Once Upon a Smile was founded in August 2011, by Daniel Jillings and Danny Miller, to provide emotional and practical support to bereaved families, after it became apparent that there was a lack of support for families after the death of a loved one, specifically a parent or child/sibling.
In the past too many families were often left to grieve alone with little or no support available and this can often have a devastating impact on family life and children.
In 2019, Once Upon a Smile opened the doors to Sidley House, Greater Manchester’s only dedicated children’s bereavement centre. Sidley House was born out of a desire to provide children and young people with a space that speaks directly to their needs during the most difficult time of their lives.
What sets Sidley House apart is the way it has been designed by children, for children, with ten carefully curated rooms, each with a specific purpose, for example:-
…and now fully immersive Cinema Room.
These spaces are where grief can be explored in a way that is age-appropriate and supportive.
Once Upon a Smile accept online referrals from health, education and other organisations, as well as self-referrals.
https://www.onceuponasmile.org.uk/
It was in March 2023 that Daniel Gillings, the co-founder and CEO of Once Upon A Smile, first contacted Together For Cinema, and this was the result of an introduction via LinkedIn.
Daniel emailed and asked if it might be possible for Once Upon A Smile to be considered as a possible beneficiary of a Together For Cinema donated cinema room and having spoken to him it seemed totally appropriate. With a focus on children and the nurturing of the family post bereavement it was a facility that we felt would benefit from the gift of a cinema room, that could also be used for other activities such as gaming, karaoke, music and parties, presentations, fundraising, training etc…
Once Upon A Smile already had a cinema room that had basically run it’s course and needed lots of upgrading. The equipment was very dated and, due to some technical challenges, hadn’t been used for several months. There was clearly a need to update but with limited budgets it simply hadn’t been possible as there are so many other higher priorities for their funding. This seemed a perfect project for Together For Cinema.
My initial meeting was on July 11th, 2023. Once Upon A Smile is located in an industrial park and was certainly not the normal type of venue that I would visit. No pre-judging, and of course great work can be carried out anywhere, and this was certainly the case here…
Meeting Daniel, and feeling his enthusiasm, was infectious. His commitment, and that of his co-founder, Danny Miller, to make a difference in their community deserves all the support that they can get. Through drive and determination they have made a very special place at Once Upon A Smile, that really does change lives. We simply couldn’t not help…
Fortunately for both Together For Cinema and Once Upon A Smile there was a local installer that had been keen to take on a second good cause project. Having previously installed a wonderful, and hugely popular, cinema room at Derian House Children’s Hospice, Stephen Nevison of Intuitive Homes was ‘chomping at the bit’ to get involved in another project.
One quick email, and a follow up phone call, and Stephen was on board. However, with holidays and a busy schedule at Once Upon A Time it wasn’t until September that Stephen was able to visit. His view of the room was similar to mine in that we could create something very special. As with most of our good cause installations there were one or two challenges, however, Stephen was confident he could work his way round them…
As with most of Stephen’s installation, his vision for the room was uncompromising in his desire to deliver the very best result he could given the space he had to work with. Unsurprisingly this led to a kit list (see below) that was comprehensive on it’s quality and expected performance.
Firstly, a big thank you to David Graham at Grahams Hi-Fi for donating several items of quality second hand equipment that had been made available to us after one of his client’s cinema room upgrades. This enabled Stephen to install a comprehensive and high quality B&W audio system powered by an Anthem audio processor and amplifier. Repurposing quality second hand equipment is something we are keen to do more of and this is a fine example of what can be achieved by doing so.
Further generous donations included control by Crestron, automated blinds from Lutron, a Dragonfly screen from Snap One, an Epson projector, more audio from Klipsch and Sonance, an Attock rack sourced by Alltrade and cables from HDA all combined to give Once Upon A Smile a fabulous high quality cinema room that will be enjoyed for many years to come.
We are all grateful to all our very generous product donors and I believe they all have an open invitation to visit Once Upon A Smile whenever they are in the area!
Monday 9th September, 2024.
Friday 13th September, 2024.
This took place on the afternoon of Wednesday 16th October, 2024, and Daniel Jillings, co-Founder and CEO of Once Upon A Time, and Charlotte Brown, Corporate and Community Fundraiser, welcomed us all with drinks , lunch and of course popcorn and sweets!
