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