In 2011, 51,000 people signed up to a coffee morning, raising a record £10 million. Friday 28th September is the official date of this year’s World’s Biggest Coffee Morning but events will be held throughout the month across the UK.

Few people are unfamiliar with the dedication of the Macmillan organisation, whose nurses provide medical, emotional, practical and financial support for cancer sufferers and their families. On a constant mission to develop a better cancer care system the team offer strength and energy to face the fight and come out the other side.

The World’s Biggest Coffee Morning first started in 1990 and the event grew from local fundraising in the first year to a countrywide event the following year when over two thousand people registered to host an event.

You don't have to be a coffee connoisseur to take part. Over the years, the event has grown to include something for everyone and you will find pub quizzes, garden parties, school fetes and office 'do's' all in the name of Macmillan. The key issue is getting together with friends, family and colleagues, having some fun and raising money for a good cause.

Arranging a coffee morning for your school, you could incorporate a cake sale, craft fair or hold it as part of your Harvest Festival. Get your shop or office workers together in fancy dress, or at a more formal corporate event. Open up your home or church to the community and show off your baking skills, or hold a coffee themed pub quiz (*who went from flirting over coffee to slaying vampires?).

Invitations, cake cards, bunting artwork and posters can be downloaded from World’s Biggest Coffee Morning website, which also provides a whole host of ideas to make your coffee morning a success, and where you can register and advertise your event.

So far, Croydon College is holding its coffee morning at 12 o'clock on the 28th and Churches Together in Coulsdon is holding an event on the 29th September at 10.30am at the Congregational Church Hall, Canons Hill in Old Coulsdon, where they will also be running a raffle, and will have cakes, books, gifts and jewellery stalls.  All are welcome.

Cancer continues to be the toughest fight many of us will face. Macmillan ensures no one has to go through it alone and however much or little you raise, every penny goes towards improving the lives of people across the UK who are affected by the disease.

*Anthony Head