First Birthday Event

We are very excited to reach a year of our charity Living by Giving Trust, especially as we have been able to support so many different projects in just one year.

Amongst the various undertakings we have been able to support, in 2010 we sponsored a child to travel with the Glanfield Children’s Group and in 2011 we gave some financial support to CA helpers and also provided some funding to support the gap year work of Roy Scivyer in Dachau. If you would like to support us in fundraising for future projects like this, please join us for our “First Birthday Celebration” on 22nd October 2011 in London.

Since we haven’t had much of a summer this year, the event will have a summer theme and will include music from The Bikini Beach Band, a raffle, a cash bar, food, and much more, and will take place at the famous St Bride’s Foundation in the City of London, close to the historic area of Fleet Street and the famous St Paul’s Cathedral. Book your tickets before 1st October 2011 and they will cost just £15 each.

You can purchase tickets online here: http://www.bmycharity.com/1stBirthday

Become part of our team!

Next month the Living by Giving Trust is proud to celebrate a year of registered charitable status! Our first cycle of projects (2010 – 2013) will be associated with the young and our theme is: ‘Living By Giving… Young People New Experiences’, more details of which will be published here soon.

As we grow as a charity in the UK we would like to set up a small fundraising committee of like-minded people to help us in our fundraising goals. If you would like to be a part of our fundraising committee, please email Dail Maudsley at Dail@livingbygivingtrust.com.

There are no specific requirements other than being willing to get stuck in, but if you’re also creative and resourceful we definitely want to hear from you!

The Frontline Homeless Soup Run Group

The Living by Giving Trust has recently purchased vital equipment to ensure that a Soup Run for London homeless was able to continue it’s good work.

The Frontline Homeless Soup Run Group has been running for over twenty years simply by the volunteering and goodwill of local people in Stamford Hill, North London who make sandwiches, tea, coffee, soup, etc for homeless people in central London every Saturday evening.

Recently the majority of the Group’s equipment was lost or stolen and they had no way of continuing with no budget to buy replacements until the Living by Giving Trust stepped in. It meant that the group could successfully serve the homeless during the Christmas period (some of our photos can be seen below).

The Challenge that was 3 Peaks

From Kathryn:

Our challenge wasn’t so much the climbing of the 3 highest peaks in Scotland, England and Wales respectively. Ours rather, was the driving in between and more specifically, the route from the car park to the actual base of the mountains. Well, to be fair to ‘Team 3 Peaks’, I should clarify that peak number 1 and peak number 3 – inclusive of routes in and out of car parks – were embarked upon and conquered in ardent style.

It was peak number 2 – we shall call him Mr Scafell – that was determined to show us that the Challenge is indeed no mean feat. We came to learn during our 24-hour stint, like for many other adventurers, thatthis was the peak (or Pike) to make or break you.

Initially though it was Ben Nevis that I had apprehensive forethoughts about. Through the 3 Peaks grape vine, others had let on that as Ben Nevis was the first and the highest peak and in Scotland, it was far more susceptible to adverse and highly changeable weather conditions, especially at the summit. Between you and me, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t metaphorically soiling myself with anticipation and a touch of anxiety.

Leading up to our imminent departure, Wednesday 14th July 2010 – collectively between David, Katy, Lucy, Stephen, myself and our designated driver Andrew – there was of course much excitement and backpacks full of happy thoughts. This is something we’d been preparing for and psyching ourselves up for weeks if not months. A fabulous opportunity to get fit, both physically and mentally; spend copious amounts of money on enough high-tech gear to put Ray Mears to shame; and of course raise money for a good cause. There had been a handful of ‘getting to know you’ dinners and drinks, not to mention many an email and Facebook message about logistics.

Circa 17:30pm: Enter Peak 1. There we were at Fort William, the serene and strikingly scenic base of Ben Nevis. Bellies full of chicken, peanut-butter sandwiches, apples, fruit & nut mix and so on. Blood streams full of Red Bull, rehydration liquids and miscellaneous caffeinated beverages. Backpacks full of energy bars, water bladders, jungle-strength midge repellent and a token camera or two – for photographic evidence when reaching the summit.

