good morning chums,
last night bigmoose had been asked to attend a property event in london that our great fundraising mates vectos had arranged for us to be one of the three charity partners, and it was organised that we would do a two minute thank you, which we had arranged for a bigmoose representative to say a few words thanking everyone.
all good so far.
then, this week it became apparent that actually we would have a 5-10 minute slot to fill.
now a lot can be talked about in ten minutes, and we decided that i would make the journey down the m4 for the second time this week, to the postal museum in mount pleasant, north london, my old stomping ground, back in the days before i moved west.
the postal museum i can report back is exactly what you would imagine, as a reference point to a bygone day pre email, and is a great use of real estate that no longer does its original job.
where the post office have been canny is to use the space in the basement of the building to create an extremely cool event space, with great lighting, allowing itself to morph into whatever evenings entertainment the hirer decrees.
our night was a standup networking event for 300 young property professionals in the london market, quite a rambunctious crowd, and as the throng started to descend into the catacomb of tunnels below, louie the dj, playing a mix of urban house, targeting the gen z crowd that was filling the space, like ants descending on a piece of food inadvertently dropped at a summer barbecue, was discovering that his speaker system was struggling to compete with the cacophony of humans voices.
man it was loud.
it had been quite short notice, so the designing of said presentation and transferor it from my laptop to ian the events i.t. guy, caused me to mention to myself in a brief conversation i had with myself that “it will be fine, you’ve been closer to the wire than this before” and breathe.
ian came through.
as i sat next to louis, head bobbing to his cool beats, going over my presentation one last time, to make sure i was ready, harriet and holly, our hosts appeared, and informed me and the two other charity partners, the national autistic society, and casa congo, a sustainability hub in el astillero, nicaragua, that there was a huge queue at the cloakroom, so we would be another ten minutes.
the sound of people talking had i think literally caused a disgruntled louis the dj to realise that he had lost this battle, it was like a human fire blanket of sound had been put over louis box of musical swan vestas, no competition.
ten very long minutes later, harriet decided we had to start, and i noticed a look of fear on the other charity partners faces, this was pressure.
driving home from the event i listened to a high performance podcast with dan carter, the great new zealand all blacks rugby player, talking about pressure, and how he loved it, and the penny dropped, so do i.
this wall of noise in a london basement was nothing compared to a highly intense ice hockey match at wembley, and from somewhere the endorphins and dopamine were causing my brain to enjoy this crazy event.
harriet picked up the microphone and stepped forward, into what we all knew was a situation that required her to bring strength, authority, tone of voice, humour, whatever she could muster, to hold back the tide of noise that threatened to drown her.
but like canute, the waves didn’t stop, and the awkwardness of watching her struggle, and eventually give up was horrible, and i played out whether i should step in, but rationalised that it wasn’t my gig or my place to, and i hoped the girl from the national autistic society would take control.
she didn’t.
and as she battled to get her words out, the volume just seemed to increase, until she started laughing in a way that seemed like a white flag being waved fervently.
she handed the sennheiser baton to the casa congo guys, and the shorter of the two was a stocky alpha male chap, who proceeded to continue drinking beer from a bottle whilst talking to the wall of noise, and i felt myself slightly shaking.
this is carnage, i thought, and nobody is stopping it.
the congo boys finished, and the front two rows rippled applause at their sustainability goals, but as ian put up my slide deck, and harriet introduced me, nobody cared, especially the back of the room, who hadn’t heard a thing all night.
i looked the front row in the eyes, in a way that i tried to communicate “I need your help” without actually speaking, and i think they got it.
"i have a story to tell you, which just might help save someones life” i started.
“but i need silence to tell you it” and i looked into their eyes.
and as i went silent, so people started shushhhhhing from the front of the room to the back.
i could feel the power start to shift.
humans are an interesting species, and it was really interesting to watch and feel the power of silence.
It was almost like “he’s not gonna start till we all shut up”
i prowled up and down, waiting.
and then it came.
complete silence.
“thank you” i almost whispered.
i told the story of the last ten years of my life, and felt like i had the front and the back of the room now, resulting in four rounds of applause, more than usual, i think their emotional connection was heightened by the start of the process, and i had chosen to surf the big wave, carving out turns whenever possible, and when i ended by telling them about hannah now becoming a therapist, i saw a guy mouth “full circle” to me.
yes, winner.
i thanked everybody for their time, and patience, and pointed out our email address if anybody needed help, and smiled at the front row, mouthing “thank you” because we both knew, they had turned a potentially awful situation into one of strength, and we’ll see if we get any referrals this morning.
i had a number of people come up to chat afterwards, which was lovely, and as i left to make my way back to cardiff a little later, a lad looked me in the eye as i passed him and fist bumped me, very funny, but i loved it, and as i said goodbye and thank you to the doorman, i entered the cold london night, relieved and happy that the journey would have happy memories for me.
i breathed deeply, and headed towards the tube, smiling.
but the cherry was waiting 50m ahead.
a tall dark, smartly dressed guy was engrossed in his phone call as a i approached him, only for him to ask his call to hold as he broke away, smiled and thanked me with some lovely words and a firm handshake.
i continued to chancery lane underground station, floating on a very fluffy cloud high above the streets.
as i write this blog this morning, i feel like this mini adventure is very much a metaphor for life, life that often shows us all challenges, it really is how we choose to control things where possible, and i am thankful for the life i have led, that has taught me many many life skills, and as i recently told one of my mates, and i think it was socrates that said it "sometimes you’ve just gotta put your big boy pants on”.
this has been a long blog today, so i’ll do a bigmoose update next week.
have great one,
blue skies,
jeff
good morning bigmoose blog readers,
i have decided that i am going to try to use dictation as opposed to typing and see how that pans out and hopefully enables me to speed the blog writing process up.
two lines in and we're rocking and rolling, and i'm wondering why i've never used this process before.
if you use a mac just double click on control, and bob’s yer uncle, fanny’s yer aunt.
so.
this is maria conceicao.
i met maria on mount elbrus, a mountain in russia, standing at 5642 m, the highest mountain in europe, in 2011.
this was only my second mountain adventure ever.
there was a team of ten climbers, all attempting to climb this peak, which had an east and west summit, the west being the higher and tougher of the two.
of the ten climbers that started the climb, after a wild storm higher up the hill on summit night, maria was one of only three of us to want to continue when asked by our russian guide.
after a summit push that was relentless, we eventually made the summit.
as i bid farewell to maria, i knew she was destined for more, and in 2013 i learned she had become the first portuguese woman to summit the highest peak in the world, chomolungma, aka mount everest, and her bio since our russian meeting has been extremely impressive, going to the north and south pole, holding 8 world records, and committing her life to the charity she founded.
have a read of her amazing achievements here https://www.scampspeakers.co.uk/speaker/maria-conceicao/
now the reason i tell you about maria, is that back in 2017, prior to me setting off for everest, i had run out of money to pay for the trip, and felt i had exhausted all avenues to raise cash to pay for my expedition, selling my car, most of my worldly goods, and facing up to the reality that i was probably going to have to reschedule for 2018, as i was so far away from my target.
then i received a message from maria.
she told me about how before her successful 2013 trip she was 24 hours away from leaving, and was still $10,000 short on her payment, when an outsider, than she knew very briefly, surprised her, and covered the costs, enabling her to springboard her life and speaking career, inspiring thousands.
she encouraged me to never stop believing that it would happen, and her advice made me reframe how i viewed my quest to get to nepal, and i just knew i would, i truly did not stop believing i was going, it was my destiny, i just didn’t know how yet.
so, with ten days to go until i flew to kathmandu, russell brice, the legendary everest guide, and owner of himalayan experience, contacted me and told me that he wanted me to come, as the world needed me to make the trip, as it would change my life for good.
and he was right.
and thanks to his generosity i made the trip, with him allowing me to pay him upon my return home, when i got the rest of the money.
what this taught me was to never ever stop believing, which sounds like bullcrap, but i really really mean it, sometimes you just get this energy flowing through your veins, and every sinew in your body.
and today i have that same feeling.
we are approaching the last quarter of the year, and we have only raised just over £300k of our £1million target.
so who believes?
who believes we, and you’re very much included in this, can do this together?
or, if you’re really honest, who thinks our goal of raising circa £680,000 by december 31st 2022 is impossible?
impossible, no, tough yes.
but together we can do tough, together we can do anything, we just have to believe, and then take action, one foot in front of the other, one step at a time, and eventually we'll reach the summit.
but you need a team.
you need a maria.
you need a russell.
and today i need you.
i mean i really need you, more than I’ve ever needed you.
i need you to join me, and take action, real action.
here is a video to show you why i need your help.
this is mark.
mark is a very brave man, and mark is why i need your help, please watch his story, and hopefully his bravery helps convince you to take action, as there are more people like mark out there, who need us to believe in them, and to give them hope to continue.
how brave is mark?
amazing huh?
so how can you help?
by taking action today.
however small, however large, the sum of all these actions will move the needle, and before you know it we will have momentum, and before you know it we will achieve our project £1million goal, and we will help and save more people, because believe me there are many more people like mark as fellow humans we can help, and if you you trust me and chloe, and our amazing team, we will spend your money wisely, and efficiently, and show you more stories along the way of people we’re saving, together.
so, nitty gritty time, how do we do this?
first of all in your mind, conclude you want to help.
then the rest is easy.
mr mukherji, my physics teacher taught me about potential energy and kinetic energy.
we all have potential energy, including you, we just haven't ignited it yet, and together we need to get a plan, which i am happy to help you with.
what tends to hold people back is fear.
fear of rejection.
fear of not raising a million pounds, fear of not getting the money to go to nepal, or fear of the world laughing at you if you are unsuccessful.
f*** that.
i will not allow fear to stop me helping mark.
and i urge you not to allow fear to stop you committing to help in some way.
to help me, chloe, bigmoose, mark, and the 204 people we have helped this year.
your help, and the other 1000+ people that read this blog, will make a difference i promise you.
so be brave, message me at jeff@bigmoose.co, whatsapp me on 07977585548, or call me, i need your help, and together we can move that needle, ignite the jets, and help save lives.
i look forward to hearing from you, it’s going to be a brilliant end of the year, jump onboard, you’ll love the adventure.
blue skies,
jeff
good morning,
storytelling is about painting pictures in peoples minds if you are using words, and don’t have the luxury of sight or visuals, and the great writers takes us on a journey building suspense, allowing us to love or hate characters, describing settings and surroundings, using an array of adjectives, building depth of colour and emotion within their characters, which allows us to form opinions, and hopefully connection.
why do i speak of this?
well, dear blog reader, i caught sight of myself this morning, and wanted to share the vivid visual experience with you to enhance, your bigmoose blog experience.
my look started with my famous mountaineering socks, and a brown towel, yes brown towel.
why we have a brown towel in the building i have no idea, it matches nothing, and upon in depth questioning turns up that no-one is willing to accept the responsibility of standing in line to tap the contactless device with their apple pay, (remind me to tell you my death valley apple pay story) though by my antiques roadshow estimation this towel was bought either with notes that were actually made of paper not plastic, or if by card, then it was placed on a metal contraption along with layers of flimsy paper, resembling that horrible izal toilet paper that needed thirty two sheets to be effective, and multiple pieces of carbon paper, to make multiple copies for all included in the brown towel transaction, not a euphemism by the way.
good times.
however, faced with a pile of beautifully fluffy clean white towels, with the aforementioned brown towel two thirds of the way down the pile, you know where this boy is going.
i think it is a preconditioned remnant of being brought up poor.
we had some nice things that were never used unless people came to visit, our best stuff, plates, towels, etc, and i think i grew up indoctrinated by this behaviour.
hey ho, i digress.
moving north, i have an oversized black mountaineering jacket, with fluoro piping, please don’t ask.
but the cherry on the top of the bakewell is a yellow and black bobble hat, which i bought in the spring in a north face outlet store (cheap. see childhood behaviours keep bleeding through 😂) and have started wearing it around the house, to build up confidence before sharing it with the world
so, i have learnt two things from this, winter is creeping up very fast, and unbelievably izal toilet paper is now very sought after on ebay.
so, now i have painted the vista, and i can begin to write my blog.
weirdly, with a bank holiday on monday, yesterday i kept thinking today was going to be saturday not a friday, is this just a me thing? and i promise no hallucinogenic drugs have been consumed, except a cheeky glass of malbec, but i’m sure 250ml isn’t enough to corrupt the old cerebral cortex, hopefully not.
anyway, this week we moved into our offices, and set up our super huge popup, (please don’t take it there, you’re better than that) which as belongings go, this pretty much is all we have in terms of stuff, me, chloe, grace and josie, the bigmoose team, all travel pretty light.
this is ray, our onsite landlord, kindly posing for the social media announcement photo, and showing his dislike for photos even more than me, though he’s much more friendly in real life, we like ray.
it was kinda weird going to work in an office, something i have never done before, but my challenge to grace to compete in the inaugural office chair race, started the day well, with cries from her for a rematch echoing around the building as i tried to hide my out of breathlessness, arms aloft in victory, confirming, this ain't gonna be no normal office culture.
aside from the frivolity we have really been working hard, and scarily have a very short time left before project 1million ends, but currently with all monies added up we have fundraised just over £300,000, which is pretty astounding, with 6826 people donating, which has enabled us to refer 193 people, with 69 graduating, and now 13 confirming bigmoose saved their lives.
and the fact you are here proves you’re one of us, and i’d like you to join me in being proud in what we have achieved so far.
these are not just numbers, but human lives, and i know that a lot of our referrals and graduates read this blog, so congratulations on being brave, brave enough to get help, and hopefully that help is allowing you to come back stronger and happier, with hope for the future, you really are the strong ones.
no tears from me today, strength and power today, i want to finish the week strong, and i have two morning meetings which have potential to blow my mountain socks off, the one i can discuss is with my mates and founders of pegasus ultra marathons rhys and cerys jenkins, and hopefully this is going to be to discuss a plan for bigmoose to work closer with pegasus next year, as our brands, ethos, and goals are very aligned, and hopefully next week we’ll have some more details.
https://pegasusultrarunning.com/about/
after these meetings i have a working lunch with graeme layzell our original therapist we started this journey with, and i have a letter to give him.
a handwritten letter from our mate hannah.
hannah, that graeme helped save.
hannah, that has handwritten a letter to him thanking him for his help, and telling him how this week she started her course to become a therapist.
that’s a cool letter to receive i reckon, and i can’t wait to hear his reaction, i’m very excited about today, i’ll report back.
