good morning and welcome,
especially to our new blog readers.
so for those of you that are new to my blog, it kinda goes something like this.
i talk about my week, wander off like alice in wonderland going down rabbit holes, discovering metaphorical mad hatters tea parties, try to make you laugh a little at my mundaneness of having to put the recycling out (blue job) mid blog, somehow try to weave in with deftness of touch and subtlety how my new granddaughter betty (5 months) is navigating life, sprinkle in some pictures of interesting people and places, and hopefully inspire you to do something you wouldn’t have done without reading the blog.
that’s the plan.
so.
one of the highlights of my week has been meeting the amazing rhian mannings mbe from the charity 2wish, (https://www.2wish.org.uk/) who has an extremely emotional story, suddenly losing both her young son and husband without warning and within five days.
faced with this, rhian has set up the brilliant charity 2wish, which aims to provide support for those affected by sudden death in young people, and she is a powerhouse of a human, very much using her experience to help others, and a shining light of post traumatic growth, which i am a big fan of.
“Post-traumatic growth (PTG) is where someone has been affected by PTSD and finds a way to take new meaning from their experiences in order to live their lives in a different way than prior to the trauma,” explains Dr. Marianne Trent, a clinical psychologist and owner of Good Thinking Psychological Services.
rhian and 2wish are going to be working together with bigmoose in 2023 on a huge fundraising and awareness project, which will be our first real collaboration of size, and we have been brought together by a long time friend and bigmoose supporter gareth ‘hubbs’ hubback, and our lunch meeting with rhian, paul wright, hubbs myself and chloe was full of energy, and it was only after i sent the picture we had taken to the others, that i noticed and read the message on screen behind us.
coincidence or destiny?
i’ll let you decide.
look out for news of the joint venture, all i can tease you with for now, as it’s not 100% confirmed, is that it is hopefully going to be in a 74000 seat stadium, which is a pretty big adventure, so fingers crossed.
rhian has recently returned from africa after climbing mount kilimanjaro, and interestingly she said it has changed her life, and i completely understood what she meant, and on reflection kili changed my life too.
by opening my eyes to mountains, with their serenity, beauty, power, danger, solitude, i have been seduced by their intoxicating power, which draws me in, almost to recharge my life batteries when the flow is getting low, maybe mountains are my life source, it very much feels that way, and as i ramp up my training for my next expedition to argentina to climb the magnificent mount aconcagua, i am filled with nerves and excitement, which i think are actually the same thing, but man oh man i feel alive, and i realise how i’ve missed this source of adrenaline that i crave, that feeling of working in nature, seeing sights you’ve never seen, smells you’ve never smelled, experiencing cultures you’ve never seen, i am literally loving the journey, i hope i can share the experience with you as i go.
i got a bit carried away there, sorry.
back to the blog.
last week had been quite a full one with lots going on, and by the weekend it would have been easy to have dropped a couple gears, and donned weekend wear, which tends to see me prowling around the house looking like some grey bearded rap artist, spitting rhymes every time tan asks if i want a coffee.
however, we had our last event of the week, with our friends steph and lew coming across the bridge to hold steph’s famous “stay sassy” dance event, fundraising for bigmoose, as she has done many times before for us.
this is how she describes the event.
A beginner dance based event run by women to empower women and encourage them to release their inner magic!
I started this event series in July 2017 as a one off event to raise money for the hospice that looked after my Nan before she passed away. We had 25 people at the first event and now we have 80-100 amazing women joining us every single time.
this was her first welsh stay sassy, and as the girls arrived, a lot of them seemed nervous, a little scared, but all carrying heels, which steph teaches everyone to walk in with sass, and eventually dance in, which is no mean feat, i still struggle.
me, lew, and steph’s dad mark left the room, to leave the girls to dance to the thumping beats of lizzo and co, slowly unwrapping their inner selves in a room full of female energy, love and support washing over them in white capped waves, growing in power, and the whoops and shouts of encouragement were great to hear.
as i arrived back from my coffee, i could see our great bigmoose friend, the dynamo that is kez aldridge, strutting her stuff, high on life, and, had beyonce made the trip to cardiff to a dance off with kez, methinks she would have to return stateside to forlornly tell jay z she only managed silver, to which i’m imagining he would have asked “was kez there?” and as beyonce nodded, he too would have nodded knowingly, sitting at the polished grand piano, playing his version of alicia keys ‘girl on fire’.
here she is, loving life.
kez was expanding her horizons, as were lots of the girls, and steph’s gentle, confident interaction that this was a safe space was infectious, and i loved watching her influence others with her joy.
as the class finished i looked on in awe, as every girl seemed to have grown in stature, and their body language was noticeably more open, a fantastic end to a great week
so to wrap up this morning, i’ll tell you about my dream.
last year i dreamt that bigmoose would save more lives, would help more people, and raise a million pounds in twelve months, and so far we have helped and are helping 278 people, helped stop 17 people from ending their lives, and raised £395,000 so far.
so, can we achieve our one million target in twelve months?
we’ll see what the universe has in store for us all, but i still believe we will, so if you can help in any way, or if we can help you or anyone you know that needs help, please email me at jeff@bigmoose.co together we can achieve remarkable things.
thanks for reading, see you here next week,
blue skies,
jeff