…Five hours, a lot of cloud, snow, sheep and a photo or two later; we were reunited with our driver, clean undies, socks and tops and bound for England’s Lake District.

Circa stupid o’clock in the morning: Enter Peak 2. After a 7-hour obstacle course across the boarder (aka a car journey in the thick of some of the most adverse weather I’ve ever experienced in this country), and the most pathetic excuse for a sleep this side of a rave party; we somehow arrived at the car park for Scafell Pike. We played a long game of Hokey Cokey in the car – you put your left foot in (your hiking boot), you put your left foot out (the car), you put your thermals and waterproofs on and shake all about – deliberating over the extreme weather conditions, our safety and our general ability, or lack there of, in climbing the mountain that morning. To cut a long story short, we came, we didn’t really see, we certainly didn’t conquer, and then we left. Without further adieu, we took our half-relieved but half-disappointed selves back on the road and set our sights on Peak 3.

Circa midday: Enter Peak 3. With clear skies, no dislodged trees on roads and very little wind, came an abundance of tour buses, tourists and day-trippers.

We had arrived at Snowdon and it was obvious this was the package holiday destination of mountains. With this though, also came a great enthusiasm from Team 3 Peaks: a yearning from me to reconnect with my walking poles, a yearning from David and Lucy to sport their gaiters again, a yearning from Stephen to show his knees who was boss and a yearning from Katy to do her ablutions on a rocky outcrop, one last time.

…For the second time that day, we successfully navigated and reached the summit of a mountain!

Reunited with our driver for the last time and knowing that our hotel, proper food and indeed celebratory drinks were waiting for us in Chester, we traipsed our last steps, physically and mentally exhausted but with grins the size of the Cheshire Cat. Apologies to the virtuous types out there but the desire there and then to devour a huge steak and murder a cold beer was overwhelming.

Now several weeks on, with 2 peaks (and a ridge) under our belts, I think I can speak for all of Team 3 Peaks in saying that despite both the real and metaphorical highs and lows, we gelled superbly well as a team, we inherently thank all of our supporters and we’re thrilled that we raised as much as we did for the Living By Giving Trust.

Official Peak blogger signing off…
Kathryn

Dachau

The Living by Giving Trust has has agreed to award ASF a grant of £300 for a young graduate who is currently volunteering in Dachau. Roy Scivyer is working for a year with the group called Action Reconciliation Service for Peace (Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste or ASF).

From Roy: “Gemany is the first nation to have undergone a formal process of reconciliation with its past. For the first time people were held to account for their actions during conflict, and other nations saw in defeat a new opportunity for a nation to grow. There were more questions than answers (How do you put a conventional jail term on someone responsible for thousands of peoples’ deaths?) but the process of Vergangenheisbewaeltigung, of coming to terms with the past, was overall a healthy one.

One initiative in the post war period was Action Reconciliation Service for Peace, or ARSP, an organisation formed by the Evangelical Church of Germany in 1958. The aim was to send young Germans to nations affected by Nazi crimes, such as the Netherlands and Yugoslavia, in order to rebuild those places destroyed years earlier. This simple act of atonement has led to over 180 volunteers in countries across Europe working in projects to learn about the practical implications of reconciliation and to work towards a non violent way of resolving past conflicts.

By working at Dachau on behalf of ARSP, I hope to become part of this movement for reconciliation. I also hope to discover how Britain can also come to terms with its past. Sixty years of decline on the world stage has left Britain with a rose tinted view of WW2 as the glory days, as well as a national obsession with the war. Just go to any football match and you’ll hear theme tunes from every 1960s war film you can imagine. A national dialogue akin to that envisioned in Germany and in post Communist nations would not be a bad idea.

In the next year, perhaps I’ll learn something about myself and my own ideas of reconciliation, as well as something of living in a different culture.”

You can learn about the charity and read Roy’s excellent blog by visiting: http://www.asf-in-dachau.blogspot.com/ and see Roy’s entry about us.