It’s now 8.38 and i’ve got loads to tell, so will bullet point stuff.
we've been nominated for an award.
i’ve got a speaking gig at a very swanky looking venue in london in november which i’m amped about https://www.eightclub.co.uk/moorgate
a graduate is running a half marathon, fundraising for us.
my mate pete is going to snowdonia tomorrow to climb 10 grand peaks, raising, you’ve guessed it, 10 grand, amazing effort pedro and the boys, more info here https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/10-grand-peaks
oh, and i need to tell you my death valley apple pay story, darn it…..come back next week.
i’ll be seeing ya,
blue skies,
jeff
it’s 5.06am, and as i pull on my thick mountaineering socks, which i have worn on every mountain i have ever climbed, they make my heart feel as warm as my feet they are designed to.
the reason they have this effect is emotional connection.
they connect my brain with memories, good memories, great memories in fact, i can see the knife edge ridges i have walked, with the wind blowing ferociously, making snow and spindrift hit my face like hundreds of tiny pins, i can see the summits, and the memories of my adventures come flooding back, and i smile.
once you connect emotionally with someone or something, that is a magic moment.
you are here today reading this blog because you are emotionally connected, either to me and my random storytelling, or bigmoose, and the adventure that we are all on with the fantastic work we are extremely proud to do every day.
and as the chunky, smart wool, calf length, bridgedales warmed my most distant extremities, i start to remember last night, and what an emotionally charged night it was, and how i had gone to bed almost numbed by the events that had taken place in 4-5 frederick st.
now, with one hour of sleep that could be counted by each of the fingers of one hand, i awoke, less numb, more amazed and proud.
pre covid, chloe had an idea to create an event called ‘life stories’ that we could hold at bigmoose coffee shop in the evening, where we get three people to talk about their lives.
not celebrities, but people we knew had some pretty cool stories to tell, and would make people laugh, make them cry, and hopefully inspire them in some way, connecting emotionally, and providing them with a wonderful evenings entertainment.
last night we had martin, aka ‘tin’ a friend of ours, who spoke about his mixed race parents, his childhood struggles growing up in port talbot, being surrounded by toxic masculinity, his battle with mental health, and how with the help of therapy he has come through some very dark times, emerging from his chrysalis, like a beautiful butterfly, now curating his own mental health podcast, and becoming a male model, working internationally.
his story was all i had expected, but told in a fashion that was engaging, brave, and extremely confident, and i have never seen anyone speak in public for the first time, and be so good at it, and i hope he continues his journey by doing more talks, i think he is destined to inspire.
our second speaker of the night was blog regular hannah phillips, ably assisted by her smiley six month old daughter zia.
zia got the biggest laugh of the night as at one point martin swore, and apologised, checking there were no children in the audience, only for zia to make the most beautifully timed baby noise, which had everyone in hysterics, comedy is all about timing, and zia is starting young.
now zia’s mum needs no introduction here, but the audience in the coffee shop warmed immediately to her raw, honest, funny, style of storytelling, and she carried them along the journey of her eventful life, and the image she painted of her first ever run at night around her home town of merthyr tydfil, wearing her husbands black ski mask, so she wouldn’t be recognised, which resulted in her inevitably being stopped by the police, had everyone laughing out loud with her.
the pathos of her story was weaved into her new slidedeck, and on a personal note i am loving watching this woman grow in so many ways, realising that she possesses a super power, and she can inspire an audience in so many ways.
she spoke about her battle with booze, and how she is now 496 days dry, and this is where the power is, and the resulting situation that happened in the half time break, was the cause of my post event numbness.
now confidentiality restricts me from telling the whole story, but hannah’s admission that alcohol had played it's machiavellian role in her spiral into despair, triggered one of the audience to be reduced to tears, and admitting that they too had an alcohol problem and needed help.
so, there and then we made a referral to one of our therapists, who like the rockstar he is called the person within 20 minutes.
20 minutes.
if you have ever raised money for bigmoose, this is what we are doing with it, we are buying the best people.
people that love people.
people that want to help people, quickly and when they need it, people who respond on a thursday night, because they know giving hope quickly is so important.
so on behalf of that person last night, thank you, you have enabled their story to have a chance to be written with a different ending.
as the last speakers of the night took their place at the front of our coffee shop, i thought about moose, and how his passing has inspired me so much, and i felt extremely proud of what we as a community, you included, have built, and i wondered where this adventure is going to take us, hopefully it will be growth, expansion, and allowing us to provide more help and hope for more people.
our final life stories were told by our great mates craig and aimee, who i have spoken of many times here, and their tales of joy and pain were examples of storytelling that we have embraced since sitting around the campfire in ancient times, craig recovering from a broken neck, aimee beating cancer, and powerful highs and lows of their travels around the world, as well as weaving in their connection to bigmoose, and as craig spoke of how we’ve helped his family and friends, he wasn’t the only one in the audience to get emotionally choked up.
i was going to mention the fundraising amounts that they talked of, and where our total just giving number is, but you know what, today is not about money, it’s about the love that everybody involved in this community shows, and as i got home late last night, emotionally exhausted, chloe sent me another testimonial from one of our referrals, and the number of people who we have saved from taking their own lives this year moved from 11 to 12, and that is the most powerful number, and as i write this i have tears in my eyes, and am struggling to write, but for good reasons, we are making a difference, and long may it continue, and as long as i have breath, i vow to continue this story, there are so many more chapters to write, and please link arms with us, we need you, and as always if you need us please make contact, there is always hope.
namaste,
jeff
good morning lovely blog reader,
i’ve been thinking.
to reward your loyalty for reading this blog, and supporting us as a charity i need to give you a little more, so I’ve been thinking of what to give you.
my immediate thoughts are breaking news as we have cool stuff happen, though i haven’t discussed it yet with chloe, as we have something humungous potentially happening very soon, which we weren’t going to tell anybody about until it happens, but i want to share more of our journey with you, as i think it will bring us closer.
the other thing i have just thought of is some giveaways.
when we do events, or get given access to certain things, we share them here, as a kind of thank you.
so today we’ll start with a giveaway.
so here’s the backstory.
a few months ago we did an event called ‘run4good’ where we sold 280 tickets for a capacity turn out in st. davids hotel in the bay.
the model was to get some amazing speakers to talk about running, and the health benefits, both physically, and mentally, and sprinkle in some bigmoose speakers and stories, and hopefully get some of the audience to commit to fundraise for bigmoose, and if anyone needed help, we encouraged them to reach out.
a simple yet extremely powerful event, with laughter, tears, and a rainbow of emotions throughout the evening.
the true value of the impact of the evening will never be fully known, but we have had a number of referrals that we have now helped, which is amazing, and life changing, and we have had over twenty thousand pounds pledged by people who are running various races this year, as well as hotspot cases of individual magic, such as a close friend being so impacted by our amazing speakers that he handed his notice in on his management role within a nationwide business, and quit booze the morning after the event.
(he is thriving by the way, in a new job he’s loving, booze free which is making him and his family happy, and doing lots of running, which in his words makes him look better naked, the world wins)
so inspired by the success of the evening, we decided to do another one, only this time ’swim4good’.
same idea, 280 people in a room, and some brilliantly inspirational speakers talking about their own adventures, and the benefits of swimming, and cold water therapy, as made popular by wim hof and his recent tv show freeze the fear.
we follow the 'run4good' idea of getting some bigmoose stories told by people who have been helped by our therapists, and then we are going try to encourage people to join in a huge open water dip/swim on monday 10th october, all around the world, spreading the bigmoose word, and hopefully raising some funds for project 1million.
so, the event is on the 19th september, and the tickets are only a fiver and can be purchased here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/swim-4-good-tickets-402407781507
or.
drumroll.
you can email me for a chance to win three pairs of tickets free.
value of two tickets, ten quid, value of attending a lifechaging event, priceless.
so, to give you some info on the speakers, here are their bios.
grant zehetmayr - co founder of dawnstalkers https://dawnstalkers.com/
tried cold showers through info from friends derived from wim hof - hated them, only accountable to self, not sure if doing right, what was the point… saw someone getting in the sea, very serene, mindful, looked super badass. also talking to others who did showers or similar elsewhere - wanted to try, and as a reaction to lockdown, control - the feeling of wanting to break out / be extreme in a different way (actually just noticed that drugs did that, but probably wasn’t getting the attention / endorphins i was craving 🤔 interesting!)…
then after a few in December added to dry january & committed to 5 days in 7 - it’s addictive so ended jan only dropping 3 days. also was getting some attention & meeting others who were interested or were cold water people from other locations. the algorithm feeds you what your interested in! I was also spending a lot of time with piotr and the coffee bike chatting to people and connecting… more endorphins and contribution and in the background had been doing some immersive personal development with landmark that was having a profound affect on my self expression and how I operated.
son, brother, dad, husband, glass half full optimistic snowboarder / skateboarder learning to own his identity forgotten at some point previously in life.
i for one can’t wait to hear this cat talk, and i think it’s going to be life changing for him as well as us.
hannah phillips - a graduate of the bigmoose referral programme and inspiration to all at bigmoose.
hannah phillips is a mother, a wife, writer, stand up comedian, runner and mental health advocate.
if she’s not on maternity leave she works for run wales in the day and writes blogs, books and sketches in the night.
when she’s not sorting the social running scene of the nation out, writing, running or being mam to b, kiki and zia she spends her time battling to find the answers to mental health problems.
she’s tried her hand at cold water swimming and bought a dryrobe so she feel more than equipped to speak at swim4good.
bigmoose love hannah and her supercool family, and she shone at ‘run4good’ so we can’t wait to hear her ’swim4good’ talk.
kerrie aldridge - aka kez littlelegs marathon runner
hi I’m kez a 43 yr old plus size mummy with short ass legs. I’m mum of 6; 5 angels and one amazing rainbow. I have been on an incredible fitness journey since being the last official finisher in the london marathon in 2019; but that’s only one part of my story. I was brought up living close to the sea as a child and it was a big part of my childhood. I was brought up by my mum who sadly after a long fight with bipolar took her life when I was 17. It’s 25 years this year since I lost my mum and I have decided to change the narrative and honour her memory by swimming the serpentine this year. I am doing this for bigmoose and their project 1 million as I am passionate about doing what I can to help people in crisis due to their mental health. come join me on the 19th september as I share my story of being a child of a parent with significant mental health and my relationship with swimming and the sea.
i’m getting teary just reading kez’s bio, but having seen her overcome her fears and abseil for us recently, i know she is going to be inspirational and this is her first time ever talking publicly about her life.
cath pendleton - aka the merthyr mermaid (check her documentary out on bbc iplayer). ((http://www.merthyrmermaid.co.uk/))
I learnt to swim at about 4 years old and have always loved swimming. as a child I spent the school holidays playing in my local river. throughout my life I have always enjoyed swimming for fitness. I rediscovered my childhood love of open-water swimming via triathlon. I did my first ever open-water swim in 2013 (2 km) and progressed onto 5 km, 10 km and then longer distance swims, including lake windermere (2016 and 2017). my longest swimming challenge was in 2018, the english channel, solo.
