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Wine Trade Sports Club announces fundraising walk for founder

05 August 2024 By db staff writer

Members of the Wine Trade Sports Club and Foundation will be walking around London this September in memory of Michael Hasslacher, who co-founded the charity more than 50 years ago.

Hasslacher, formerly a master of the Vintners’ Company and MD of family firm Deinhard & Co (as well as a keen cricketer and golfer), died in his 80s on 2 March this year.

In July 1973, he, alongside Patrick Lynch and David Bishop, established a registered charity known as Wine Trade Foundation. The foundation’s objective was to be “for the benefit of the Benevolent, and the general relief of poverty among employees and former employees of the wine & spirit and ancillary trades, in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.”

The charity’s initial fundraising walk raised £800 provided a new television for the residents of the Vintry Homes in Eastbourne.

Since that first event, The Wine Trade Sports Club and Foundation has raised almost £1 million.

The 10 mile walk taking place on Sunday 29 September will incorporate elements of the same route in the initial fundraising walk. It will finish at the offices of The Drinks Trust near London Bridge, timed to coincide with the arrival of riders on the final stage of The Harvest Tour. There will be a BBQ to cap off the event around 2.30pm.

All money raised from the walk will go towards the Hasslacher Grant, a fund which has been created for The Drinks Trust, and into which the club will contribute each year.

Those wishing to participate are asked to contact Lucy Marcuson at clmarcuson@aol.com

A Just Giving page with a £5,000 donation target can also be found at this link.

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