ITS Joins the Circus - for One Day Only

Industrial Technology Systems Ltd (ITS) is teaming up with Circus Starr to help raise funds for the local Butterwick House Children’s Hospice, where specialist care and support is given to patients from across the North East.

ITS is sponsoring the April visit to Middlesbrough of the all-human ‘Circus with a Purpose’, to help benefit young people and their families.  It is also donating two free tickets to underprivileged children or those with special needs.

Circus Starr is unique in the British circus circuit.  Its mission is to raise money for charity through traditional family knockabout entertainment, providing not only excellent Big Top fun, but pumping a lifeline of urgently needed money into the communities it visits. 

Since starting more than 21 years ago, it has ploughed more than £2 million into 200 UK charities, and this year’s punishing tour schedule concentrates on the country’s smaller charities and hospices.  These much-needed funds help keep hospices open, buy incubators and life-saving equipment, pay for specialist staff and assist with the dedicated care of babies, children and young people, some of whom are in need of respite care for months or even years.

The Middlesbrough shows will be held at Prissick Sports Base, Marton Road on Thursday, April 22 at 4.45 pm and 7pm.  The circus show, performed under a distinctive blue-and-yellow Big Top, is suitable for all ages and features an enjoyable mix of top-flight acrobatics, impressive balancing acts and knockabout comedy.  No animal acts feature in Circus Starr.

Stockton-on-Tees’ Butterwick House hospice provides free of charge day, respite and end-of-life care for children with life-limiting illnesses, from birth to age 18, who live in the Teesside, North Yorkshire, County Durham and Wearside areas.  It also provides family support, complementary therapies and bereavement counselling.  The hospice relies on charity donations to fund the £800,000 annual running costs, and the help it receives from Circus Starr provides a much-appreciated boost.

ITS’ Managing Director Malcolm Knott said he was delighted that the company could help such a worthwhile cause.  “Butterwick hospice does a truly remarkable job in caring for young patients from the region, and by associating ourselves with Circus Starr in this fundraising venture, ITS is delighted to help with Butterwick House’s remarkable work.”