Showing posts with label Jo Walters Trust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jo Walters Trust. Show all posts
Monday, July 18, 2016

Grant to St Fergus Primary School for Leavers' Legacy Wall Bars


Grant to St Fergus Primary School for Leavers' Legacy Wall Bars


Update from Louisa Bradford:





I had the opportunity today to go and visit the result of one of last year’s grants.  We agreed to grant match a school in St. Fergus, near Peterhead, who wanted to raise money to buy an indoor climbing frame for the gym in their school as part of their Leavers’ Legacy.  The Primary 7 students who were leaving and moving to ‘Big School’ would be passing something on to the future students.  Previous projects for the school included revamping the school’s library and buying some playground games.  The children were incredibly excited about it, and rumour has it that the current batch of Primary 6 students are already brainstorming for what they’d like to do.

In order to raise the money for their climbing frame, the students had to work out what they were going to do, and settled on a family Ceilidh evening in March.  They planned the evening, organised posters, table decorations, had a stovies tasting session and even arranged for the local radio station to give them publicity.  I have to say, I was seriously impressed with their entrepreneurship.  All told, they raised £1250, which is a phenomenal effort.  Coupled with the £1000 that we had agreed to provide meant they could get the climbing frame they wanted, and I’m told that each extra bit of money meant a slightly improved climbing frame.  They chose the beautiful apparatus, thoughtfully bearing in mind that the littlest pupils wouldn’t be able to manage it if it was too difficult.

The climbing frame arrived on Friday, and the children only had yesterday to practice a brilliant 5 minute routine for display today.  Everyone took part, and managed to show off their skills, and it was genuinely wonderful to see the happy faces and the result of one of our grants.  Well done, St. Fergus P7s!
Monday, June 27, 2016

Skillforce Aberdeenshire Grant Follow Up

By Louisa Bradford, who visited Skillforce, a project the Jo Walters Trust supported with one of the Aberdeenshire grants in 2014. 

I was lucky enough to be able to visit Skillforce at a school in Aberdeen towards the end of last year. The students, aged 13 and 14, were practising for their ‘It’s a Knockout’ tournament, a fun day for primary school children where teams would come and play games for points.  The Skillforce students would have to introduce their game, explain the rules and how points would be scored, and then adjudicate.  This session, they were focussing on the introduction - and you’ve never seen a group of chatty teenagers go so quiet…  By the end of the session, coached by teachers AJ and Michelle, they had all managed to stand up in front of  a group of their peers, introduce themselves, explain the rules of their game and how points would be scored.  It was brilliant to see, even in one session, how these children’s confidence developed, and how they encouraged each other to succeed.

Some photos of the session are below. In the photos, they are doing press ups.  They had to do press ups if they were late/naughty.  I had to do press ups on the day, as I didn’t win the game to get ping pong balls in the bucket. Just in case you were wondering.











Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Heather Woodward Runs the Morrisons Great Edinburgh Run for the JWT

A post from Heather Woodward who was in Jo's year and house at Gordonstoun, about running the Morrisons Great Edinburgh Run, in aid of the Jo Walters Trust, which she did last month (April 2015). We're really grateful to Heather for raising so much money - £872.50 - but also for her lovely write up of the run, and finding such an appropriate way to remember Jo. Thank you Heather!


Heather Woodward, looking surprisingly cheerful for someone running uphill!

I should start by saying I am not a runner. This time last year, running 10 meters was something of a challenge and so running 10 miles seemed like something only crazy people did. However, annoyingly, as the lasting life lesson goes that most Old Gordonstounians remember, "plus est en vous", there is more in you. That can very much be said about Jo and it is sad to say that I didn't know just how much Jo had done until hearing about it at her funeral. It was inspiring.

It's been 15 years since a set of bright eyed (slightly cheeky) Hopeman girls left school to go out into the big bad world and so we thought that was about time to attempt a reunion. One of us was already running in the Morrisons Great Edinburgh Run, so Edinburgh seemed a good enough place as any to bring us all together. Having spent so many years all living under the same roof, it wouldn't have been right for us to have met up and not acknowledged Jo's absence and so along with regaling the various stories about us all over drinks, I decided to "run" the Morrisons Great Edinburgh Run for The Jo Walters Trust.

The hills, oh my, the hills. 4.25 miles uphill, 5.75 miles downhill. I think I earned every penny of donations on those Edinburgh inclines. Each family member, friend or colleague that sponsored me pushed me a little further, made me run that little bit longer and got me over the finish line.

I'm really glad that I ran it for The Jo Walters Trust. Jo seems to have been such an inspiration that I am glad to have been able to contribute to a cause which is carrying on her ethos. Although I'm not sure that I will take on Edinburgh again, I'll definitely look out for other opportunities to help the cause, and for anyone who is thinking of fundraising for The Jo Walters Trust, do it. I don't think I will ever be as outgoing, charitable or fearless as Jo but in this, I get to be a little bit closer to it.

Heather Woodward
Tuesday, November 11, 2014

New Head of Fundraising!