ice swimming
I started ice swimming in september 2015 and I was immediately hooked. I swam my first official ice mile in january 2016, becoming the first welsh woman to do so. In 2019 I represented team gb at the world ice swimming championships in murmansk, russia, achieving bronze in my age category for the 1 km swim. I was proud to be a nominee for the world open water swimming association's woman of the year 2020. I was placed 3rd out of 12 outstanding open water swimmers.
cath is another amazingly inspirational woman who I don’t think knows how awesome she is, but we have the opportunity to hear her speak on the 19th and we are so excited.
jessica hepburn - https://www.jessicahepburn.com/about/
jessica hepburn is an award-winning author, arts producer and adventure activist who has become a pioneer in inspiring people to live big and bravely when life doesn’t go to plan.
in her forties in a bid to exercise her way out of heartbreak she started swimming. her second book, 21 Miles, charts her journey from head-up breast-stroker to channel swimmer. and in may 2022 she finally achieved her dream to achieve ’the pond to peak challenge' - swimming the english channel and then summiting ‘mount everest’ - becoming one of only two women and the fourteenth person in history to do it. despite being nominated as one of amnesty international's ‘women of suffragette spirit’ and ‘woman of the week’ in stylist magazine she says she’s still on a life-long journey to maximise her mental health. water has become a huge part of that - she calls it: ‘home’. www.jessicahepburn.com
wow! this lineup up of humans is so flipping amazing, and i am childishly excited to hear jess speak, and so proud to have such a powerhouse on the bigmoose team, she is already pushing me to dream bigger.
so, that’s the lineup, pretty awesome huh?
and, if you want to win one of three pairs of tickets, just email me, or click here to book now https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/swim-4-good-tickets-402407781507
todays blog is very copy and paste, but hopefully introducing you to a selection of our super interesting friends will encourage you to go for a dip or swim, and maybe do something amazing for your own mental health.
thanks for reading, and if todays blog inspires you in any way please let me know, feedback good and bad always welcome.
i’ll be seeing ya,
blue skies,
jeff
boris, boris, boris.
why’d you do it?
as we entered number 10 downing street the aura of the building washed over me, kings, queens, politicians, great leaders of our country during history, and the boy from finsbury park, all crossing the threshold through that same iconic door.
me, chloe, tania and crawford made our way through the hallway, depositing our phones in the wooden cabinet with phone sized apertures, and made our way towards the famous staircase, with the pictures of past prime ministers adorning it, with a very powerful image of winston churchill standing guard at the top of the stairs, almost in a symbolic gold standard to be aimed for, though few seem to have achieved similar results.
as i privately in my head bowed to winston, i remembered how he had struggled with his mental health, and tales of his ‘black dog’, and wondered if he would be proud of us, and the work we do to help people with similar struggles, and as i descended toward the garden i knew he would, and smiled to myself, as i studied this beautiful yet simple staircase, a beacon of british politics.
as we reached the bottom of the stairs, there were more pictures, this time of past governments cabinets, which caused us to stop and inspect them, and i felt a pride as i watched my family taking it all in.
we stepped into the gardens, and i had to restrain myself from cracking some cheap gag about the recent goings on, but respect was the word of the day.
they were bigger than i expected, and had a number of gazebos set up, two for wine (😉) beers and water, and another for an artist, lucy kent, https://www.lucy-kent.com/acc who is doing some amazing charity work, and was painting live as we wandered the grounds.
the beers were supplied by a brilliant brewery called ignition, who employ and train people with learning disabilities to brew and serve great beer. more beer more jobs. https://ignition.beer/ check them out.
and in the distance i could see a lecturn which was soon to have the current p.m. standing behind it to address the throng of ‘points of light’ one of whom was the phenomenal little boy, 7 year old, tony hudgell, pride of britain 2020 winner, double amputee, who has raised £1.7 million for evelina london children hospital, and he has also inspired an english law change to increase prison sentences for those convicted of child cruelty and neglect, a truly remarkable young man, with an extremely traumatic story, one of which I was not aware of.
trigger warning this is sad and shocking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hudgell
as I heard tony’s story i felt very humble, and writing this blog this morning i intended having a moan about how boris johnson made me feel by what he said, but let’s not give that oxygen, let’s celebrate the beauty in human beings, and how post traumatic growth can often happen, and change the world for good, and tony hudgell i salute you young man, you truly are inspirational.
as we left number 10 we stopped for the obligatory pictures, and again pride washed over me, seeing that having my mate moose taken from us way too early, could be turned into a catalyst to build a dynamic life changing and saving charity, and as i looked above at the bright blue sky, i whispered, "this is for you.”
my fave pic of the day
so, that was tuesday.
but whilst we were hob nobbing it in london, a super powerful story was unfolding in beautiful bonny scotland.
now some time ago, my mate matt (blue jacket) had recommended i speak to his pal sophie in london, about bigmoose, which i did, and we clicked, really quick.
then covid hit and we didn’t catchup for almost two years.
one quick whatsapp message, and one long conversation later, and we were back on track.
then i received an email from sophie saying her mate stephen wants to hire me to do a talk for his business community https://wadds.co.uk/
i have never met sophie, and never ever communicated with stephen, these two are mad.
stephen and i arrange a zoom call, and we clicked, really quick, do you see the pattern?
on the zoom call stephen agrees to raise £10k for bigmoose.
i jump on a train to london, where we meet for lunch and discuss a plan.
stephen is planning to do a three peaks challenge with his son dan, which we conclude is the perfect vehicle for a £10k fundraiser, and i leave kings cross feeling amazed and really excited that the power of bigmoose’s project 1million can attract people to want to help so quickly.
so today (friday) stephen and dan completed their challenge, summiting scafell pike the third of the three tallest mountains in scotland, wales and england, which is great, and their fundraising is going brilliantly, but the bit i think i love most is the pure love between dad and son, sharing this beautiful experience, which i hope they remember fondly forever.
i love this pic
here is a link to their fundraising page https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Stephen-Waddington3
i hope you’ve had a fun week, i’m off to an indian wedding in london and gonna be full in full kurta, throwing some bhangra moves, i can’t wait, enjoy your weekend, keep making memories.
i’ll be seeing ya,
blue skies,
jeff
last week i wrote about the number 9 being the amount of people who, since january 1st this year have given us testimonials relating to the fact that the therapists help they received has saved them from taking their own lives, and i received a number of messages of support from a number of readers, very soon after the blog had been sent out, which was lovely, but by lunch time my mind had paso doble'd around a plethora of different subjects, jobs to do, emails to write, and the big one how and what i was going to feed myself with, so my mind had left behind that mornings blog like a plume of dust in the distance in my rear view mirror.
then my phone rang in the car.
i saw the name and smiled.
this mate i had known for over thirty years from back when i still boasted a full head of hair, and was in the midst of living one of the best chapters of my life, the one not yet titled, but it will read something like “playing ice hockey, the sport you love and would play for free, and getting someone to pay you actual money into your midland bank account to do it", as you can tell it needs a little polishing as chapter titles go, and rebranding, but hopefully you get the gist of my chronology.
“hi mate, how’re you doing?” i greeted him enthusiastically.
“i’m good thanks mate, but you know that number 9 you wrote about today?”
my brain jumped onto his wavelength “yeah?” i replied curiously.
“well you need to change it to 10.”
i took a full few seconds to reply while i played through the connotations of the sentence he had just said, and the emotions that made me tingle.
“i didn’t realise.” i eventually offered, subdued, somewhat weakly, yet exalted that he was in the position now to be able to craft a way in which to tell me.
his back story is private, but we spoke in more detail about his situation, before eventually concluding the call, and i drove the rest of my journey home numb, until pulling up outside my house, parking, and then the tears came, relief, joy, love for my mate, and the gratitude that we were able to help, good tears, tears because he is here.
so whilst i sometimes struggle, as many writers do, with the relevance of what i write, if it stimulates positive action however small i shall continue, and thank you for opening and reading it today.
so, how’s your week been?
hopefully a goodun with a net positive bottom line, and some good experiential stuff, that will help you when you write your book.
you are going to write one aren’t you?
even if you don’t publish it, your future generations will love it, imagine having a family members memoirs, my nan wrote half of hers, and oh my did she have a life, that most of us didn’t even know about, she actually played tennis in the junior championships at wimbledon, my nan was super cool, and sassy, love and miss you nan.
anyway, i hope your week was good, mine was quite varied, starting on monday when me and two of our awesome graduates, hannah and courtney rocked up at bike park wales in merthyr, adorned our safety equipment allowing us to mountain bike safely as well as look like three members of the mad max appreciation society’s south wales sect.
bike park wales is home to kermit, the uk's longest and most exciting beginner downhill mountain bike trail, and we were there to experience the thrill that martin astley the owner knew we would get, and after the endorphin inducing downhill experience, the girls rated it 11 out of 10, which rubber stamped why we were there.
martin, declan and nick and the bpw team have committed to fundraising £10k which is awesome, but as well this, they have offered bigmoose this mountain bike experience free to everybody who comes through our referral system, during or after graduating, and whilst it might not be for everybody, the referrals that take part in it, will hopefully love getting outdoors, and the thrill of this extremely professionally run and guided adventure, so a big cheers everyone at bpw.
that was the beginning of the week, and to end it, last night i went down to london to meet up with two powerhouse women i am extremely proud to call friends, jessica hepburn and lucy rivers bulkeley aka bulks, to celebrate two massive achievements, which i will tell you about.
in 2022 jessica joined the small and select group of people who have swum the english channel and climbed mount everest – known as the pond to peak challenge.
she is one of only two women and the fourteenth person in history to do it (she has also written two awesome books by the way.)
and bulks is the first woman to complete the 4 desert grand slam (250km self supported across the atacama, gobi, sahara and antarctica) and climb the 7 summits (highest peak on each continent), and has just successfully skied to the south pole in 2021.
so we met in a very busy soho, we ate mouthwatering tapas, and we drank cold bubbles to celebrate these amazing feats, and we talked a lot about mountains.
but also we talked about bigmoose, because bulks is a very successful financial guru, and jess has fundraised £30 million for the lyric theatre, so their pedigrees off the mountains match them on them.
both girls have been extremely kind to me and bigmoose, and will be working over the next five months to get this project one million successfully completed with advice and strategy, and both have agreed to come and speak about their adventures at an event which we will announce details of soon, but in the meantime if you want to check them out, have a butchers here.
we also now have a whatsapp group where it seems i am gonna get mocked, especially with this picture, best caption gets name checked next week.
so that’s enough jibber jabber for this week, have a great week ahead, and let me know if have any idea or contacts that might be able to help us, we are thinking links to billionaires, and i’m literally being serious.
and finally finally, the number is now 11.
i’ll be seeing ya,
blue skies,
jeff
good morning, todays blog is about the number 9.
who remembers sesame street, where they would dedicate an episode to a number and a letter?
if you do, i bet you’ll have a warm fuzzy feeling inside, if you don’t, i’m sorry.
does sesame street even exist anymore?
i hope so.
i used to love sesame street, and as i type this sipping my freshly brewed brazilian, (please don’t go there) the fragrant smell of ground beans hits my bugle like a cassius clay uppercut, and if you now reach to google the aforementioned mr clay, please donate a fiver to just giving, and don’t worry, that will hopefully be the last time i use my experience as a quinquagenarian, which i know is what us 50 to 59 year olds are termed, what i didn’t know was what 60 to 69 year olds are called, i’ll leave it there.
two senses caffeinated, i drift into the world of sesame street, and turn to wiki for help.
“Sesame Street” was set in a fictional New York neighborhood and included ethnically diverse characters and positive social messages. Taking a cue from “Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In,” a popular 1960s variety show, “Sesame Street” was built around short, often funny segments featuring puppets, animation and live actors.
and as i research more about this show, which spawned ’the muppets’ i realise how ahead of its time it was, diversity, the fix it shop, the bicycle shop, subject matter that if based in a shoreditch based show today would still be credible, so it’s power back in 1969 was in my opinion, genius.
so why the number 9?
we’ll get to that, but first, here’s a just giving update we’re a little late, but this morning we hit £150,000, which with gift aid added is about £164,000 so if you have contributed in any way so far, thank you, and if you are going to we really appreciate you getting involved.
which leads me on to chilli jam clare, who you may recall a few blogs ago committed to fundraising £10k for bigmoose after my plea for help.
well last night we held a tapas night at bigmoose coffee co, which apart from being extremely tasty, and allowing me time to reflect on how proud we are of this bigmoose journey, and all it encapsulates, it brought chilli jam clare out for a knees up with mr chilli jam and two of their friends, who were big supporters of our mission, and lovely to talk to, but the bit that thrilled me was that chilli jam clare had lost none of her initial enthusiasm for her commitment to the cause, unlike those times that you get worked up into a frenzy, with the surroundings, the atmosphere, the energy, you know like when in spain you enter desigual, a clothing store with a target market, definitely not aimed at quinquagenarians, and insist to your much better and smarter half that you can pull off the red jean look, and with some wild fantasy that walking down queen street, everyone will admire your half hippy, half picasso look, doffing their caps as you pass them, giving them that knowing smile, that yes you are that confident that you do not even need to check your look in the mirror before you leave the house, and this is who you really are, only to return to the overcast british shores to realise that red jeans doth not the fantasy hippy make, and you wait until the wise one is away working in some far away land before tightly folding them up ceremoniously, and placing them into the sue ryder bag, realising the inevitable?
luckily chilli jam clare’s passion for her crazy, impulsive, dream state decision, is still burning ferociously, with a white hot enthusiasm, that excited me the more we spoke post potatas bravas.
she has a plan, she has engaged a team of friends to help her, and i have every confidence she will achieve her target, please cheer her on and support her at https://www.justgiving.com/team/teamchillijam
and if you need a reason, or a why to help, we come back to the number 9.
what is the significance of the number 9 in todays blog?
