Legacy campaign 2018

Our planned giving campaign will run in September, 'Remembering a charity in your Will' month.

As part of 'Remember a charity in your Will' month, we will be contacting our supporters to discuss remembering us in your Will and introducing the Goodwill Partnership who can advise you on making or updating your Will. We use a third party organisation - Buffalo Fundraising Consultants - to contact our supporters. 

To speak to us about this campaign directly please don’t hesitate to contact Zoë Hollingsworth +44 (0) 1782 732978.

Join Phil Davies in remembering Keele University in your will

Phil Davies in 1965 My life was transformed by going to Keele University.

Locally born into a family of potters and miners, I had lived with my parents in a dozen different Midlands locations before arriving, fresh faced, at Keele. The university provided stimulation, opportunities, encouragement and support for the personal investigations that shaped my journey of discovery. I was privileged to spend my undergraduate years within Keele’s engaged, thoughtful, active and inspirational community of teachers and students. Keele allowed me to discover the subject material that would frame my professional life, and provided my first opportunity to spend a year on a scholarship in the USA, starting a series of visits to study, research and teach in that country. Keele guided me to a career where the challenge to keep learning never stops ... I love it. And that’s not all…

… I met my wife at Keele. Ros Patton studied Russian with more of Keele’s charismatic scholars. We could never quite place that initial meeting in our memories – well, it was the 1960s – but a couple of years later and in a different part of the UK we recognised each other. We went for coffee. We spent the next 35 years together.

Phil Davies Before Ros died in 2007 we were planning a programme of donations. Guided by these discussions I have made a number of gifts: to Keele; to the Woodland Trust; and to create a travel scholarship helping UK postgraduates to undertake American Studies research in the USA. Our decision to focus initially on the natural world has given me the opportunity to work with Dr Peter Thomas and his colleagues at Keele to plant and maintain the campus arboretum and to develop the National Collection of Flowering Cherries at Keele. This has been deeply gratifying for me, my children and the extended family (which includes a current Keele undergraduate). It has also served as a keen reminder of the generosity, quality and expertise in the Keele community.

A life in academe provides a first class training in avoiding deadlines, but this year a health scare has prompted me to focus on plans for the future. Arrangements for our children and grandchildren (now on both sides of the Atlantic) are a priority, and I know that they share the commitment to see gifts to our favourite charitable institutions as part of our legacy. We hope you share our feelings about Keele.

11-17 September 2018 is Remember a charity in your Will week. Join me in remembering Keele.