11 minute read
Charities
Their 21 challenges are underway
A WALK from their home near Vobster to the Royal United Hospital in Bath at the start of April heralded the start of 21 challenges in 21 months for Nige and Su Crutchley to raise funds for Young Lives vs Cancer.
The couple are raising money in memory of their son Ben who died in February 2012 from an inoperable brain tumour just weeks short of his tenth birthday.
Other challenges they are facing are Snowdon, Scafell Pike and Ben Nevis, along with sections of long-distance footpaths. Their final challenge will be next year’s Mells 10K, which they set up. The 2023 race will be the last to be held. This year’s event takes place on Saturday, October 8th.
The walkers pass through the grounds of Babington House to St Margaret’s Church where Ben is buried in the churchyard Walking through the tunnels at Midford
Su, Nige and John at the RUH Nige and Su (centre) with (l:r) Katia, son Luke, John and Kat
Find details about Nige and Su’s 21 Challenges for Ben on Facebook. For details about Young Lives vs Cancer, visit: www.younglivesvscancer.org.uk
Charity celebrates 30 years
FREEWHEELERSEVS is holding an evening of music and fun in The Bishop’s Palace Gardens, Wells on Saturday, May 21st to celebrate its 30th anniversary.
The evening will be compered by the charity’s patron and BBC Points West TV presenter, Alex Lovell, and will feature the Bristol Concert Wind Band and local rock band Drifftwood.
Freewheelers EVS, the “Blood Bike” charity is run entirely by volunteers and provides a free out-of-hours courier service for the NHS. It is funded entirely by public donations and sponsorship.
It transports blood, pathology and microbiology specimens, patient notes, X-rays, breast milk, and other medical supplies. It also delivers blood products to two local air ambulance bases every night of the year. Tickets cost £15 and can be purchased online at www.bishopspalace.org.uk
Rotary donation to SWALLOW
Members of the Cam Valley Rotary present the cheque to SWALLOW
MEMBERS of Cam Valley Rotary Club have donated £500 to the Midsomer Norton-based charity SWALLOW which supports teenagers and adults with learning difficulties.
Nicky Tew, fundraising and finance manager for SWALLOW said: “We are so grateful to the members of the Cam Valley Rotary Club for this donation, it will make a huge difference and the money will be put to very good use supporting our members to live independent and fulfilling lives.”
IONA White talked about her work with the homeless at a recent meeting of Shepton Mallet Tangent.
She runs the charity Help for Homeless which works in Yeovil, Bath, Taunton and Bristol.
Volunteers collect and distribute clothes, bedding, food and toiletries to homeless people on the streets. They also support those who have been lucky enough to get off the streets by providing furniture and other essentials. Donations of unwanted clothes, shoes, bedding, tents or furniture are welcome.
For details about SWALLOW, visit: www.swallowcharity.org email nickyt@swallowcharity.org or ring 01761 414034
Helping the homeless Charity fundraiser
Mencap partygoers
AFTER a two-year break, Keynsham Mencap were delighted to welcome back supporters to their dinner and auction at the Apex Hotel in Bath, their biggest fundraising event of the year.
The start of the pandemic meant it stopped running clubs in the usual way. Thanks to the determination of staff and volunteers, they took their services online and virtual, spent more time outside and made visits to families at their homes.
The auction raised in excess of £5,000 on the night which way exceeded expectations. Fundraising manager, Amanda Leonard, said: “It felt great to finally be able to hold an actual physical event. We are very grateful to our supporters who continue to keep funds coming in for us.
“This amazing total will make sure we keep doing what we do best: Providing social opportunities for adults and children with learning disabilities and autism.”
Buddies wanted
HEADWAY Somerset, which supports people with brain injury, is looking for volunteers to join its Making Headway Buddies scheme.
The buddies provide befriending to adults recovering from a brain injury caused by accident or illness.
This could be: • One to one (remotely or face to face) • In one of their rehab centres • A social meeting in a café.
Volunteers can also be involved in fundraising, promoting Headway Somerset generally and through social media. They provide training, continuing support and expenses will be paid.
Details: www.headwaysomerset.org.uk or contact Tricia tricia@headwaysomerset.org.uk • 07927 664128
Helena (left) and Melanie
DANCE teachers put their heads together for charity
Two local dance teachers, Melanie Wittmaack and Helena Softley, joined forces and donned silly hats to collect for Brain Tumour
Research on “Wear a Hat Day” in March.
They danced, sang, wore hats and shook collection buckets in Midsomer Norton High Street and managed to collect nearly £200 for the charity.
Melanie, who runs Move Dance Fitness, wore a different hat every day in March to raise awareness and money for the charity, and has so far collected £925.36.
Helena, who is also a professional musician, had a brain tumour removed nearly three years ago, so it’s a cause that is very dear to her heart.
