MATCHED FUNDING - 1 WEEK TO DONATE

WILL YOU MATCH OUR FUNDING?

£1 COULD BECOME £4!!!

PLEASE ACT BEFORE 17^th MAY

We at Living By Giving know that our supporters are incredibly generous, and that you want your donations to go as far as possible in helping those most in need.

Confident in this knowledge, we at Living By Giving have made an act of faith in supporting a major campaign by the highly respected development agency CAFOD.

As some of you will know, this Spring CAFOD has been raising money to make clean water available to people in some of the economically poorest parts of our globe, through its “Thirst For Change” campaign.

The brilliant thing about this campaign is that donations are being matched by the UK Government. Every pound donated by the public to CAFOD’s “Thirst For Change” campaign receives a further pound from the government.

Living By Giving has given £200 to CAFOD’s campaign, which means that, thanks to matched funding, £400 will go to help bringing clean water to people.

One in eight people in the world still don’t have access to clean water. Every twenty seconds a child dies because of dirty water.

Here at Living By Giving we are so confident in the support of our donors we believe that between you, you will match the £200 we’ve donated to CAFOD. If you donate a pound for our pound, government-matched funding will mean that ultimately four pounds will go to help CAFOD’s campaign.

If you, our Living By Giving supporters, match our £200 between you, then ultimately £800 will go towards this brilliant campaign.

THERE IS ONLY A WEEK LEFT OF MATCHED FUNDING AVAILABLE SO PLEASE DONATE NOW.

Please donate now via the CAFOD website.

You don’t need to tell Living By Giving that you’ve donated – we’re really confident that you’ll match us – but you might like to spread word of the campaign to friends, perhaps via Facebook.

Please give what you can now. Thank you for being such amazing supporters.

The Living by Giving Trust welcomes a new Trustee

After an interview process, we are very pleased to announce a new trustee.

From Johan Bergström-Allen: “As Chair of Living by Giving I’m delighted to welcome Ali Bergström-Allen to our board of trustees. Since she happens to be my little sister I’m more used to teasing than praising Ali, but my fellow trustees and I are very confident that she will bring great skills to the role, as well as a sparkling personality and commitment to making the world a better place. We’re so glad that she’ll be joining our team, and her experience in business, management, IT and artistic production will greatly enhance our work. Thank you for sharing your time and dedication with us Ali, and welcome!”

We all welcome Ali to the board of trustees.

Ali said: “Hello Everyone! I have followed the wonderful work that the Living by Giving Trust has done so far, and I am incredibly honoured to be part of such a great team! I know that I am a very fortunate person, and am hugely grateful for everything that I have in my life. The Living By Giving Trust stands for everything I believe in...that everyone deserves a good quality of life and that 'those who have must help those who have not'. I've had experience with volunteer work, both for charities and for events, and I hope to bring some of my experience to the group. Really looking forward to the year ahead!!”

Ali started her role from April 2012.

An opportunity of a lifetime...

The CA Hospitalite organises to take sick and disabled adults to Lourdes each year for a week's holiday. The CA Hospitalite needs many volunteer helpers to come along and look after the guests, and the Living by Giving Trust assisted three helpers to go along in 2011.

Here Robert Bigge talks about his experience and time in Lourdes:

"AN OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME

On a sunny Thursday in August 2011 I left London on the first leg of my trip with the Catholic Association to Lourdes as a Helper. We travelled by coach down to Dover where we were booked on a ferry to Calais.

When I boarded the coach it was full of new faces and I a nervous face stared back. Not knowing anybody was a little daunting but its the best way to get to know people on a 20 hour trip to Lourdes. Having to talk to a total stranger, whom by the end of the trip I could call a friend.

After a long journey we reached Lourdes on Friday evening and booked into our hotel rooms. Most of the Party were from my school in Croydon, we all unpacked and were down at dinner eager to develop friendships with both boys and girls we had only just met, some shared stories of Lourdes if they had been before and there was a great sense of excitement amongst the group.

