Winners of Strictly Come Hospice crowned!
Emma Kosh, an interior designer from St Albans and her dance partner, Jo Campbell-Kent, an executive assistant from Croxley Green, have been crowned the winners of our first Strictly Come Hospice competition!
Emma and Jo were matched as dance partners after signing up last autumn. As part of the challenge, the pair attended 10 weeks of professional dance tuition, along with 11 other pairs of local amateur dancers, to learn a complete dance routine!
A strictly wonderful night!
The 24 dancers all gathered at the Watersmeet theatre in Rickmansworth on Friday (24 January 2025) to take part in the grand finale show. The show, attended by an audience of 500, saw the 12 dance pairs take to the stage to showcase their work over the past three months.
On the night each couple performed their tango or cha cha routine to tracks ranging from Voulez-Vous to Spice Up Your Life.
At the end of the evening, Emma and Jo were named the winners of the competition for their cha cha to the Spice Girls’ hit Spice up Your Life. The winners were decided by a combination of judges scores and audience votes.
A word from our winners
"I love to dance for fitness and wanted to challenge myself so when I saw Strictly Come Hospice advertised, I just had to sign up. The whole experience was amazing and for me the show was an absolute highlight. It wasn’t all plain sailing as our last rehearsal didn’t quite go to plan, but the atmosphere backstage was so supportive - full of laughter, love and incredible people. The crowd was amazing and the high from the show lasted for hours!”
"The whole experience has been completely out of my comfort zone but I absolutely loved it! I took ballet lessons as a child but I’ve never tried Latin and ballroom so it was great to learn something new. Emma and I paired up at the first training session and it couldn’t have worked out better! We got on really well and had such fun throughout the whole process. I was so nervous on the night of the grand finale. When we won I couldn’t believe it! Then my next thought was ‘oh no, that means we need to do the dance again!
I’m so glad I took part and I’m proud of how much money we’ve all raised for an incredible local charity.”
£47,000 raised!
Dancers who took part in the event were challenged to raise at least £600 in sponsorship. The event has currently raised an impressive £47,000 thanks to sponsorship, ticket sales and donations made by audience members who voted on the night!
Our Events Manager, Emma Stewart, says:
“Our first Rennie Grove Peace Strictly Come Hospice challenge has been an amazing success. It wouldn’t have been possible without the hard work and dedication of our dancers, our professional dance teachers and everybody who made the grand finale event happen – including our judges, compere and volunteers from West Herts College who helped with everything from hair and makeup to videography.
“I’d also like to say a huge thank you to our headline sponsor, Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden. Without their support, the event would not have been possible.
“Every penny raised by this event will be used to fund vital hospice care in our community. We need to raise over £17,000 every single day just to keep our patient services running, so events like this are vital in enabling us to do that.”
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