9 is the number of people since january 1st this year, that have now given us testimonials telling us that they were going to kill themselves, before they received intervention, and therapy.
9
this is both brilliant, as they are still with us, but also very scary to imagine the consequences if they hadn’t received help.
so, what can we do?
our best.
if we all do our best, we will save lives, fact.
whether your best is to fundraise a seemingly impossible amount of money to help pay for therapy, or possibly link bigmoose into a resource who might be able to help us, whatever that looks like, or possibly check in with someone with a call or text to see if they’re ok, all three things can help save another person, so please, take action today, as lots of small actions lead to big actions, and our movement grows even stronger, and if you know someone that needs help, please signpost them to me, and we will help them.
to finish off with today, i just wanna say thank you to joanne jenkins from pencoed panthers running club, who have committed to fundraising £10k and have some amazing plans, which i can’t wait to share, and bike park wales and itv, for doing a story on bigmoose on monday, the momentum is growing, only £850k to go!
have a dynamite week, be kind, and make someone happy, it’s contagious.
i’ll be seeing ya,
blue skies,
jeff
5:58, big strong coffee, in my starbucks mug from alaska, which i bought in 2012 when i attempted to climb mount denali, the coldest mountain in the world.
i say attempted, because i never summited unfortunately.
i remember the trip well, as it was my first experience of real mountain dangers.
one of our guides, a strong lean american, with thick dark unkempt hair, was to get h.a.c.e. (high altitude cerebral edema) as we got high on the mountain, which meant that his brain was swelling with fluid due to being at high altitude, and unless he got to lower altitude quickly there was a strong likelihood that he would die.
as we got him down the hill, stumbling like a late night drunk, and into the medical tent, and waited for the helicopter to air evacuate him, or as the cool kids say air evac, me and a couple of our team went in to wish him good luck, and oh my days, i have never seen anyone before or since that looked that close to death, and as the chopper rose, majestically into the air, dusting everything around it with snow, like icing sugar on a chocolate cake, i remember thinking “he ain’t gonna make it”.
fortunately he did, but our summit push was over, which taught me a great lesson about mountaineering, you can’t always get the summit, but you can still have a great adventure, which i firmly believe is everything, and a great metaphor for life.
we returned to talkeetna, and then anchorage, ready to head back to our places of origin, only before we did we had one evening and overnight to fill.
michael palij, a canadian, uk resident, and part of our climbing team had a plan.
michael was a ‘master of wine’ of which there are still ten years later only 419 in the world, and basically he knows his stuff when it comes to wine, and his palate is amazing, all new info for the party of four scruffy climbers that set out for dinner that evening to a restaurant in anchorage recommended by michael.
https://www.mastersofwine.org/michael-palij-mw
the restaurant, https://www.marxcafe.com/home a strange kind of place that looked from the outside like a detached house, and my expectations were low.
however, the evening moved through the gears rather quickly, and once seated, the sommelier approached our table, and engaged with michael, and they spoke with a passion, that two people with a shared love of anything does, and it wasn’t too long before michael was invited to inspect the marx bros cafe wine cellar.
after what seemed like ages, michael returned with a child like exuberance and proclaimed “you guys are paying for the food, and i am paying for the wine” and the rest of the evening was spent with michael extolling the virtues of every wine we had, and his unbridled enthusiasm swept us all along like a runaway horse drawn carriage, where there has just been a gunshot like in the old black and white cowboy films.
alaska was cool.
for many reasons.
and my aforementioned coffee mug with it’s moose and bear on it gives me great vibes whenever i sip from it, though as i have started to gather quite a collection of these tacky souvenirs, tania informed me that when i die she is going to put them all in my coffin, not, dear reader as some romantic gesture for me to carry my memories to the afterlife, but merely as a way of clearing a now overcrowded mug cupboard, the woman is heartless, but practical.
i digress (quite a lot)
so.
here we are again, another week closer to the 31st december, when we have set ourselves a target of raising one million pounds for bigmoose.
that’s only 169 days left.
and currently we have raised a whopping £141,275, which is truly brilliant for such a small charity, but by my calcs, leaves us £858,725 left to go, divided by 169 days, means we need to raise an average of £5081 a day.
now, that is scary.
do we still believe we can do it?
no.
we know we can do it.
we just need to believe with every molecule of our being.
if you truly believe, you can make anything happen, just watch, it ain’t gonna be a miracle, but it is gonna be a spectacular thing to observe, people power, enthusiasm and energy, and it’s going to inspire others, and it is one hundred percent going to save people from killing themselves, so if you’re reading this, we really need you, we need your help to make this happen, so please reach out, today, and join us on this adventure to create something amazingly powerful in it’s energy.
here’s what we need:
connections, to people, businesses, schools, decision makers, celebrities, influencers, anybody you think can help.
ideas and inspiration on how to achieve our goal.
your commitment, to help us in some way, we need more people on the team, wanna join?
great, sales pitch over for this week.
i haven’t really written a blog this week, i’ve just rambled, and i apologise if this seems a little discombobulated, but there is just so much going on, like the last week, which has seen so much happen, and has had us hold our bigmoose abseil, raising nearly £22k and getting 75 people down a rope, and everyone thoroughly loving the experience, even if they were dreading it before they scaled the 133ft up to come down, success.
i personally have turned 59, so now entering my 60th trip around the sun, chloe and bigmoose have been chosen as prime ministers ‘points of light’ https://www.pointsoflight.gov.uk/bigmoose-coffee-co/ which was a rather subdued event last week as bojo wrecked our parade, but still a fun accolade 😂
also, last night was, eventually, the airing of our appearance on the ‘one show’ which wasn’t as embarrassing as i’d expected, and can be found on iplayer, if you ever find yourself just struggling to sleep.
finally, our mad mad world saw us wish bon voyage to our mates craig and aimee, aka kinging - it, who are pushing each other in a wheelie bin from north to south wales, starting today, and fundraising for us, so follow their adventure on instagram at @wearekingingit
i am hoping we finish the week strong, and we have a few meetings today that could top a fab seven days, wish us luck.
finally, keep your eye on our furndraising here, i have a premonition we are gonna hit £150k today 🤞 https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/project1million
have a great week, i’ll try to write a less flaky blog next week.
i’ll be seeing ya,
blue skies,
jeff
checking in, abseiling and a wheelie bin!
how has your week been?
no really, how has it been?
you turn up here every week to read my jibber jabber, and find out more about bigmoose, and i haven’t been checking in on you, so here it is, a genuine ask, how’re you doing?
the majority of you will be fine and dandy, with the normal life problems, like the partner that forgot to put the bins out in time (not me sir/madam, that blue job has been done pre blog, and i now obviously feel the need to tell you in my hunt for validation, wow if a therapist ever got hold of me there would be be some unpicking to do 😂) the impact inflation is having on your life, the price of lurpak, etc, but there might be one of you reading this who is really struggling, and just feels trapped with no one to talk to.
well if that’s you, message me directly, this bigmoose vibe is not just a one way street with us asking every tom dick and harriet to fundraise, and help us, the whole purpose is for us to help those who need it.
so I’m sure other mental health charities don’t have their co founder asking people if they’re ok in their weekly blog, but we don’t run with the pack, we aim to disrupt the accepted norms, not for attention, and just to show off, but to show off that not everything needs to be so because it’s always been the way it’s been done.
the length of time it is taking for people with mental health problems to get seen by professionals today is gross in an alleged civilised society, and our aim is to be better, and provide faster intervention, and that will continue to be our dream,
so if you or anybody you know needs help, reach out, we can help.
in other news, are you aware of the 'giving pledge’?
no?
then have a butchers here https://givingpledge.org/
it’s an amazing concept.
in august 2010, 40 of america’s wealthiest people made a commitment to give the majority of their wealth to address some of society’s most pressing problems.
created by warren buffett, melinda french gates, and bill gates, the giving pledge came to life following a series of conversations with philanthropists about how they could set a new standard of generosity among the ultra-wealthy.
while originally focused on the united states, the giving pledge quickly saw interest from philanthropists around the world.
the giving pledge is a simple concept: an open invitation for billionaires, or those who would be if not for their giving, to publicly commit to give the majority of their wealth to philanthropy either during their lifetimes or in their wills.
it is inspired by the example set by millions of people at all income levels who give generously – and often at great personal sacrifice – to make the world better.
envisioned as a multi-generational effort, the giving pledge aims over time to help shift the social norms of philanthropy among the world’s wealthiest and inspire people to give more, establish their giving plans sooner, and give in smarter ways.
signatories fund a diverse range of issues of their choosing.
those who join the giving pledge are encouraged to write a letter explaining their decision to engage deeply and publicly in philanthropy and describing the causes that motivate them.
here are links to warren and the gates’s letters.
https://givingpledge.org/pledger?pledgerId=177
https://givingpledge.org/foundingletter
pretty cool huh?
and today there are 236 billionaires that subscribe to this amazing initiative, so have a look at their website it’s quite inspirational and if you know any of them and can introduce me, i would be very grateful. 😉
this week for me has been extremely busy, and i love it, london to meet a geezer i’d never met before who has committed to fundraise £10k for project 1million, and also to pay me a king or queen’s ransom to speak to his business community, which will go into the bigmoose pot, and hopefully allow me to speak to other high net worth individuals at the same time, speaking to school kids about kindness, speaking at a quiz night, and road testing a mobile wheelie bin!
yes a wheelie bin.
our mates craig and aimee who are youtubers with 207,000 subscribers, are doing a mad wheelie bin challenge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jyz5pkbpJC8
travelling from north to south wales pushing each other in a mobile wheelie bin.
a mad challenge indeed, and thus far without the challenge even starting they have raised over £15,000 with their amazing fan support, the power of social media eh?
so the challenge starts next week, wish us luck, we really do need it.
finally to finish off today we currently stand at £129,466 raised, £870,534 to go, who believes we can do it?
me.
with the help of our bigmoose army, and we will continue to win the battle against poor mental health, and we will save more people from suicide, and that’s worth fighting and fundraising for.
so.
if you or anybody needs help, please reach out, and if you or anybody you know can help us in any way, we’d love to hear from you.
I’ll be seeing ya,
blue skies,
jeff aka head of bins
hi there
welcome to july the 1st.
which means the 1st half of 2022 is complete.
it’s a new month.
and it’s bin day.
it’s all very exciting, and probably time for a little reflection
what started on january 1st this year as a dream of raising one million pounds to help fund therapy and training for people with mental health problems has to date had 3040 people donate, which is utterly fantastic, and totally inspirational moving forward.
3040 people believe in this dream, and hopefully if you’re reading this, you believe in this dream too.
this week was brilliant, as we went over one hundred thousand pounds, and we are now standing at £121,297, over 12% achieved.
now if you’re a pessimist you would probably argue that that means we will only get to 24% over the full year, but that isn’t how it works, what we have been doing for the last six months is building, building events, building excitement, building momentum, and building hope.
so, the second half of this year is going to be epic, and we need you with us on the team, we need you to cheer for us, join in with us, tell people about us, mention us in conversations, promote us to people that can help, whatever help you can give, because if everyone reading this takes action, the reaction will be we save someone, it’s really that simple, and we’d love you to feel the joy we feel every time somebody shares their story of having found hope.
this week a girl that we know, announced she is doing some fundraising for bigmoose, and in her instagram post wrote that without bigmoose she wouldn’t be here, and it made me remember the sunday morning where she sat in our kitchen, after a very booze fuelled saturday night after she had attempted to take her life, and it made me very happy to think that she was now in a strong position, full of hope, and a new found lust for life and that she felt she wanted to help raise money which will fund other people getting immediate access to critical help, and it made me feel very, very proud.
so to date this year we have had 110 referrals, and 35 people have graduated.
those 35 people are now in a place where desperation in it’s various states has been replaced with hope, and that is flipping amazing, so thank you on behalf of very one of those graduates, every one of their children, parents, siblings, friends, family members and coworkers, your support is life saving.
wow, i got straight at it there didn’t i, can anybody tell I’m passionate about this journey, sorry the cuppa joe properly kicked in there?
as i am typing this blog i am also whattsapping my mate tom, who is at heathrow, just about to fly out to take part in ironman austria on sunday, and fundraising for bigmoose here if you fancy supporting him, good luck tom.
an ironman for those that don’t know, is a mad challenge of a 2.4 mile swim, then straight out of the water, slide the wetsuit off, jump on your road bike, and peddle for 112 miles, until you’re allowed to park your bike, take off your bike shoes, slip on your running shoes, and then you have to run a full 26.2 marathon.
complete madness.
unless you like a challenge, mwahahaha, who here likes a challenge?