On Saturday I was given my rota of jobs and we got stuck in straight away. I was asked to push Mary around in a wheelchair, our first visit was to hit the souvenir shops, I quickly worked out they were all selling very much the same things but Mary was eager to see if there were any new arrivals or bargains she had missed but I think it was an excuse to bump into people and have a chat. Mary was probably in her 70s she was such a great person to talk and good company she made me feel comfortable even though I had the responsibility of wheeling her around, it was amazing to share the 'torchlight' evening procession with her, she made ME feel welcome and she was not demanding at all.

After three days with Mary we said our goodbyes. I then met John and had the pleasure of him taking me around Lourdes for another couple of days. Well John was hysterical, he was so cheerful and great fun, he cracked jokes all the time and I could see why he had been to Lourdes 28 times – as well as being a holy place to visit its also a place to have fun and make friends and never be lonely. Physically John had many needs and it was a pleasure to be there to support him. I learnt that even though they are old Mary and John had so much to give.

Lunchtimes were spent back at the hotel enjoying the lovely lunch and dinner was there too – we never went hungry!

On my rota I had one evening duty at the Hospital and the rest of the evenings were spent with our group in the local bars where the atmosphere is amazing, lots of chat and impromptu singing, you find that you are all drawn to each other in a common bond.

I also had one duty which involved an early start, 5.30am – but it made the day last longer and meant I could spend more time awake and alive in Lourdes.

I went for myself and I was surprised at what I had achieved an opportunity in my lifetime not to be missed. I really want to go back next year and to get more of the boys from my 6^th Form at the John Fisher School to come too – I know they will have a great time on a working holiday.

Robert Bigge

New Trustees Wanted

After a successful first year, the Living by Giving Trust is looking to appoint two
new trustees who will help us develop our projects yet further. We invite applications
from people who are...

• enthusiastic about the contribution that charities make to society
• able to demonstrate their commitment to voluntary work
• supportive of our aims to improve the condition of people’s lives, as described in our Trust Deed and on our website (www.livingbygivingtrust.com)
• willing to work as part of a team of Trustees, which meets about four times a year, normally in London
• able to add skills to our Board, such as fundraising, publicity, outreach, administration, etc

To apply please send a letter of introduction by Friday 25 November 2011 to Matt Betts by emailing: contact@livingbygivingtrust.com. For further information, please contact our chairman, Johan Bergström-Allen, by emailing:chair@livingbygivingtrust.com

Successful applicants will be invited to interview in central London on the evening of Friday 2 December 2011.

A Word of Welcome and Thanks

A word of welcome from our chairman...

THANK YOU! I want those to be the first words in our charity’s first newsletter, because without support and interest from people like you, Living By Giving simply would not exist. It is your charity, so again, THANK YOU!

It’s amazing to think that as a Trust we’re only a year old, but already, for a small charity, so much has been achieved. In our first twelve months we’ve enabled a child to spend time at Derian House Children’s Hospice in Lancashire, we’ve sponsored other sick children to go on holiday and supported the families of sick children in hospital. In London we’ve helped out at a soup kitchen and also helped to initiate a fund for those affected by this summer’ s riots. In addition, we helped to fund a student volunteering in a reconciliation project at the Dachau Memorial Site – that’s a diverse set of projects to be involved in!

And that’s how Living By Giving hopes to make a difference. There are many great charities and social projects out there, but rather than compete with them, we hope to build networks between us, and initiate new projects. Our aim is to advance the standard of life for all people in need; the poor, the disabled, the deprived. With such a large remit, we’ve decided to take a particular focus for three-years and our first cycle of projects (2010-13) is associated with young people - “Living By Giving... Young People New Experiences”.

At the grand old age of 32, I’m probably falling out of the bracket of ‘Young People’ myself, but I have to say that the new experience of becoming a Trustee has been wonderfully enriching and great fun. My fellow trustees – Matt Betts, Stephen Daly, Dail Maudsley and Sadie Vile – are all people I met in Lourdes, and our inspiration for setting up the trust was our life-changing experience of volunteering to help the sick and disabled.

