Last week we held the first ever JCI Portsmouth Halloween Charity Casino Night! From the start we always knew it was going to be a great night! We had Halloween costumes, networking opportunities, a champagne buffet and a master class in Roulette, Blackjack and Poker! What more could you want?

The evening was all to raise funds for Nothing But Nets, a fantastic Malaria charity, providing lifesaving bed nets to families in Africa, to protect them from blood-sucking mosquitoes!  

When Halloween night arrived, we all came together in our scariest costumes and visited the Grosvenor Casino, in Southsea. It was absolutely fantastic to see all the effort JCI Portsmouth Members had put into their costumes, but we weren’t alone!! The Casino had also embraced the Halloween theme, making it the perfect venue for our horrifying Halloween Night!

We started with a champagne reception and then after some open networking, we all enjoyed a fantastic buffet dinner. Once our devilish appetites were satisfied, we were whisked off to the first master class of the night – Roulette! It was great to learn how to play and some of us even got the chance to be the dealer for a game or two.

Once the fun money was gone, it was time to take the training wheels off and start playing with real cash!  We headed over to the Blackjack Table for a quick lesson and then the real game commenced. Some of us clearly had more luck than others, or maybe a few of us were just cursed!

Finally our gruesome group ended up at the Poker table! Another quick master class and away we went.  No matter whether we had lost, won or had just broke even, by the end of the night, we had all had a great time! But the night was clearly not over, when Michelle Bustos, our Local President and Ian Tomkinson, our Local Website Manager, challenged each other to a Halloween dance off on the Wii, to Michael Jackson’s Thriller! What a horrifyingly hilarious way to end the night!

Finally we finished the evening by collecting cash donations to go towards the funds raised from the ticket sales, for Nothing But Nets!

Everyone gave generously and with the ticket sales, cash donations and money raised throughout this year by selling JCI Nothing But Nets Wristbands, we managed to raise a brilliant $160! This money has purchased 16 Bed Nets, and with two JCI Portsmouth Members also donating 2 more Bed Nets after the event, this brought our grand total to 18 Bed Nets!

A Bed Net can protect a family of four, which means our donation of 18 Bed Nets has potentially saved 72 Lives!! A fantastic achievement for JCI Portsmouth and something we are all very proud of!

That said it is never too late make a donation, so please don’t stop giving! Whether you attended the event or not, if you would like to make a donation, you can donate via our fundraising page!