in the fortunes of the pub trade, many are also “lay” members, with former chairman and ex-Ship landlady Val Bates, 74, adding a new quiz night at Leigh Constitutional Club bringing in thousands of pounds itself.

She said: “This year we were really helped because we were running in conjunction with the Constitutional Club in Leigh, where the chairman’s wife has become a member of ours, which has allowed me to run a monthly quiz which has added thousands to our total.

“It was a very nice event and very emotional as well, we had some lovely feedback from the charities.”

Other charities receiving cheques included the Southend Hospital Keyhole Cancer Appeal, Little Havens, the Special Care Baby Unit, the British Royal Legion, Blesma the limbless veterans’ charity, Movember, disabled children’s charity Special Effect, the Cumberlege Intensive Care Centre, Harp, the Lancaster School Exhibition landlady Evey Gue also provided a complementary buffet following the presentation.