Lisa’s Legacy–stable name ‘Bart’–can be seen here being prepared to be ridden next week for the first time before going into training with top trainer Richard Hannon.

Following the bursary presentations, professor Van Gore dedicated a new area in the university to Lisa’s memory. The mural depicts Lisa’s free fall parachute jump whilst living her dream in New Zealand. It also has one of her hand drawn maps and her own words from her journal with her thoughts of the experience.. “jumping off was like falling into a dream”.

The mural is in a busy part of the university where students gather at this wireless hot spot and meeting point. There is also a plaque dedicated to Lisa. The Wilson family would like to express their gratitude to Professor Van Gore and the university for this most generous dedication.

The mural was designed by former Solent student Ed Brown.

Clive Wilson spoke about the charity and how inspiring the many recipients had been over the years, and how some nine years after her untimely death, Lisa was still able to touch other people’s lives and give them the opportunity to fulfill their educational dreams and ambitions in the way that she herself had. Tricia Wilson presented the awards including the ‘Lisa Wilson Prize’ for outstanding achievement, which was awarded to Sharon Elegbede with a 2:1 in LLB (Hons) with Business Management.

As well as the new students, there are nine continuing students in their second and third years. With this year’s graduation awards in November, this will bring the number of students graduating to date to twenty two.

Lucie Campbell performing at the 9th Lisa Wilson Golf Day, July 2011

As usual, it was a strongly contested event; Jim Hatball won the men’s trophy, Chris Batt won the ladies’, with Max Leigh winning the Junior and Students’ competition. For the guests, Andy West beat off all challengers to win on his first time playing, and Wendy Stoddard managed to win the ladies’ trophy.

In the evening some 200 people filled the clubhouse for the prize giving. Clive Wilson thanked everyone for the amazing turnout and fantastic financial support which saw the charity bring in over £8000 with the raffle and silent auction – a record for the event.

Following the prize-giving, Lucie Campbell–the latest student to receive a bursary from the charity–sang two numbers on her solo debut. The second song ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ was dedicated to Lisa as one of her favorite songs when she was little. The atmosphere was gripping and extremely moving as Lucie completed her second number. She is a bright talent who touched everyone’s heart on the night. It is hoped that Lucie will go on to fulfill her dreams of becoming a West End leading lady.

Lucie Campbell performs at the 2011 Lisa Wilson Golf Day

Following the formalities, everyone was entertained by the Tribute Show who did two one hour slots with really brilliant performances as Freddie Mercury, Robbie Williams, Cher, Madonna, and Kylie, to name just a few. They really were the best act to date and the dance floor was buzzing until well past midnight.

This event brought the money raised by the charity to £218,000, a fantastic legacy to Lisa, which amounts to over 200 years of education.

Click on the image above to read the article, or download the PDF here

Dear Clive and Patricia,

i have never met you but but me and a few of my fellow rowers thought we would just send you a little message to let you know what weve been doing at the Solent university rowing club recently, and more in-particularly what has been going on with the boat you kindly donated a few years back the “Lisa the Daddy”

My name’s Robin Mills and I’m currently the proud president of Solent uni BC.  I currently row in the the boat (Lisa, as we call her) with 4 other senior rowers, Richard Boydon, Adam Chart, Daniel Dalmau and our Cox Simone Bravo. So far this year we have won 3 races in the boat and are extremely pleased with her, it has been the most successful year the rowing club has had in a very long time, well for longer than i know anyway!
We have recently taken time to being to do the Lisa up, repairing any old holes and polishing her hull so she’s nice and shiney! the oars that we use with her have also had a nice new coat of paint and are ready to be rowed.
At the end of April we will be racing the Lisa in the British university rowing championships at Nottingham, where we hope to take on some of the biggest university rowing clubs such as Oxford and Cambridge,

None of us guys really knew Lisa but we all feel we can relate to her in some way or other, I have visited many of the place she visited on her journeys in Both Australia and in New Zealand and I myself have also driven to Ayres rock and on the outback roads. Adam has also visited many of the places that can be seen in her pics and we had a right chuckle and relived some good memories whilst looking through the pics. Dan and Simone are both from Brazil (and have rowed for the Brazilian rowing team) they noticed in one of her photos she had a Brazilian T shirt on which put a huge smile on their faces!

Because of this we feel we have all really bonded more as a crew and with the boat, we even turned the chance of rowing a much newer and apparent “faster” boat down, because we preferred the Lisa! Lisa’s spirit will forever live on within the hearts of those who knew her, and in this case those that didnt!

Thanks again for donating the boat, she is extremely valuable to the club and will continue to be rowed at the highest of levels for years to come!

cheers,
Robin and all the other Solent university rowers!

Download the 2011 poster PDF