"me sir/ma’am", with hand raised very high like a school swot in maths class. (i was going to write brown nose, but chose not to for fear of offending, or if i’m truthful mass unsubscribes)
i love a challenge, and apart from aiming to raise a million quid in 12 months, which is like a fundraising ironman i suppose, i haven’t done a physical challenge for some time, but i’ve found one that excites and scares me, so i’m teetering on the edge of committing, so maybe this time next week i will have jumped in the icy waters of adventure, wish me luck in signing up.
this has just made me think, every january 1st people make resolutions, but at no other time of the year, so how about we make a half year resolution today to do something that pushes us outside our comfort zone, starting to learn that guitar you’ve always wanted to play, booking that trip you’ve talked about going on but never actually done, wodja reckon?
imagine if just by reading this blog you decide to do something, that changes your life for good, how cool would that be?
so, how about we try it?
grab a blank sheet of paper.
now write three things down you’d love to do, that would really make you happy, but you’ve always been scared to do.
now read the list over and over until you find the one you really want to do.
now close your eyes.
now use your imagination to see yourself doing what you really, really want to do, and imagine what you will feel like once you’ve committed to doing it.
the pride, the satisfaction, the joy, and let those emotions wash over you for a minute.
then open your eyes, and cross through the two other ones leaving the one you are going to do.
now let’s get a plan how we’re gonna do it.
now let’s tell someone.
july 1st, the day your life changed for good.
that’d be cool wouldn’t it?
or maybe i’m just a dreamer, but if you make one july resolution please let me know, i’d love to help and support.
so, in summary maybe less coffee, thanks for reading, thanks for supporting bigmoose support others, if you believe we’re gonna get a million say aye.
have a life changing week, and i’ll be seeing ya,
blue skies,
jeff
good morning,
well we did it.
we now have a freaking cool bar story for the rest of our lives.
last saturday we sent a blog out to to everyone that subscribes, telling our story, with a wild dream that someone would read that story, and decide that they would commit to fundraising ten thousand pounds for bigmoose project 1million.
https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/project1million
now any way you cut it that’s a pretty whack dream, and be honest, when you read it, you probably thought the odds on achieving it were quite low?
but that’s the thing with a dream right, an awake one at least, while it is a dream it seems impossible, until it happens, and then it shows it very much is possible, very much like roger bannister who ran the first ever sub-four minute mile, at a time when it was deemed impossible, and an extremely wild dream.
however, on may 6, 1954, the announcer at the oxford university cinder track in england calmly gave the placings in the one mile race, and then started to announce the winning time, beginning with the word “three…”
the small crowd erupted in delirious excitement, the rest of the announcement went unheard, and roger bannister became an instant legend as the first man to run the one mile faster than four minutes.
his 3:59:4 that evening is often cited as one of the seminal moments in the world of sports.
it has become a symbol of human achievement on the same level as the conquest of mount everest the previous year (may 29, 1953), there he goes, bringing it back to everest again, lol.
but the really crazy thing is just six weeks after bannister's famous run, john landy became the second sub-four minute miler, six weeks, the psychological belief that it could be reality, not just a dream, allowed other runners in the world to believe this dream could be achieved.
on researching this I found out some info that i found interesting, when you become certain of something, when every part of your makeup believes it because you focus on it every single day, something “magical” happens, not new age magical, but science magical.
we have a system in our bodies called the reticular activating system (ras) that helps our brains decide what information to focus on and what to delete.
when you have a clearly defined purpose, a mission, and when you live every moment in a state of certainty that you’ll achieve it, you influence what your ras filters out and what lights it up.
as a result, you pay special attention to things that help you achieve what you’re after, things you otherwise would have never noticed.
i am so ras'd up it’s unbelievable!!!
so.
back to the ten grand blog.
i pushed myself to have the blog ready to send to people on friday, but something huge happened, which i’ll tell you about in a minute, so we only got to send it out saturday morning, which worried me as i wasn’t sure if people read emails on saturday, but thankfully it turns out they do.
within three hours, i received a thoroughly delicious email back from clare williams.
i emailed her back immediately with an idea of how together we could get her to raise ten grand to help save lives, and i gave her my phone number if she wanted to text or chat
i loved reading this, and my ras was revved up to the max!
we had a great chat, and it transpires clare is the clare from https://penylanpreserves.co.uk/ that supplies our bigmoose coffee shop with multi award winning preserves, especially her amazing chilli jam, (i am now salivating btw), and my email with the ten grand blog had piqued her interest to help, which was amazing.
as we chatted, clare referenced her bigmoose journey, and the fact that some four years or so ago she had attended a talk i did about my everest adventure, at our local david lloyd, and i reflected on that wonderful mountain expedition, and how it is still affecting my life for good, thanks russ for pushing me.
at the end of our conversation i gave clare a cooling off period, as i know i can be quite intense sometimes, and the next day clare emailed, she was 100% in, and after i read her email i felt the desire to run, to process this properly, and as i stepped out my door, i was determined to run a sub four minute mile. (i didn’t)
so, I now have a new slide for my presentations, telling the ten grand blog story, which will hopefully inspire people not be afraid of failing, and doing whatever it takes to achieve their dream, and if anybody else reading this wants to become the john landy to clare’s roger bannister, please drop me a line, we’d love you to join us on this adventure, however you think you can help, to be successful we need you on our team.
so.
the reason our blog was sent out late was because i was scammed.
by my wife.
shocking right?
so here’s the story.
last friday was very sunny, and tania says to me and chloe "shall we have a walk down the bay, and go for wagamama’s?"
the cunning vixen had us at wagamama.
the rest was white noise.
as we cruised bay bound, she also mentioned that she had tickets to a back stage tour at the welsh millennium centre.
all i could think about was noodles.
with hindsight, a backstage tour of the 'play that goes wrong' was very random, but 38 years with this woman has given her an insight into my ras that allows her complete (almost) control, and food plays a big part.
“where shall we park?” i offered.
“oh we can park at the back” red flag 1, which i completely missed.
we duly parked and headed into the back door of the theatre, red flag 2, see 1.
“are you here for the tour?" the lady behind the desk asked.
“we are” the vixens subterfuge continued.
after five long minutes of waiting, and visualising waga’s vegan ribs in front of me on that wooden bench, our tour guides arrived, and were very ’theatrical’, no flags here.
we were led backstage where a girl proceeded to drop a tray of props, which the guides responded to somewhat strangely, and my spider senses tingled, but as it was ’the play that goes wrong’ i guessed we were being entertained along a theme, and decided to roll with it.
the guides led us onto the main stage with its 2497 seats, very impressive, and the director told us about the show, with a light switch falling off the wall, and a props guy ‘accidentally’ breaking a glass when putting it down, all very unbelievable, but roll with it, not long till yakisoba I thought.
we were then shown a mocked up fire, which proceeded to explode into flames, and then from nowhere a film crew leapt on stage with the whole cast of the play, who proceeded to unfurl a banner saying 'thank you from the bcc one show.'
utter shock.
tania and a group of our friends had been planning this whole thing for weeks behind our backs, and it transpires tania was mic’d up on our car journey into the theatre, which blew my mind as i worried about what i had possibly said, as i am extremely inappropriate at the best of times.
the whole theatre were in on the prank, and there were cameras everywhere, and i think we were in shock, i am dreading seeing our reaction.
we were then introduced to the arranger of this deception, noah, who unbeknownst to us had met tania earlier in morrisons car park covertly, like some sort of friday lunchtime drug deal, to fit her ‘wire’ (i shall never trust this woman again)
noah was lovely, and said that tania had told him that she had a stage school background, so he felt comfortable that her acting experience would help her weave their web of deceit, i rolled my eyes without him seeing.
he then proceeded to tell us their was one more surprise.
i was thinking chef’s table at wags, but the one show team led us outside the grand entrance to where a gang of friends, family, and other liars were congregated.
i hate centre stage and much prefer life in the wings, and was pretty overwhelmed at the magnitude of what was going on, especially when our attention was drawn to a massive l.e.d. screen with a cinema size alex jones from the one show, saying thank you to bigmoose for helping so many people, and i was glad i was wearing sunglasses, as there seemed be some dust go in my eyes at this point, which thankfully nobody would have seen.
there were then a number of beautiful testimonials from people from our world, and dr alex george the uk youth mental health ambassador, and it was quite an emotional moment.
fortunately for me the moment was interrupted as i spotted in the distance a mini bus full of girls, hopefully on a hen do, screaming and brandishing a four foot inflatable penis out of the window, pure comedy, and the timing was perfect to blow the dust away.
after the on screen recordings, completely overwhelmed by this time, we immersed ourselves into the love and hugs from our mates, amazed that they had one kept the secret, but two travelled from all over the country to be with us, very very humbling indeed.
after all this mayhem, there was only one thing for it.
wagamama.
we ate, we laughed, and i personally reflected on how fortunate i am to live the life i live.
hopefully the show airs this thursday the 30th, and my dream is that it helps us in some way to get to our project 1million this year, and as we all know, sometimes dreams come true.
thanks for reading, and if you want to read more of my weekly jibber jabber, i’ll see you here next week.
I’ll be seeing ya,
blue skies,
jeff
as i sit in the darkened cabin on my flight to los angeles, with nothing but engine noise and the drone of the two west country chaps that haven’t stopped talking since taking off from heathrow, i notice we are now over greenland, and, prompted by the glorious sight of the white mountain range below, i decide i should start writing a blog again.
i haven’t written one for years, and my life has changed dramatically since my last prose was penned.
my business life, my family life, my spiritual life.
i’m not religious, but definitely much more spiritual these days, and all facets of my life changing in different ways, some good, some bad, but the overall net position is very positive, and i am very grateful.
gratitude is something i am trying to work on since reading a great book by jay shetty, ‘think like a monk’ where he talks a lot about finding gratitude in everything.
i am definitely more zen, and now meditate more, do more yoga, and try to eat a plant based diet.
basically i’ve turned into a hippy.
which is ok, because i quite like hippies.
i’ve now discovered that by typing a blog, the cabin drone fades, though as i stop for a moment, i realise they are still talking, good reason to continue i conclude with my inner writer.
this more hippy like demeanour has definitely happened since returning from everest, and i remember russell brice my expedition leader, telling me i must climb this amazing mountain, as it would change my life forever, and he was right for good reasons.
everest is the reason i’m making this trip, as my fellow summiteer, joe burke and i made a pact to celebrate our summit day on the 26th may together every year.
in 2018 we visited joe in his home in livermore, a suburb, 20 miles out of san francisco, in ‘19 we hung out in london, and now, unlocked, we’re heading to meet up in vegas for a long overdue party, watch out vegas the hippies are coming.
one of the biggest changes in my life has been bigmoose, which if you’re reading this blog you will hopefully have some knowledge of bigmoose, but if not click here https://www.bigmoosecharity.co/
as you will see we have become a registered charity, and i am now steering the ship, alongside my youngest daughter and co founder chloe.
it is a massive shift from being the germ of an idea in 2014, when i attempted everest the first time, and did a fundraise for teenage cancer trust, a brilliant charity that will forever have a place in our hearts.
this fundraising changed my life, and was to be the moment i realised i wanted to help people that needed help, and with tania, tiffany and chloes assistance, we’ve built bigmoose into a thriving charity with a strong group of trustees, and some clear goals.
this year our goal has been driven by a longing for me to find a dream that scared me, since that summit five years ago.
i was pondering should i attempt to climb the very dangerous k2 in pakistan, or extend my running c.v. and do something super challenging.
but then i realised i was being very selfish, and whatever scary challenge i undertook was not serving the world, just my tiny piece of it.
so, inspired by my mentor who had sent me a video saying that “every day we are all writing our own eulogies” i changed tack.
nothing trailblazing there really, but it really made me think.
i want to do more bigmoose stuff, that helps people.
during lockdown we had been providing free therapist sessions for people that have been signposted to us, and had five people that told us that without the therapy, they would have taken their lives.
that’s pretty powerful stuff, and it got me thinking i wanna do more of that, helping people that are struggling mentally, and saving people from killing themselves.
so i messaged chloe “i have an idea” i know she hates/loves that, ha ha ha.