The Jo Walters Trust is incredibly excited to be able to announce that we have filled the new fundraising role we advertised earlier in the year, and are thrilled to announce our head of fundraising will be Katie Peters. Katie currently lives in Aberdeenshire and has great experience of organising and running events across Scotland. She has joined the JWT team from November 2014, and is already planning some very exciting ideas for 2015. If you are interested in helping out or have ideas, you can contact Katie by email at katie@jowalterstrust.org.uk.



Thursday, November 14, 2013

Athens Marathon for Jo Walters Trust

Out of the blue a month or two ago we got a notification from our BT MyDonate account that someone had set up a fundraising page for the Jo Walters Trust to run the Athens marathon. After a bit of digging it turned out to be not one, but two chaps, James Cameron-Cooper and Jimmy Philippson, who were brave enough to attempt to follow in the footsteps of Pheidippides, though hopefully not with the same end result.

James and Jimmy with the Jo Walters Trust banner in Athens
The great news is that they not only completed this very tough marathon, they did so with a fast time, and in so doing, raised over £1,000 for the Jo Walters Trust. We are hugely grateful, and are proud to share this report they sent, along with a few pictures. The Jo Walters Trust banner is rapidly becoming a very well travelled item. It should be back from Athens soon though, so if you have a good idea for a fundraising effort, let us know if you would like to add some more miles to the banner's travels!




------------------------

From James Cameron Cooper

Dear Friends & Family

Thank you for all the support and generous donations toward the fine work of the Jo Walters Trust with over a £1000 raised to date:

https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/jcameroncooper

Needless to say it was an exceptional experience. Running partner, Jimmy Phillipson, had rustled up some fine customised vests, which coupled with our, coincidentally, matching footwear made for a promising outing.

Having kept the local brew to a minimum the night before we were up at 6.30 (4.30 UK time) and kindly driven to Marathon by my father.
A jovial atmosphere and an ever warming sun greeted us at the start. We were clearly going to get a tan as we ran.

To give the other 12,000 runners a head start, we were at the back in Block 7. Each of the blocks went off at 5 minute intervals, with the elite runners starting at 9am. Fortunately the timing chip in our bibs would start as we crossed the line, record split times along the course and provide a final time at the finish. Our ambition for the 26.2 miles / 42 kilometres was a time under 4 hours. Game on.

Dancing through the throng we made steady progress. Water stops came and went every 5 kilometres with a bottle of water eagerly consumed at each. In between, the crowds kept cheering and the kids kept hanging out a hand for a high five. We were happy to oblige.

Roadside DJ’s playing a mixture of songs from Daft Punks ‘Get Lucky’ to Zorba the Greek kept the beat going as we reached half way. Entering Athens for the final six miles / 10 kilometres, runners increasingly succumbing to cramp, a succession of steel bands creating thunder with their drums was a welcome and invigorating lift.

Eventually, drawing deeply on unknown reserves, we headed into the Kallimarmaro Stadium (meaning beautifully marbled) and, arms raised aloft, crossed the line in 3 hours 37 minutes.

James and Jimmy cross the finish line of the Athens Marathon


It had a been a physical and emotional rollercoaster but one that we would certainly consider doing again!

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Helping the Chauncy Maples Deliver Healthcare in Malawi

This blog post is written by one of the Jo Walters Trust trustees, Thomas Walters, who has championed the Chauncy Maples cause.

Since making our donation to the M/V Chancy Maples restoration, matters have progressed well.  For those that have not heard about the project, the donation made by the Jo Walters Trust at the beginning of the year was in aid of the Chauncy Maples Malawi Trust which is renovating Africa’s oldest ship into a mobile clinic on Lake Malawi. The M/V Chauncy Maples will bring much-needed healthcare to remote villages where malaria, TB and HIV/AIDS are common. Improving people’s health enables them to farm, fish and live more productively.


Chauncy Maples painted with primer


In terms of the restoration of the ship herself, the first primer coat inside the ship was put on in May this year as you can see in the picture to the right:

Construction continues on the exhaust system, funneling  stairs and tanks.  Further details can be found in the Chauncy Maples newsletters on their website.







In mid-March the ship's new propeller was cast. The five blade propeller is over a metre across and has been specifically designed for the engine, the shape of the hull and the water in Lake Malawi.

Chauncy Maples Propeller




Once the interior fit out is completed, it will be possible to start fitting out the machinery spaces, of which of course, JWT's donation was made and allocated to the costs to the battery bank so that there is less dependence on the generators making this more of a "green" and environmentally friendly project. A copy of the thank you letter from the Chauncy Maples Trust to the Jo Walters Trust is below.








In terms of fundraising, the final push is on to raise the last funds necessary to complete the project.  On 11th September, 76 crews took part in The Big Row where the teams managed to raise just under £500,000 for the renovation of the MV Chauncy Maples.  My firm entered 3 teams (Hong Kong, Piraeus and London) and the event in Spitalfields market was extremely well attended including a number of the patrons of the Chauncy Maples trust including: Katie Derham, Jeffrey Evans, Sheriff of the City of London, The Rt. Hon. Roger Gifford, Angela Rippon OBE, Roz Savage MBE FRGS, Robert Treharne Jones and Admiral Lord West of Spithead GCB DSC PC as well as Sir Matthew Pinsent CBE who was on hand to give support.

We've been thrilled to be able to help with such a worthwhile cause!