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i'm inas the wind blows a hoolie this morning, and the rain beats hard like fifty shower heads all pointing towards my window, i worry that josie, who is one of our bigmoose team won’t get to fly to malaga today, with red weather warnings predicted.
and, if she doesn’t fly, it will be her second attempt to make it to mainland spain in as many months, with her december trip thwarted by storms too, which will be a bummer of an end to a week, which saw her ring the office bell to celebrate winning a national lottery grant, which will pay for 250 people to go through therapy, so i am hoping the weather gods allow her a safe and well deserved city break.
we rang the bell a lot this week, as well as winning the grant, we also had unprompted feedback from five, yes five, bigmoose graduates saying that we had saved their lives, which is the most ever in a week, and made myself and the whole team so proud of what this extremely young charity is achieving.
so thank you to you for helping us.
to our amazing team of therapists for their unwavering commitment, and for people we meet along the way who get attracted to our simple approach to mental health.
do you need help?
yes.
then we will provide you with that help.
free.
no questions asked.
we don’t say no.
how simple is that?
what a great model.
keep it simple.
leave us to fund it.
leave us to coordinate the logistics.
let us provide hope.
which is mine and chloe’s responsibility, which is a huge responsibility, but whilst gargantuan in size, excites us both equally, and not a day goes by where we aren’t grateful for this opportunity.
and the rewards are we read the feedback, and we have rung that big shiney silver bell, 83 times now.
fudge, i love my life.
so, as well as lots of bell ringing we have also had probably one of the busiest weeks for meetings, radio station meetings, data analysis meetings, potential sponsor meetings, and some incredible partnership meetings, it has been a strong week, and we all commented how we feel like it’s going to be a great year, so thanks for reading this blog, and for your emails, and for coming on the journey with us.
to end this week i have a friend in town, who is coming to visit bigmoose hq, mr chuck taylor, an old ice hockey buddy, who was responsible for offering me my first professional ice hockey contract as a telford tiger, and changed my life for good.
chuck, dancing dean, lando and budzy.
chuck on the left is a huge character, very intelligent, and is one of life’s gooduns, being responsible for introducing me to this gaggle of talented hockey players.
two memories jump out of this team, one was where on a game night with over two thousand fans in the arena, our opposing team were stuck on the motorway, in a traffic jam due to an accident, which had delayed the start to the game by over an hour.
the fans in the arena were growing restless, and there were boos starting to be heard.
we were in the dressing room, when we heard the announcer inform the baying crowd that there was going to be an ice dancing display of ravels bolero, which made the crowd boo even louder.
we then filed out of the dressing room as we heard the crowd cheering loudly, and saw dancing dean and lando skating to the middle of the ice, where silence washed over the crowd in hushed expectation.
the boleros familiar notes started to play, and these two huge ice hockey players, over 6′ 7” in their skates, proceeded to dance together around the milky ice.
the crowd went wild.
and the boys loved it.
growing in confidence and enthusiasm with every, spin, lift and jump they executed, flawlessly.
the crowd cheered like at a bullfight, and by the end, torville and dean wouldn’t have got a louder ovation, and i never forget seeing our opposition arrive into the rink to witness the end of the routine, utterly bemused, confused and disoriented, it was hilarious.
the other memory i have was of dancing dean, who was my roomy on road trips, having a sponsored car, a rather fetching, but extremely small green fiat 500, which after one particular night out he drove home in with his head out of the sunroof, very dangerous, but very funny for us passengers, this was the 80’s hockey, which wasn’t as professional as today i need not add.
the rain has stopped, and the wind has slowed, so hopefully josie gets to eat tapas tonight, and i need to go put the recycling out, so wish us both luck.
till next week,
blue skies,
jeff