“i think we should try to help more people, lots more.
we have the therapists, we have more and more people being referred to us, we just need more money to pay for it.
so here’s my idea, we fundraise a million pounds?
what do you think?"
“ambitious, but we can do it” she replied.
“oh yeah, there’s something else i messaged her later, i think we should do it in 12 months”
silence.
“otherwise, there’s no end point to measure if we’ve been successful.”
silence.
“ok i’m in” came the response i’d hoped i’d get.
"it’s only 100 x £10,000’s right?”
“i guess", chloe said, taking her shoes and socks off to count. (this part is pure fiction, and only for comedic value)
and so the journey started, with me quantifying that we would only need 100 people or businesses to step up and raise £10k, which six months in on project 1million I still believe we will do.
since setting sail on our voyage i have been told that i was the lone nut, and that i needed the first follower to start a movement, and dan wood was this first follower.
after meeting up for a coffee one day, and listening to my story, just as you have read it, he excused himself to use the toilet, so I checked my phone to read a message that read “I have just finished my fourth session with graeme, he has saved my life.”
i was visibly moved when dan returned, and he asked if I was ok.
i hid the girl’s name (hannah phillips, we’ve passed the stage of anonymity now) and showed him the message.
he paused for what seemed like ages, and then said “what do you want me to do?”
he threw me with his direct questioning, and i panicked, “what would you like to do?” i responded, nervous, yet trying to seem confident.
he paused again, for what this time seemed like ages, but was probably only five seconds.
and then just like that he became the first follower.
“i’ll raise ten grand for you”
"are you serious?” i asked shocked.
"definitely, let’s do this!”
i got very emotional
i think the magnitude of his commitment overawed me, and the power of what his action was going to do for others in need really hit me hard, the genie was out of the lamp, and we were off to the races, no looking back!
I related this story to hannah recently, and she referenced this you tube clip, which i absolutely love, and it represents our journey so far brilliantly, please give it a watch
https://youtu.be/256eKjULdgQ
great video huh?
so raising the money is one thing, but spending it wisely is another, and as of today we have referred 104 people to our therapists, who on average are taking 4 sessions to get people to be signed off, or as we call it graduate, and currently we have 33 graduates, 6 of whom have said that we have stopped them taking their lives, which i hope you’ll agree is just amazing.
so.
why start back blogging, and why now?
mainly because i can’t sleep on this plane, and yes they are still talking, (note to self, always pack noise cancelling headphones for similar emergencies), and the second reason is that i have this wild premonition that you are going to read this blog, decide you are going to become part of the movement to help us save lives, and you are going to email me at jeff@bigmoose.co or whatsapp me on 07977585548 and take action by offering to fundraise, however much you want, it all goes to help others, and imagine if just one of you reading this does what dan wood did and commits to raise ten grand, what a fricking cool bar story we’ll both have for the rest of our lives, and i guarantee, you will feature in every keynote speech i ever do.
so thanks for reading, and hopefully now i’ve explained the journey to here a little, next weeks blog will be a bit more than a mini novel about insomnia and hippies, and just as a footnote, i am finishing writing this blog back in blighty, but after our red eye flight to l.a. with the current official guinness world record holders for longest conversation on a plane, tania and i landed in l.a. and decided to be tacky tourists and head for a picture at the hollywood sign, and were making our way to get the obligatory selfie, when in the distance we saw four guys approaching us, two of whom it became very quickly apparent were the jibber jabber twins, i kid you not, and as we approached they asked tania if she would mind taking a picture of them.
“oh my god, we were on the same flight” one of them exclaimed.
“amazing” shrieked another.
i stayed quiet, and harnessed my inner monk, and i tried to stop bad jeff from speaking, at least out loud.
we waved as we left them, "bon voyage, i’m gonna write a blog about you" i shouted. (in my head)
have a great week, and if less than 5 people unsubscribe, i will write another blog next week, this is not a personal challenge though, even hippies have feelings.
i’ll be seeing ya,
blues skies,
jeff
it was a sunday night in 1984 and i was playing ice hockey for the streatham redskins in south london, and i was one game away from backstopping our team to their first ever appearance in the playoff finals at wembley arena with a capacity of fifteen thousand people watching, and the only small obstacle in our way were the current league champions, durham wasps.
i parked outside the ice rink in streatham and listened to bruce springsteen singing “rosalita’, on a bootleg cassette tape, and as the tempo increased with pace, so my heart joined him, i was pumped and ready for my challenge this sunday evening, bruce inspired me, and my singalong was a superstition i enjoyed.
all we needed was a draw from this fixture, and the atmosphere as i entered the arena was full of anticipation, durham had brought hundreds of fans, and the 52 seater coaches were lined up along streatham high road in quite an intimidating way.
however as i walked past them, i knew and they knew, i was the thorn in their side in the previous fixture the week before, and the verbal abuse they aimed at me was shouted with a degree of nervousness, a really strange thing, but i felt like they were scared.
“you won’t be as lucky tonight smithy.”
“jamie crapper’s gonna destroy you tonight smithy.”
i smiled and eyeballed them as i walked past them, saying nothing, less is more i always find, and i could almost smell their fear, which was very interesting, the cockiness wasn’t there, their bravado seemed to lack belief, and we all knew i was becoming their nemesis.
interesting.
the rink staff smiled as they opened the doors to the ice rink, which to paraphrase the great mountain climber anatoli boukreev, was not just a stadium where i sought to satisfy my ambition to achieve, on this cold sunday evening it was my cathedral where i practiced my religion.
i walked down the steps and past our dressing room, past the durham dressing room, and continued down the dimly lit corridor to the other end of the rink, and up the steps to the seats above, overlooking the polished ice surface.
i placed my bag down, and slowly sat viewing where the congregation were starting to come in.
my mind had a million thoughts running around in it.
could i do this?
what would the consequences be?
what would our fate look like in a few hours time?
this was undoubtedly the biggest game of my life, and the whole of british ice hockey was watching.
this was an opportunity to show what i could do, all i had to do was stay calm, and play the game i knew i was capable of, and like my canadian goaltending hero billy smith, become a ‘playoff’ goalie.
could i do this, did i really believe i could do this, or would i crumble, mentally beaten, physically beaten, and the league champions calibre would shine through?
champions become champions because of their tenaciousness when put into tough situations, and they had already proved they had the team to win under pressure, did i have the same kind of gumption, could i overturn this sporting machine, time would tell, but for now i actually felt quite calm and in control as i took a very deep breath, stood up tall, and spoke out loud to myself “let’s do this, let’s go and have some fun!”
the dressing room tonight was less noisy, and i could sense the boys knew the magnitude of the challenge ahead, and nobody’s voices challenged john cougar mellencamp as he sang a little ditty ‘bout jack and diane.
sport is so intriguing for me, i can tell when a player is ready, when they are going to excel, and perform well, and looking into my teammates eyes, i felt they knew we had a chance, an outside chance at that, but definitely a chance to cause an upset, and their nerves were noticeable, and the atmosphere palpable.
the energy levels started to build, and the noise started to increase, with chatter of how we could do this, we could actually get to wembley, this was our sandbox, these guys were nothing, and by the time we left to go to the ice for our warm up, we were pumped full of adrenaline, but strangely, personally i felt very calm, almost like this was my show, my game, and i was very much in control of the outcome.
i skated past jamie crapper, his size no longer intimidating me, and he knew i stood between him and carrying on his great season, and i knew he wasn’t ready.
he was unsteady, and i had rocked him less than seven days ago, and i knew the chatter he would have heard in his own head, playing over that sixty minutes, where his super powers had been suppressed by my kryptonite, and here i was again, like a mosquito buzzing around him.
he looked straight at me and i beamed a smile at him, at which his eyes averted my look.
and at that moment i knew i had beaten him.
the league’s top scorer was neutered, ineffective, and was to play no consequential part in this game.
the draw that we needed was 60 minutes away, and as a game it was no spectacle, resembling a fight between two drunks after closing time rather than a championship bout with stallion like boxers.
we swapped single goals in the first period, and entered the dressing room between periods tied.
we clung on and scrapped valiantly, with the score 5-5 with ten minutes to play.
the volume in the streatham high road ice rink was at max, and a fever pitched capacity crowd screamed themselves hoarse with every chance that was attempted, and i loved it!
the adrenaline was coursing through my veins, and i was doing what i loved most in the world, billy would have been proud of me.
the last face off of the game, with the wasps of durham with their goalie off the ice to allow them the last roll of the dice with an additional player attacking my goal.
i glared at their forwards through my iron cage.
i knew, and they knew.
they had to beat me.
but that wasn't going to happen, not tonight, this was going to be my night, and as the puck was dropped stef fought with all his might to win the puck and he scrambled it towards the boards, and i glanced up at the electronic scoreboard as the red numbers counted down the seconds, 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 0, the klaxon sounded and our team bench poured onto the ice as my team mates headed towards our goal, and smothered me in a human pyramid, as we all screamed and shouted along with the home crowd, man it was noisy!
this playoff series led to me walking through the doors of wembley arena on may 4th '85, to play in my first semi final playoff game in front of the biggest crowd of my life, which was a massive moment in my career, but the biggest game changer of this experience was meeting someone, who thirty four years later has given me two awesome children, and shared the highs and lows of my life, so gary stefan thanks for winning that faceoff, and thanks bruce for the inspiration
it is 2019 and last night i went with that same gal and watched bruce springsteen at the cinema, performing his latest album western stars, and at the age of seventy he has just written a book, performed a sell out series of gigs on broadway, recorded his album, which he shot a documentary for, and is also going on tour in 2020.
just recently aged 56 myself, somebody suggested i should be slowing down, but, dear reader, my admiration for bruce inspires me daily, and i implore you to be more bruce, however young or old you are.
i haven’t written a blog for two years, and there are many reasons, but now the time feels right, and i will endeavour to continue where i left off.
bigmoose has moved on lots in that time, and i am very proud of how it continues to help people, and always acts as my constant reminder of my best friend, who was my defenceman back in that game in ‘85, gary moose cloonan, and whose picture hangs proudly in our coffee shop, always there to guide us, and as for you bruce springsteen, thanks for the inspiration to start writing again.
i’ll be seeing ya,
blue skies,
jeff
morning bigmoose gang,
apologies for the sporadic form that my blog has been taking of late, writing just hasn't been a priority.
after the passing of superdave, we managed the funeral, coped with christmas and survived a minor health scare, but no less than nineteen days after losing her dad, tania's mum june passed away in her sleep on new years eve.
juney loved new year, it was her night more than any other, and i feel sure superdave had a party invite for her that she couldn't say no to.
she passed very peacefully, and the paramedic told us it was probably a broken heart, which the timeframe very much suggested, and how very romantic that after 65 years together, they couldn't bear to be apart.
i'm not gonna lie, as a family we are all struggling with this second death, and losing both parents in such quick succession is just so so shocking, and the whole process of calling everybody to arrange another funeral has been extremely painful.
i am going to stop blogging for a while, until it feels right to continue.
we will overcome, and we will regroup coming back strong, but for now it isn't right.
when reading this please don't be sad, but please remember life is precious, and when people leave us we don't get second chances, so call that person you love, tell them, as at the end, it is all about love.
rest in peace juney, say hi to superdave for me, and may all your skies where you are forever be blue.
jeff
so.
two years ago i wake up and need to go to the bathroom, but i can't.
i try, but i can't.
now being in my fifties, there is a lot of reference to this kind of thing, and i just put it down to my age, and go back to bed hoping that i can get back to sleep.
but i can't, my bladder is full and needs to be emptied, my stomach is starting to hurt a little, and i know i need to pee.
i get up and go back to the bathroom, and try to go, but even straining, nothing comes out.
now this is weird, and i start to get a little spooked about what is happening, and i try to stay calm and rational, and rack my brain for any scrap of knowledge i might have in my brain, about similar things happening to anyone i have ever known or read about.
i have nothing, this is not a phenomenon i am aware of.
as my stomach starts to really hurt, i try to make myself pee, with such force it makes me wince.
nothing.
i am now starting to get a little edgy, as the pain is starting to build and is becoming more intense with every wave that washes over me every couple of minutes.
"arrrggh", i let out as quiet a moan as i can at the midnight hour, and feel myself almost fainting as i try so hard to force my muscles to work.
the noise i make wakes the gaffer, and she comes in to see what is happening.
i explain, and tell her i will be fine, though at that point i knew i wasn't gonna be fine unless somebody unplugged the apparent blockage, and allowed me to release the build up that was now resulting in the levels of pain becoming excruciating, and more frequent.
every minute i was starting to scream and nearly fainting as i tried to push for all my life to pass water, imagining that it was something that pure effort could correct.