Only one percent of national research spend is allocated to brain tumour research and the charity receives no income from the government.
Yet it’s the biggest cancer killer in children and adults under 40, with only 12% of people who have a brain tumour surviving beyond five years of diagnosis.
Details: www.braintumourresearch.org www.movedancefitness.co.uk www.helenasoftley.com or Facebook
Mud larks
GREATWestern Air Ambulance Charity (GWAC) took part in the Mud Master challenge at Puxton Park, organised by The Lions Club of Weston-super-Mare.
It was so warm that special mud marshalls were appointed to water the mud holes. The Lions have supported the air ambulance for nearly a decade.
Charity donation
CLAVERHAM Ladies Guild presented a cheque for £500 to Bristol charity One25 at their annual meeting. Their donation was doubled by “The Big Give” group which match funded donations to charities supporting women for International Women’s Day.
One25 reaches out to some of the most marginalised and traumatised women in Bristol, many of whom are homeless.
Fundraiser, Abby Dudley, pictured receiving the cheque from guild chairperson Jean Watson, said the £1,000 will be spent on running One25’s night outreach van, which provides a refuge for women on the streets.
Details: www.one25.org.uk
Mendip Challenge is back
WESTONHospicecare’s popular Mendip Challenge will take place on Sunday, June 12th and will feature a 30, 20, 10 and a five-mile route for supporters to tackle.
The routes follow the West Mendip Way on the Mendip Hills between Wells and Weston.
In 2019, the event raised £85,000 for the hospice with 1,200 people taking on the challenge. This will be the event’s 31st year.
Events and Challenges manager, Jane Murch, said: “We’re delighted to announce our most popular event, The Mendip Challenge, is back!
“We can’t wait to see you all take to the countryside and take on the challenge to fundraise to support your hospice.”
“This year our walkers will enjoy the use of a chip timer to accurately record their times.”
Participants for the five and ten-mile route will start and finish at Weston Cricket Club to ensure social distancing can take place on the coaches for the 20 and 30 mile route.
Supporters will receive a medal, a reusable water bottle and a route guide.
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The rainforests of the Mendips
ONthe Atlantic side of Britain and all across the island of Ireland, the Gulf Stream brings warm waters from the Caribbean which helps maintain a steady temperate climate, warming things up in the winter and cooling in the summer.
Back in the distant past, when the wildwood covered most of Britain and Ireland, this high humidity and steady temperature gave rise to temperate rainforest stretching from the Highlands of Scotland to the tip of Cornwall and continuing south across France and the Iberian Peninsula.
Similar forests still exist, albeit in semi depleted forms, in the USA from Alaska to California and New York State to Virginia. In Britain there are just a few small fragments of these rainforests left, most of which are in western Scotland, Wales, Devon and Cornwall with the odd exception in Somerset, including a tiny, precious fragment close to Frome at Valis Vale.
The definition of a rainforest is a forest whose humidity is such that it can support epiphytes, plants which grow on other plants. The trees at Valis Vale have thick coatings of dark green moss around the trunk and grey-green, beardlike lichen pendulously drip
from the trees.
Here, the main rainforest signifier, featherlike polypody ferns are everywhere, sprouting from the branches. Beneath them on the forest floor signs of ancient wet woodlands are in abundance with the aptly named pendulous sedge and its long drooping seed heads.
Lianas or woody vines, rooted in the soil snake along the soil and up the trees like something Tarzan would swing in on. Walk further into the woods and you come to the sprawling ruin of Fussells ironworks.
Back in the days when this was still accessible, you would see trees sprouting up from the inside of buildings, the remains of fireplaces hanging without a purpose in upstairs rooms with all evidence of a ceiling above or floor below gone. On large oak beams suspended six feet in the air ferns sprout as if on fallen deadwood.
Once you begin to look for these rainforest signifiers, the polypody fern, the lichen, the vines, you’ll begin to notice them everywhere. Heading out of Frome, close to Nunney you’ll find them covering the older trees close to the abandoned Asham Quarry.
You’ll find them further east, along with Amazonian like lichen hanging from the trees all over the woods near Ebbor Gorge. In Wells they grow up on Milton Hill, just north of the Blue School.
It's tantalising to think that great swathes of Somerset, the bits above water at least, may have been part of one great primordial rainforest. These small fragments are very precious for wildlife and can support countless rare fungi along with over 200 different species of lichens, mosses and liverworts.
So next time you are out for a walk in Mendip, look up, you may walking through a rare example of English rainforest.
Dave Hamilton
Dave Hamilton is an author and forager living in the Mendip region. He runs foraging courses in Frome and Bath. His latest book, “Where the Wild Things Grow, The Foragers Guide to the Landscape”, is published by Hodder and Stoughton. Find him at davehamilton.co.uk or @davewildish on Instagram.
