Working at the Carwash

Parkinsons charity is a charity we have worked closely with since the beginning of the MAD group. For this event though the younger interact members decided they wanted to help John Lange and his team by doing a carwash for a day.

 

 

The 5 members went out on a rather cold day with buckets and sponges at the ready to give some cars a good scrubbing. The cars werent the only thing getting washed as friendly fire was called when John turned the hoses on our interact members. The whole day was a good success and it was easy to see how much fun the members had helping the Parkinsons Team.

We truely do love working along side this charity group and we are always made to feel welcome at there events and fundraisers. We look forward to helping them more in the future and maybe get our own back in the water fight side of things. :)

could you Beat Beethoven

Ahh Beethoven, Classical music composer who may have produced some of the best classical pieces to date. However he has now been challenged but not in a musical way...
The annual Beat Beethoven event is held in the Stirling University campus and challeges all competitors to run, jog or walk 5 kilometres. But the competitors are not racing eachother they are actually racing Beethovens Fifth Symphony – about 34 minutes. In amongst the many hundreds of people taking part were 11 MAD volunteers and the president Rebecca even managed to convince her boyfriend to join in.

The event always has a huge turnout with everyones eyes set on beating the symphony and bringing home the medal to show to everyone their amazing achievement. Even though some would argue it is an unfair race as Beethoven himself cannot take part .. for obvious reasons.

From Cairo to Cape Town

You've heard of the film from Russia With Love, well Jack White went to Afirca with one goal in his heart and mind to raise as much money as he could for the charity Farm Africa. To Africa With Love.
His goal was simple cycle from Cairo at the north of Africa to Cape Town at the bottom of Africa. I said his goal was simple not practical ;p
However over 100 days he managed it and a handful of us were lucky enough to be able to go and see his presentation his trip. A real life inspiration, his journey was very tough with many obsticles to overcome such as heat, a non-sertanty of food and a place to stay and even later on in his journey lions. However he was so commited to this charity that he was able to keep pushing himself more and more each day to achieve this amazing target.
So after the visiting MAD group memebers had destroyed the food spread they had lay out for all the guests that were there, we sat and listened to a 2 hour talk on this momentous event.
It did not only show how one mans drive for success can achieve such great outcomes for charity but also that charity can come in many forms; from bakesales to car washes and to events that are much larger like this cycle that Jack White achieved.
We left the event inspired and ready to carry on helping in any way we possibly could.

A Treat For The Winter

The Winter Treat is becoming an annual event for the pupils and staff at Queen Victoria School. But what is the Winter Treat?

The Winter Treat is a social night for all the local elderly residence of Dunblane, Bridge Of Allan and some people travelled from Stirling to come to this event. To say it is a small event is a push, over 100 residence showed up to listen to Skelpit Lug playing a two part show of traditional scottish songs and songs from further abroad include some French influenced tunes. Not onlt was Skelpit Lug there but also QVS's own Pipers and Dancers put on a 20 minutes sessions including a 6-step Fling and a new and improved broadswords.

The night was a huge succes with pupils and guests both agreeing that is was a very enjoyable night and the majority of the pupils who took part, if not all of them, came back from the eent feeling happy and feel they genuinly made a difference as for some of the residence this is their only social event they can get out to in the year.

The night was concluded by a raffle thanks to kind donations from staff. A few QVS pupils did win but were kind enough to not accept the prize and leave it purely for the guests... no that it took a little persuasion to put it back ;)



ROTA KIDS !!!

As if just having a Make A Differnce group was enough for the pupils of Queen Victoria School... pffft of course not. We would like to welcome our new Rota Kids volunteer group. This group is equally as strong as our MAD group and have already undergone tasks such as the Shoebox appeal gaining over 100 shoeboxes.
Led by President of MAD Rebecca they are set to become the next big thing in the volunteering world joing many other Rota Kid groups throughout Britain.
I just wanted to wish them a hello into the charity world and wish them luck for the future however they will nevert be on par with our major Make A Difference Group.
They are always here to help you .... JUNIOR STYLE

Willie The Wheelbarrow

Could you have guessed the birthday of Willie The Wheelbarrow? Well if you were in the Dunblane area between the 14th and the 16th of may you could have been in with a chance of winning your very own wheelbarrow flower pot.
6 willing, enthusiastic volunteers traveled down to Dunblane Cathedral to help give out cakes, sandwiches and soup to the friendly community of Dunblane (while having a few cakes ourselves of course) The proceeds of this event all went to Christian Aid - a charity who are fighting hard to reliev poverty throughout the world.
Two volunteers were sent around the tables with a diary, this would eventually lead to willie finding an owner. For 50p you could guess which date you felt could be this beautiful wheelbarrows birthday. I must admit many people tried to avoid us as clearly the thought of taking the "prize" home was not very appealing however with our beautiful volunteers powers of persuasion we managed to raise £40 worth of guess money with the winner of the event never coming to claim her prize...
The event was a great success with volunteers and staff all having a good time. We work closely with Christian Aid whenever opportunities arise along with other groups such as The Red Cross and Start Up Stirling.
We are buzzing to help out at future events and are always looking out for other groups to help.

It's...US