"i've rung an ambulance" tania informed me.
now i'm not a 'ring an ambulance kinda guy'.
"great, let's go" i exclaimed.
the journey to the hospital felt like i was about to give birth, and i can only guess that contractions feel slightly similar, girls i always applaud you, but this brought me closer to understanding your dedication to the continuation of mankind than ever.
by the time we reached the hospital i felt extremely weak with all the screaming and straining, and i had no idea how this was going to play out, or what was even wrong with me, was i dying, was this going to be the end, what the heck was happening?
tania did the hospital admin, whilst i hobbled, doubled over towards the toilet, still with the belief that i was going to break the seal, and all would be right.
as i closed the toilet door, a wave of pain like no other washed over me, and i let out an almighty scream, and went faint, falling against the white tiles, just managing to grab onto the cold chromium handrail, don't die smith, don't die in some crappy hospital toilet.
i had dropped to my knees, and mentally imagined being found trousers unzipped, head in the toilet bowl, surely this wasn't to be my last hoorah!
i heard knocks on the door, and voices asking about my wellbeing.
my brain gained some oxygen, and the pain subsided.
i tidied myself up, and opened the door, still doubled over.
"come with me mr smith" the senior looking nurse beckoned, as i shuffled toward a cubicle.
"can you lift yourself onto the bed?" she asked.
i nodded, as i felt another wave stirring form the pit of my stomach.
i tried to suppress the scream, and instead made some kind of noise that a wounded animal would make in a forest in a horror movie.
as i managed to get onto the bed with the sterile blue plastic covering i still had no idea what was happening, until the nurse explained to me, we are going to catheterise you mr smith, which i kind of guessed what it meant, and nodded in agreement, trusting what was about to happen to be the best course of action.
"please lower your trousers mr smith, i am going to anaesthetise your penis internally with this needle and gel, and then insert a catheter through your urethra, into your bowel to release the urine, we think your prostate is enlarged which is blocking things."
you had me at 'anaesthetise your penis internally with this needle and gel' i thought!
i grimaced as the hugest needle i have still to this day ever seen came towards me.
i clenched.
"not long now mr smith" she assured me, and i saw her unwrap what she was going attempt to insert into my bowel, via the smallest diameter tube i owned.
i looked away as she did what nurses thankfully do.
the anaesthetic hadn't done it's full job, and i gritted my teeth as i felt the long rubber tube enter my bowel.
as soon as it did, the urine flowed into a bag the nurse suspended on the bed beside me, and the pain started to subside, and the world was a better place.
"oh my god that's amazing, thank you so much", i exclaimed, and sunk back into the soft pillow, exulted.
turns out my prostate had indeed for some reason enlarged, blocked things up, and resulted in the crazies happening.
when the urologist arrived to explain things to me, i was far more happier, and wanted to get out of hospital asap.
"so mr smith, we'd like to give you some tablets, and then look at you either staying in overnight, or keeping the catheter in for a couple of days at home until the prostate shrinks back to it's normal size."
"hmmmm, how about i take the tablets, take the catheter out, and i go home?" i stupidly negotiated, with tania glaring at me with 'that' look.
"well it might be better to keep the catheter in mr smith, if you leave hospital"
"how about, i start taking the tablets immediately, take the catheter out, go home, and if it happens again i'll come back and put the catheter in?" i countered.
"ok mr smith, that should be ok."
i noticed tania shaking her head, she knew and the doctor knew, the fact of this matter is i am the worlds supreme optimist, and sometimes, just sometimes a little overpowering with it.
(i wonder how many blog readers are smiling at that last sentence?)
as we left hospital, minus my rubber tubular friend, the trees looked greener, and the sun brighter, and i took my first tablets hoping they would start reducing the size of my prostate pronto.
they didn't.
9pm that night was when i admitted that my plan was actually not working.
"i need to go back" i informed tania, "the pain has started again.
yes, i am an idiot.
yes i should have listed to the doc, but seriously, would you want to be walking around with a catheter in your pants?
no is the answer that we will all, if we're honest, admit to.
anyway, that was what happened, i had the catheter fitted again, same procedure, ouch, and then the only way to urinate was to use my flip flow valve.
now a flip flow valve is genius, and i still find it quite amusing in some childish way.
the tube comes out my penis, and at the end of the 200mm tube is a valve, which when your bladder feels full, you go to the toilet, hold the plastic end, flip the valve to open, and your bladder empties, simple.
it's really not a biggy, and works fine in almost all situations.
though i did have one mishap.
whilst driving to see a client in llandeilo, approximately ninety minutes drive in the summer, i had the lid down on my car, and merrily made my way through the leafy lanes, enjoying my world, and the whole driving experience, until about ten miles to my destination i thought i must have accidentally put my heated seats on, and my bum and legs were feeling somewhat warmer than they should have been.
i realised they weren't on and when i looked down i saw that i had sweat marks on my jeans which was really strange, but further investigation revealed, that somehow, i must have accidentally knocked my flip flow valve on my newly acquired rubber friend open, and as my bladder had performed it'd function perfectly, so i had slowly been peeing myself, as my flip flow valve has no muscle or mind to control it, it is a free spirit with but one job, to flow or not to flow, almost shakesperian, and if the human controlling it accidentally flips it the wrong direction, it will not question that decision, as unfortunately for me, it has no emotional intelligence.
i arrived at my clients, only needing to do literally five minutes work, and i decided to take my black notebook and try to hide the wet jeans i now possessed, and do a sort fan dance almost like a burlesque dancer, never allowing my dirty little secret to be revealed.
open door with left hand, right hand positioning book over wet area.
swap hands to allow for right handed hand shake.
move close to counter to sign visitors book, etc etc, you get the jist.
i left the job, hoping i had not been discovered, and chuckled all the way back to cardiff, my life is somewhat weird sometimes.
so that was two years ago, and since then the phenomenal expanding prostate has been monitored quite closely, and whilst not shrinking to where the docs have wanted, what it has meant is i have had a number of internal examinations, eventually succumbing to the inevitable biopsy, to see if i had the big c.
i haven't.
but the period between biopsy to being given the all clear was pretty rubbish i have to say, but the relief of hearing that i didn't have that battle ahead was great.
and this is the main reason for writing this blog today.
the reason i didn't write my blog yesterday was that i had a flare up of the enlargement, and was readmitted to hospital, as i had exactly the same pain and retention of water two years ago, and i was sat in hospital rather than scribing my weekly prose.
it was a lot easier this time around, and i wasn't scared as i knew what was ahead.
as i sit here now, with my flip flow catheter doing its thing until next week, and hopefully my course of meds will sort things out, but the reason for telling you all of this is for one reason only.
if you're a geezer, and you haven't had your prostate checked in the last twelve months, please make an appointment asap, as regular checks can help spot problems, and if discovered early you can save your life.
and if you're female and you have a husband, partner, friend, dad, relative that you love, ask them if they get checked regularly, and if they don't, then encourage them to.
as men we don't like this sort of thing, and you will receive pushback, and avoidance, but really, if you can save one man having this excruciating pain that i have had, and better still getting the big c, then it's worth it i reckon.
so as christmas fast approaches i hope you have a lovely break, and reconnect with people you love, and that love you, and enjoy the time together, as we all know it goes too quickly and we need to always make the most of it.
thanks for reading and supporting,
much love and blue skies,
jeff
morning bigmoose chums,
i didn't really wanna write anything today, as my mood is pretty melancholic, as this week we lost my father in law, my wife's dad, and my children's grandad.
superdave, as he was known to me, was 88, and had the big c pretty much everywhere in the end, but man he fought it hard to the end.
so among the tears and heartache this week, there has also been a lot of remembering the great times, and eulogising about his life.
and oh what a life.
an s.a.s. soldier, a skydiver, a published artist, and a great humanitarian, and a nicer geezer you could not wish to meet.
superdave seemed to trust me quite early on in my courtship of his eldest daughter, and i remember vividly him taking me for a 'boys dinner' at a grand house in london, which he informed me was an army safehouse, which as we entered was vast in size with super high ceilings, and a massive winding staircase with pictures of past s.a.s. hierarchy including the founder david stirling.
i didn't know too much about the s.a.s. but discovered that the idea had come about after stirling, a 6ft 6in scottish aristocrat, mountaineer and cowboy quit cambridge university to be an artist in paris and later joined the scots guards.
he was training to climb mount everest when the second world war broke out and volunteered for a commando unit in the middle east.
while recovering in hospital from partial paralysis of his legs after an unofficial parachute jump went wrong, he hatched a cunning plan to launch surprise attacks using small teams of crack soldiers.
he scribbled down his plans for small raiding groups, independent of the traditional military.
they would operate deep behind enemy lines, destroying aircraft and supply links before melting away before their opponents had time to respond.
the special air service was born and dave was to become one of these elite soldiers, revered the world over, a very special soldier indeed.
as we ate dinner, dave regaled stories of the 'mob' and told me of how when the iranian embassy siege took place, the perfectly executed armed raid by his regiment rescuing all the hostages, the members of the unit involved, all came back to the house where we were and celebrated long into the night, and dave and other london based members of the regiment ate, drank and made merry as the guns used in the raid were stacked up near the front door like umbrellas.
dave was an accomplished skydiver, and as such when i decided to go to florida to do my accelerated free fall course, i invited him along, and he won everybody at the drop zone over with his stories and zest for life, dave was quite the raconteur, and one night whilst in a local bar, i left him to go to the washroom, to return to find a group of girls surrounding him, and laughing loudly at his tales.
i couldn't get close to get his attention, and as i watched him hold court, i smiled as he seemed to be having such fun, until eventually he saw me and gave me a huge theatrical wink and a smile, classic superdave.
his passing was painful to watch, as everybody within his solar system watched his light fade, and the pain we all felt as he ended his days here on earth was palpable.
but as someone who loved him i am glad he is out of pain, and has left us for what he always said was the next chapter.
wednesday will be his funeral, and in true superdave fashion he has left instructions for everyone to wear bright colours, and his playlist of songs should be clapped along to, such was his passion for life, and i for one will forever be inspired by this man who definitely left this world better than he found it.
r.i.p. david jenner and may the place where you are now be full of blue skies
have you looked?
has it snowed?
i just had to have a nose out of the front door, as when we went to bed last night there were flakes a fallin'.
alas it hasn't laid.
as well as on mountains, i love snow, i have no idea why, maybe it's positive association with fun based activities, skiing, climbing, snowmen, snowball fights, etc, etc, but i love it.
i think it's the way it makes everything look so picturesque and clean as well.
one of my favourite memories of recent snowfalls, was a few years ago when the guys that worked for me at the time arrived at work having fought there way through the slushy roads to make it in, only for me to map out the plan for the morning, which was for me to go out and leave them to split themselves into two teams, computer i.t. guys versus creative graphics guys, and they had to build the best snowman, and then send me a picture of both snowmen for me to confirm a winner, which they looked at me agog, until i then mentioned the winning team would win a spot prize of £20.
i placed the crisp twenty pound note on the office desk, and they all looked at me, and then sped off in the direction of the snow covered garden to create their masterpiece.
later that morning my phone pinged with two pictures of amazing looking snowmen with various accompanying details, including one pushing a wheelbarrow, which if i remember was the winner.
simple fun, but interesting how we all revert back to a childhood state so quickly.
interestingly this week i was watching a video sent to me by my mentor darren hardy, who i have spoken about before in my blog.
well this week darren shared some golden nuggets about a gentleman he interviewed some years ago, who was over 100 years old, but whose name he didn't share, alluding to the fact that he was one of the most successful businessmen of his day, though i still have no idea who it was, but his story was awesome.
darren is an amazing storyteller, and it wasn't long before i was scribbling and screen grabbing titbits from his video, and one of the gems he unveiled to me was that nothing captivates the human attention like a game, and that you can turn difficult tasks and behaviours that almost everyone else hates into a game.
i started thinking about this concept, and how i could apply it to my life, but before i could get started, i realised that only this week i had unbeknown to me at the time, applied darren's methodology into my life.
chloe and i had got our first order of coffee in retail packaging, and we had the idea to try to sell it online using social media.
now personally instagram is my favourite social media platform, but for us in bigmoose land facebook seems to be the best place for us, and always has the most impact.
so, armed with 46 bags of coffee, i challenged chloe to a competition to see who could sell the most coffee in any way, until we had sold all the bags via social media.
we took a cheesy picture, see below, and set about our task.
carnage ensued.
we both set about contacting our own personal networks, and the post on bigmoose's facebook page, started to get some interest from friends family, and supporters far and wide.
"we've just sold two bags!" chloe exclaimed.
and the premise that we had instigated to identify who had actually sold the coffee kicked into play.
our simple message, was along the lines of " we are having a competition to see who can sell the most coffee, so please buy some, and show your loyalty to either #teamchloe or #teamjeff"
we totally underestimated how much people like games.