So much in our society today encourages people to hold on to what they have got, and to hoard for an uncertain future. The world seems to promote a message of ‘Living By Taking’ – there is an unspoken fear that sharing your time, energy and resources with other people will leave you going without. In fact the opposite is true; our experiences as Trustees have proved that giving time and energy to others actually enriches you. Life is unpredictable, and so the best place to invest your resources is in the here and now, in relationships with other people. Giving really is the best way of living.

We have a number of exciting projects in the pipeline, and we’re looking to involve as many people as possible. We always need help with fundraising and publicity for events such as our first birthday party, and would appreciate anyone who can volunteer their time. If you’re interested in finding out more about how you can help or would like to get involved right now, please just get in touch with us. And if you have any suggestions for how we can be “Living By Giving...Young People New Experiences”, do let us know.

With sincerest thanks again for your help and support in our first year.

Johan Bergström-Allen, Chairman (2011 - 2012)

• Read our newsletter here

Thank you

Thank you to all our supporters who came along to our First Birthday Party on Saturday 22 October 2011 and to all those who donated towards our event.

We have many people to thank, but we would like to publicly thank the following people for their help in making the event a success:

Firstly, we would like to thank our fundraising committee, for helping the trustees with organisation and for being heavily involved on the night: Anna Ball, Terri Betts, Jane Cadogan, Pippa Hembry, Andrew Loynd, Patrick Noble and Alex Turvey – thank you all for your incredible efforts.

A big thank you also goes to the following people (in no particular order):

• Philomena and Mary for preparing all the wonderful food, and to Jane for your invaluable help in the kitchen all night
• Christophe and Lina for helping behind the bar
• The Bikini Beach Band
• Paul and Tony – our brilliant DJ’s
• Pauline – for cake, sausage rolls, and babysitting
• John for various logistics and bringing us all the drinks
• Claudine – for driving Steve to collect things
• Duncan & Chloe for providing the PA system
• Errol Bracken for his speech (and dancing)
• Neil and Sophie for the lights
• Janet for her generosity
• Bluepepper Design
• All those who donated a prize to our raffle
• Gibbs Hartley Cooper for their generosity
• The Arundell family
• The CA
• The British Province of Carmelites
• Walworth Parish, but especially Kevin and Francis
• All the Lourdites!
• EBU
• Kerry Betts and The Happy Tea Company
• www.costumes4ushop.co.uk for loaning various props
• The amazing staff at the St Bride Foundation
• All the trustees! Dail, Matt, Johan, Sadie and Stephen

If you would still like to donate to us, please visit here, and thank you!

The Living by Giving Trust

First Birthday Party - Details

Thank you to everyone who has bought a ticket for the Living by Giving Trust First Birthday Party. We are looking forward to seeing you on 22nd October 2011 from 7.30pm!

Since we haven't had much of a summer this year, the event will have a summer theme and will include music from The Bikini Beach Band, a raffle, a cash bar, food, and much more, and will take place at the famous St Bride's Foundation in the City of London, close to the historic area of Fleet Street and the famous St Paul’s Cathedral. See details on how to get there, below.

Please feel free to dress up as summery as possible (though you may want to bring a jumper for the journey there and back!).

Please don't forget to bring cash for our cash bar and raffle!

And, finally, if a friend or family member would like to come along and haven't bought a ticket, please buy here.

How to get there:

St Bride Foundation

Bride Lane, Fleet Street

London EC4Y 8EQ

T 020 7353 3331 (Map)

Tucked away just behind the main streets, the building is signposted from Fleet Street and New Bridge Street.

Underground

Temple District and Circle line (13 mins to Foundation)

St Paul’s Central line (7 mins to Foundation)

Buses

Fleet Street, east end: 4, 11, 15, 23, 26, 76, 172

New Bridge Street: 45, 63, 100

Main line rail

City Thameslink (2 minutes to Foundation)

Nearest car park

Hillgate House

Limeburner Lane

London EC4M 7HY

Open 24 hours a day.

From Ludgate Circus, up Ludgate Hill and take the second left into Old Bailey, then left into Limeburner Lane.

• Use Journey Planner to play your journey