The Together for Short Lives campaign, which has already seen the custom installation industry put home cinemas into two children’s hospices around the UK, has successfully completed its third project at the Little Havens Children Hospice in Thundersley, near Rayleigh in Essex.
Previous projects. reported by IE Residential, have taken place at Rachel House in Kinross, Scotland and Donna’s Dream House in Blackpool.
The hospice is now the proud owner of its own cinema room after the industry once again stepped forward to support this charity scheme. Organiser Ian Morrish, ISE sales manager, comments: “I am delighted that we have been able to complete our third project. Ron Pullen, a member of the care team at Little Havens, made contact after finding out about the scheme, and was interested to know whether we could do something for him. It is great to know that we have been able to fulfil his request.”
Rayleigh Hi-Fi had no hesitation in committing a team to help. Following a visit to the hospice, the team identified the best area for the install and the products that would be needed. It was clear that the room would not be suitable for a projector as there was too much natural light, so the team recommended the use of a high-quality flat screen instead. Help came from Stuart Tickle, managing director of AWE, who kindly provided a Samsung 52in LED screen.
A few weeks earlier B&W had kindly donated products, including five B&W FPM4 flat panel wall speakers and a Rotel RSK-1550 AV receiver.
The team began the installation in January 2012. The Samsung flat screen was mounted onto the wall, with the front left, right and centre B&W speakers positioned on the wall around it, and the equipment was housed in a cabinet under the screen next to the subwoofer. The rear speakers posed a challenge, as the large number of windows and doors at the back of the room meant there was a lack of wall mounting space. The team decided to mount the speakers to the ceiling, even though this meant running the speaker cabling from the back of the room to the front, where the amplifier was located. As there was no access to run cabling above the ceiling, it was decided to run the it in conduit concealed behind the window blinds.
“We took our time to se tup and calibrate the system to ensure it was as easy as possible to use,” says Paul Broughton, store manager at Rayleigh Hi-Fi. “Once calibrated, it looked and sounded fantastic, whether you were watching a blockbuster movie or playing a game on the Xbox 360, Sony Playstation 3 or Nintendo Wii which was already connected to the system! One of the children commented when he first saw the system that he couldn’t wait to play Fifa 12 on it!”
Thanks to the large range of products donated and all the time and hard work provided by the installers free of charge, the installation has saved the hospice almost £10,000.
Ron Pullen from Little Havens says: “The whole thing has been a really good experience. The end result is a high-quality cinema system in our teenage room which will be of great benefit to the children and families cared for by Little Havens. Some of our children are too poorly to visit a local cinema, and for others it requires a huge amount of planning, making family trips out difficult. We can now offer a trip to our very own ‘in-house’ cinema to the families when they visit us for a much-needed break.”
He adds, “Our thanks go to Ian Morrish, Larry Brown and the equipment suppliers whose generosity made the project possible. Thank you so much for all the work you put in to make this happen; it is going to improve the quality of experience we can give our families.”
The following products were all kindly donated:
• Samsung UE-55D8000 screen (supplied by AWE)
• Rotel RSX-1550 AV receiver (direct from B&W UK Ltd)
• Samsung: BD-D6500 Blu-ray player (sourced and supplied by Opus Technologies)
• B&W FPM4 Flat Panel Wall Speakers (direct from B&W UK)
• Velodyne SPL 1000 Subwoofer (supplied by Redline Distribution)
• Middle Atlantic: equipment rack (supplied by RGB Communications)
• Peerless: IR4 Infra Red Repeater Kit (direct from Peerless)
• Kinetik: 50m of Speaker Cable (direct from AWE)
• Connectivity UK: 5 x HDMI Cables (supplied direct)
• TDI UK: selected cables (supplied direct)
Various other items, such as a wall bracket and conduit, were supplied by Rayleigh Hi-Fi as required.
To become involved in the scheme, please contact [email protected] or telephone +44 1372 454366.