"totally on #teamjeff i'll have five bags mate."
"it's gotta be #teamchloe two bags please."
"two bags, one for each of you," the messages flowed in.
"wow, this is pretty exciting" we both agreed.
"we've sold over half dad", chloe informed me.
"am i winning?" i asked
"just."
"just, is good enough for me, just winning the gold medal is always good enough!"
"it's not over yet dad."
"this is unreal, we've nearly sold out."
"who's winning?" i asked.
"me by one."
i resorted to whatsapping friends out of desperation to help me.
the silence, and the tension in the room was palpable.
"yes!!!"
team chloe's leader shouted, and i knew my fate.
when i first delivered this child twenty three years ago, and chose to love her, clothe her, educate her and feed her, never in my wildest dreams did i imagine i would have created such a monster!
who does this to their father?
who makes the man who has dedicated his life's work to serve her, wear a cardboard box saying 'LOSER' on it, on his head for the whole internet to see, and future generations of google searches to pull up this image on it's first page?
a child of lucifer is who.
i shall speak of this no more, but for every action, there is a reaction, i am a fan of the long game, and this is by no means over.
anyway, the facebook battle, even though finished, had some positive effect, as more orders for coffee poured in, and we have sold just under 100 bags of our first bigmoose coffee co offering, in what essentially was a game.
i reckon this is pretty awesome, and hopefully is an indicator for what the future holds once we open, and was very timely when i read darren hardy's story suggesting that humans are captivated by a game, and i am going to see if i can incorporate it into my life a bit more, as if you make things fun, surely that's gotta be a good thing right?
so, the coffee shop build is now firmly back on track, and we are starting to build some momentum, with visits from the fire officer, external works commencing this week, and next week seeing some real positive steps being taken internally.
one of my mates, the lovely matt thomas, who has been a bigmoose supporter for years in all guises, has got a team of his vectos work crew coming in after work on tuesday to get involved doing a number of things, which will be brilliant for everybody involved, and shows a real community spirit, and hopefully his team will enjoy the experience, and feel an ownership of the place forever more, i love this kind of stuff, and is very much what this project is about, the sum of all of our parts being amazingly strong.
so if you wanna come along and help in any way, or have a eureka moment with a supercool idea, please just drop us a line, we really want to have as many people as possible feeling ownership of this dream.
to wrap up with today, our 'don't forget your toothbrush' campaign has riproared into life with the david lloyd filling theirs over three times already, and amazing support from the general public, so if you're in south wales any peter alan branch will take your donations, and here is their branch network.
https://www.peteralan.co.uk/branches
also the lovely jayne at university hospital wales has just put their bin out in the concourse at uhw, which is here.
off the record, the peter alan m.d., andrew barry mentioned to me that he would like to get 10,000 products donated, so how cool would that be, and here we go again, making it a game, maybe give it a try in your life, and see how it goes.
anyway, enjoy the festive period, finish the year strong, red line it to the end, and do something flipping amazing for someone in your world this week, it's totally within your power.
blue skies,
jeff, aka 'loser of the first bigmoose coffee co competition'
good morning bigmoose gang,
this weeks blog is about practising what you preach.
not, i hope, that i sound like a preacher, but more of someone who gets a thrill out of others who don't fully know what they can achieve, and by providing them with a little encouragement, watching them excel, whilst spreading their wings wide as they fly higher than ever before.
well that's the plan.
that's always the plan.
not that it's a plan that has been planned, it just seems to happen that way.
the supertri for disabled children, organising a group of runners to run the cardiff half marathon, hopefully touching people positively all along the way, and not having any formal training or structure to work within, just going with it because it feels right, and persevering with it, even when it seems tough, because hopefully the return on energy will be totally worth it.
and it always is.
well that stuff all happens because of you.
you support us in hundreds of ways.
you know how you support us, you're too cool to need reminding, but we know, and you know.
and that's how we are building great events, and literally changing lives, and that has to continue, as together, we are so strong, so so strong, and this group of people who have been attracted to doing good can spread far and wide.
and it will.
but we need to be tough, and persevere when bad crap happens.
well, this great coffee shop, that we are going to build that will allow us to grow, and spread the message, needs to happen in my opinion.
i just feel that every person we are able to help, who has been struggling in life, due to a myriad of reasons will benefit, by seeing changes in their lives, and then spreading that goodness and love as they travel on their journey.
we are all on a journey, and sometimes the journey seems pretty tough, and almost too tough to carry on, but whether it's a mountain or a challenge in life that looks equally as tough, we all need help, whether it's our sherpa, our guides, or in life our friends, family, and often random acts of kindness when you least expect it.
so what the heck am i drivelling on about this week, get to the point smithman!
alright alright don't rush me, i'm trying to build some context behind the obtuse comment 'practise what you preach'.
oh ok.
geez that voice, does it ever stop!
so the crux of what i'm saying is when it gets tough, or even seems impossible, don't stop believing, and i am now laughing at my serious reference which i have remembered is also the title of 80's power ballad kings 'journey' who sing 'don't stop believing', blinking heck i didn't even plan the irony in that little link up there, it was almost like it was planned.
for those of you who the 80's represent some long forgotten time that excites your parents whenever mentioned, and makes them look at each other and smile that smile, fill your boots with this little soft rock classic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k8craCGpgs
did you sing the chorus?
be honest?
anyway, back to the serious bit.
bottom line, our mates the builders who were gonna help us with the coffee shop, have become super busy and now can't.
now, i have been working on this bigmoose mullarkey since we started it three years ago, and little chloe, aka fluffy, who is my little baby girl, who has climbed kilimanjaro, run a 42 mile ultramarathon, and endured everything i throw at her along the way, has also been part of my master plan to get this coffee shop rocking, and for it to be her baby.
my dream has been for chloe to grow into the businesswoman i know she is, and i am very proud and fortunate to have the opportunity to work alongside her, and watch her flourish as we go along, so it was with some trepidation this week that i left her to take a quick preplanned holiday in the crux of the most crap of times this project has had so far.
no builder.
hmmm challenging.
nah, not for super chloe, without going into too much detail she has got another team involved, who i know are so passionate about this project already, it will 100% get completed, and we have gone from being super despondent to super excited again, and by digging deep i feel sure we will build this coffee shop, that will be more than a coffee shop, it will be a living organism, that will literally change lives, and that's gotta be worth fighting for right?
even when things don't go right.
and although this wasn't my desired plan, once we have opened and are doing some amazing stuff, i just know that chloe, myself, and you as well will all be very proud of what together we will have achieved, and hopefully it will inspire you, and others to fight tough, never give up, and never give in, and to 'practise what we preach', phew i got their in the end!
so i will be back in town monday, and am so amped to move up through the gears, and for everyone who has helped us already so far, thanks, and for everyone who has bought coffee already, thanks as well, the sum of all of our parts can make something huge.
have a fab week, and if you really feel the need to send a message of encouragement to chloe, she is human after all, and i'm sure would appreciate it, then that would be lush ;)
so until next week,
blue skies,
jeff
ni hau bigmoose friends,
sik jor fahn mei ah?
well i hope?
mine?
kind of you to ask.
this week has been rollercoaster central, leaving me a little cream crackered mentally at the tail end of it.
i shot down to londinium the night before my barclays talking gig, to make sure there were no monday morning delays, and i was fresh for the task, and ended up staying at the hoxton hotel in holborn.
an unplanned gem of a hotel, sunday night, and the open plan reception area was absolutely rammed with people and a dj playing some funky tunes, which stopped me venturing out for food, and i stayed within the footprint of the hotel, and paid my donation to the dj's wages via my food and bev bill.
simple model, play music, make people happy, and they will spend money with you for your services, i mentally noted how well this was executed.
rise and shine, and wander over to the donmar to meet roy from barclays.
roy is a climber, and as his boss told me was the only reason they had booked me, and we joked at how the day was really just all about roy, who i had grown to like over the last few months of prep for the day.
i had been to the site and the room prior to this week, to make sure i was familiar with the audio visual setup, and the technician on site confirmed that all we needed to do was plug my mac into the hdmi port in their system.
i brought every conceivable connector and lead with me, and was 100% confident we would be good to go.
you knew before you read this sentence that av guy was a liar didn't you?
well not so much a liar, more a smudger of the truth.
no hdmi input.
i had a memory stick with my presentation in both mac based keynote format and pc based powerpoint, so we should be able to upload it onto roy's machine that was outputting on vga.
unfortunately, his works based computer was on lockdown and wouldn't allow my million plus gig presentation anywhere near it's usb port, wincing every time i got within 30cm of it.
i sensed that my hosts, one and all were now getting just a little anxious, and roy asked if i had a plan b?
i did.
we could go direct into the projector three metres up in the air, slightly off piste, but sometimes those rides are the best right?
no ladders.
plan c?
stay calm smith.
now i'm not a panicker, but my presentation is definitely a visual one, and trying to describe the curvature of the earth as i looked back from 8000m on mount everest, whilst i would have a flipping good try, cannot really compete with the beautiful picture that accompany's my tale.
15 minutes to go, bags of time.
i calmly entered justin the tech's open plan office, and he must have known that i wasn't paying him a visit to talk about how disappointing the weekends football had been.
"we have a problem justin", i mouthed calmly, only now realising the comedy value of his name when the end of this story unfolds.
justin looked a little unnerved as he tried all manner of ways to spark up the system, all to no avail, until the eureka moment, "we'll use my mac" he exclaimed, pulling a fluffy white rabbit out of his top hat that he wore so well.
running out of the door, i looked at my watch and roy's face in quick succession, "i think we're going be ok", i gently said.
justin and his mac returned splendidly quickly, and my memory stick docked uneventfully in it's port, and did what mac's do, just worked.
the keynote uploaded, with minutes to spare, prompting me to shoot for the moon, "i don't suppose you could download my presentation remote software, so i can use my hand held soother, do you"?
"of course"
right answer justin, right answer mate, i was loving his work, and we had about six minutes till take off!
30% 40% 50% logitech i love you!
100%
3 minutes to go, and test remote.
we have connection, the remote went forward, backwards, did the little magnifier thing that it does to spotlight stuff, and raised the volume of the audio just by hand gesture, harry potter in a remote i like to think.
"we're good to go roy"
i patted my new av best pal justin, and said thanks, resisting what i now realise was a great opportunity for a 'just-in time' gag, which on reflection was a good thing i think you'll agree, timing smith, it's all about timing.
the hour talk flew by, and we had no sleeper's which is always a good measure i find.
roy's gaffer tim, a lovely chap, waxed lyrical after the gig, and i was pleased he was happy as that meant roy would share his happiness.
so a good start to the week, and my focus now turned to the coffee shop which we had arranged to get two skips delivered to be filled with debris from the demolition that we had been doing.
long story short, we used the power of facebook to rustle up an army of friends who came down on both days to help load aforementioned skips, and before our very eyes the shop was cleared and clean, amazing what an army can do, and i have a feeling we are going to need a big army to get this project to where it needs to be, as fate is dealing us a bit of a duff hand at the moment, but more of that next week, we are keeping all our small bones crossed, and i am a big believer in fate, so we shall see, watch this space.
i won't dwell on the rubbish bits, as they're not fun, but the finish of the week was pretty cool with a client that we work with, an estate agent in south wales called peter alan, who last year joined our grab your coat campaign, collecting over 1100 bags of warm clothes for cardiff's homeless, launching this years joint venture.
after chatting to a number of charities, we discovered that they were all in need of toiletries for their hostels that homeless people stay in short term, so we have decided to launch this years 'don't forget your toothbrush' campaign, which will have all 30 peter alan branches having drop in collection points, as well our lovely mates jayne at university hospital wales, and wayne at david lloyd clubs cardiff, who will also be taking donations, so if you're in south wales watch out for the bins.
that's about it for this week, apart from my last talk on friday to 175 teachers in st martins school in caerphilly, which was fun, and the feedback has been exciting with offers of help to run next years cardiff half, among other things, so hopefully lots of positivity, and a great return on energy.
ooooh i just remembered we also produced our first bags of coffee this week, in bean and ground formats, so if you want to purchase a bag of nicaraguan jinotegan blend, consisting of cataui and cattura varieties from small farms in the jinotega region, renowned for it's incredible coffee, drop us a line.
a medium roast with a beautiful tangy crisp acidity, clean flavour, well balanced, and a sweet chocolate finish, so our amazing local roaster huw from welsh coffee roasters says, what's not to like.
this coffee will make an affordable christmas present for all coffee loving loved ones, with a story that you won't beat, and all profits will help us build something that will help others, so lots of wins i reckon.
sales pitch over.
oh and we ship as well.
the end.
have a great week, and don't forget to plan this months monthly moose for december, let's finish the year strong :)
http://www.bigmoose.co/monthlymoose/
blue skies,
jeffers