THE captain of Cricket St Thomas Golf Club’s Mark Ward (left) has raised £5,500 for Prostate Cancer UK in 2023.

Mark Ward, who raised the funds throughout the year said: “I was lucky enough to have been selected to be Cricket St Thomas Golf Club Captain in 2023.

“It is traditional for all golf captains to choose a charity to raise funds for throughout their year.

“My charity for 2023 was Prostate Cancer UK, who fund research to help the early diagnosis prostate cancer.

“Over the last two decades they have funded and accelerated some of the biggest breakthroughs in prostate cancer care.

“These programmes ranging from TRANSFORM which is their biggest and most ambitious screening programme ever, through to significantly increasing the quality of MRI scans to make it easier for doctors to be more confident in ruling out the disease without a biopsy.

“I would like to say thank you to all the Cricket St Thomas Golf Club staff for your help and involvement and to all the businesses and people that donated prizes throughout the year.

“I could not have done this without the support and understanding of my family (especially my wife), my friends and the members of the golf club that have made it a very memorable year for myself.

“Thank you for supporting all my fundraising events throughout the year and helping me raise awareness and £5,500 for this great charity. Thank you.

For more information visit prostatecanceruk.org.

A message from the golf club read: “CST would like to thank Mark for all his hard work and support throughout 2023, an excellent club captain whom we all enjoyed working alongside.”

Matt’s chosen charity for 2024 is Melanoma Fund UK. They raise awareness of melanoma and other forms of skin cancer.

Over 44 people are diagnosed with melanoma every day, and more than 410 with other forms of skin cancer, and incidence is rising rapidly.

Prevention is better than cure, so to tackle the issue they run campaigns, to target those at the highest risk.