From the industry Stephen Nevison and I were joined by Alan Prescott, who helped Stephen with the installation, as well as Ross Norbron from Lutron, Ronan McTernan and Mark Crowther from Alltrade and Henna Shan from Attock Network Products.
The demo that Stephen put on was amazing and the audio quality is one of the very best that I’ve heard from a Together From Cinema installation. This was mainly due to a generous donation of second hand, but perfect kit, from David Graham at Grahams Hi-Fi. Basically it was stripped out from one of his clients homes and then donated to Together For Cinema. You can see above the equipment donated.
With the sandwich’s nibbled, and popcorn munched on, Charlotte kindly showed us round Once Upon A Smile and explained in detail what they did, the effect they have on people’s lives and how the cinema room will help make a difference. Very moving and at times very emotional, but so important to understand more about the difference that we’re making in our community.
"It has been an absolute pleasure to be involved in the Together for Cinema project at Once upon a Smile. The work that Dan, Danny and the team there do is incredibly inspiring and it has been a real honour to be able to play a small part in helping make the most of the time the children spend there.
This project has been really fun to work on and I look forward to supporting the team and the room for many years to come. I want to say a huge thank you to all of the manufacturers, distributors and individuals who have donated equipment to make the installation possible and also to Alan Prescott, Chris Bailey, Chris Buxton, Peter Jay and Sam Parsons who carried out the installation to the usual high standard!"
Stephen Nevison, Director, Intuitive Homes
"Following our move to Sidley House in 2019, we had created a basic cinema room, where we would host children’s cinema days. Sadly however, the projector broke, and with limited funding and a lack of knowledge in this field the room was ‘film free’ for a while. I found Together For Cinema via LinkedIn and I’m so glad I did! What I didn’t know then was that this simple reach out would result in the most magical, incredible immersive cinema room we could have ever hoped for.
Meeting Ian initially and researching the previous work of Together For Cinema, I was extremely excited. Then meeting Stephen and seeing/hearing his plans for the room and how excited he was himself to get the project going filled us all with even more excitement!
We couldn’t have asked for a better team to undertake this project than Stephen and the team he brought. From start to finish nothing was too much trouble.
The result is so overwhelming. The space created is going to bring so much joy and happiness to the children we support for many years to come.
On behalf of everyone involved in Once Upon a Smile, and the families and children that will enjoy this incredible room, THANK YOU!!! Thank you to every single person that has helped make this happen."
Daniel Jillings, Founder and Director, Once Upon A Smile
THANK YOU…, you have helped make a real difference at Once Upon A Smile, and in turn, will make a lasting difference to so many people’s lives.
One of the ‘challenges’ of having an excellent installer project managing our installations is that the kit list is generally comprehensive, and quite often, high value. This does of course end up giving the venue a wonderful room that is appreciated for many years to come, and this is our ultimate drive. The downside is that sometimes we have to work very hard to secure the right products!!
For Once Upon A Smile, with the equipment, the installation services of Intuitive Homes and all the sub-contractor’s help, the end result was fantastic, and had a ‘had it been paid for’ value of in the region of £55,000. This is clearly not a luxury that many, if any, charities can afford so for our industry to enable this is a wonderful gift, and one that will keep on giving for many years to come.
This was Together for Cinema’s 49th good cause cinema room installation and helped take the Together for Cinema good cause community delivery to over £1.25m worth of installations, had they all been paid for.
For Stephen Nevison, to bring the cinema experience in house at Once Upon A Smile is a great gift that will be used and enjoyed by so many children and their families for many years to come, and, importantly, will help make many happy, and very treasured, memories…
This was Stephen’s second Together For Cinema installation and he has worked willingly and tirelessly to create a room that delivers the cinema experience whilst working along some of the challenges of installing in an environment where care and operation governs so much of what can be done.
I hope the ‘feel good’ factor of being involved in such a project, and making a difference to so many lives, is worth more than any payment.
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For further details please contact Ian Morrish at:-
Work: 01372 454366 ♦ Mobile: 07768 398007 ♦ Email: ian@togetherforcinema.co.uk
www.togetherforcinema.co.uk
Report created by Ian Morrish. All quotes to be from Ian Morrish, unless otherwise stated.
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