Is This The End?

As there is no sign of charities being able to restart moving donated items, it is with great sadness that I have decided, after 10 years, to give up as Queensferry’s Co-ordinator in January and am now winding down.

The only charity I have found appealing for knitted items is in London (none local!) They will take certain items, eg knitted teddies, blankets, scarves and mitts only, (no hats or baby items) and I am sending these down to London. They are being distributed in the UK to families in low income areas, homeless people, residents of care homes or women’s refuges, or patients in hospitals as they also are unable to send abroad at the moment.

Changes to other countries customs regulations are going to make it very difficult for charities to accept many knitted items unless they have labels. Impossible for us to do.

Many charities have storage facilities bursting at the seams as they are unable at present to move items on. Many charities lost their storage units during lockdowns and are unable to take anything in.

For my regular volunteers waiting to hear from me, I am taking what you have been holding for me and these will be sent to London, but I will be unable to take any more after that.

The charity is “Knit for Peace” if anyone wants to send anything direct themselves. They have a website and they let people know what items they need the most and what they can’t take.

If any local person decides they would like to take on this initiative in South Queensferry once things are moving again, I would be more than delighted and willing to help.

Update January 2017!

Can’t believe it is so long since I last updated this Blog! I have been so busy. To bring you all up to date I will let you know what has happened last year, rather than go back to 2015!

Firstly since Queensferry parish Church first became involved with teddies for tragedies in 1999 we have sent over 6,000 teddies to children who need them!

In 2016 we received 1102 teddies from local volunteers, a marvelous number. What did we do with them? 50 went as usual, to three nurses from Lochgelly, who set up Haiti Help to assist the orphans in Haiti who suffered from the 2010 earthquake and more recent hurricane last year which devastated what everyone was trying to rebuild. As the hurricane drowned all their livestock last year, they are in great need of help to rebuild their stock of goats and chickens as food source (milk, and eggs). So as well as the 50 teddies (all they could carry in their hand luggage along with medicines etc, Queensferry Teddies for Tragedies also bought a pregnant goat through their appeal. Needless to say we called this goat Claire!

                  Image, children in the orphanage, Haiti with our teddies, taken 2016

Nepal – we have sent 262 teddies, 1600 beanie hats, 401 scarves, 112 blankets, 266 pairs mitts various sizes and 180 other knitted items to the children and families still suffering from the Nepal earthquakes which happened early 2015. ‘The Secret Garden Disasier Relief’ is one of the many charities working to help the communities rebuild their lives and homes and they distributed the donated items.

The Scottish Emergency Resue Association, who donate fire appliances to needy countries, took 150 teddies to Romania in 1015 and in 2016 they took, along with their fire engines etc, around 400 teddies, 30 blankets, some hats scarves and mitts to the children in Moldova.Fire engines ready to go to Moldova

Just a tiny amount of what had, to go to Moldova.

Friends of Chernobyls Children, who work with host families in the Uk to help the children still affected by the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Many families still live in the affected areas, and the effects of this diaster is estimated to lie in the land hence the water and the air, for 24,000 years. Friends of Chernobyl give groups of children a month long pregarmme each year for around 5 years, giving recuperative health care, English lessons and most importantly loving tender care from their Uk host families. There are 25 satellite groups in Scotland, England, Wales and the Isle of Man. 3 are in Scotland. We give teddies to all 3 Scottish groups, Almond Valley in Linlithgow, West Lothian Group in Broxburn and Maray Group up in Moray. These teddies are treasured by the children and their siblings.

Child in Chernobyl receiving a teddy.

Blythswood Care in Glasgow – make an annual appeal for hats, scarves, mitts for their Christmas Shoe Box appeal. We sent them 585 hats, 72 scarves, 43 pairs mitts, 2 blankets and 15 other knitted items.

Blythswood sorting depot

We also sent 300 teddies to London to go to Syria with ‘Hand in Hand for Syria’ charity who said they could guarantee they would arrive safely.

We participate in our local annual Queensferry Fair Day parade, in August to raise awareness of Teddies for Tragedies. In 2016 our co-ordinator was on a Honda Goldwings Trike dressed in a teddy suit!

Several of the other bikes also had giant knitted teddies on them too!

Our annual Teddy Blessing Service was held in Queensferry parish Church in September. the congregation enjoy participating in this. Below we are setting up the church ready for the service.

Our annual fundraising coffee morning was a success this year raising £675.01. A big thank you to all who contributed and helped with this.

All in all a very busy year. 2017 looks to be just as busy, stocks are gathering and plans are afoot for distribution. I hope it does not take me solong to update in future!

Happy New Year!

Ferry Fair Parade, South Queensferry, August 2015

This year the Ferry Fair Parade in South Queeensferry was exciting for us bears!

Some of us were in the parade in Vintage Cars,

and 8 of our big cousins were riding pillion on Honda Goldwing Motor Bikes courtesy of Robin Cook and goldwings.org.uk.

 They do great things for Charities and said they would be happy to take some large teddies on their bikes this year, to raise awareness of Teddies for Tragedies and the comfort  we give to sad children everywhere! Thank you so much Robin and your group.

The good news is they have said they will do it next year if we want them to!

Whooopee!

NEPAL

      

    After much searching, I am excited to announce that I have found a contact, who has a contact, going to and from Nepal, and she is looking for donations of knitted or crocheted hats, scarves, gloves/mitts and blankets for children and Adults, in preparation for the looming cold Winter.

I have pledged some of our donations which I am sure no one will object to and am busy sorting out hats and blankets as I write! (well, not at the same time!)

She has asked,no light colours please as it is very dirty out there and it won’t take long for things to get  grubby. She also would like some of our teddies, again, no light colours.

Please contact me at   clairebear_tft@yahoo.co.uk  if you would like to help. I have patterns available.

Fundraising Coffee Morning, May 30th- 2015, by Norma, Co-ordinator.

Our Fundraising Teddies for Tragedies Coffee Morning went well this year, despite competition from several other events the same day – I do pick the wrong dates, don’t I, but still I was happy, as you can see from my smile!

I am very grateful for all the help and support I received from, June, my assistant and right hand woman, and my three door ladies, who did admirably!

The Tombola went well and thank you for the help there too, as well as the important donations, without which we couldn’t have a Tombola!

Thank you to my kitchen ladies for their baking donations and help with the teas etc, vital to a coffee morning!

Thank you all who donated so generously for the Cake ‘n’ Candy stall and to my two lovely daughters and lovely daughter-in-law who helped to sell the goodies. Thank you to my sons who helped with baking and helped to clear up in the kitchen and hall, and thank you to my husband who did lots!  In fact thank you everybody, I hope I have missed no-one out!

This is beginning to sound like an Oscar Award speech!

Thank you to everyone who baked and donated, who came and supported, and those who couldn’t make it but gave generous donations to compensate. We raised a final grand total of £436.96, which will help enormously with the expense of the fabric to make 500-600 drawstring bags to keep the teddies (1 each) cosy and safe when they reach their new homes! It also helps with promotion costs, and inks for the many patterns I print off!

(Oops, missed this out for 2014!) Teddies for Tragedies Coffee Morning – 2014

Queensferry Parish Church once again hosted our annual teddies for tragedies fundraising Coffee Morning.

   

    

 

Thank you to all who contributed to the

£ 443.26 that was raised.

 This helps enormously with the fabric for the teddy bags, and other expenses such as printer inks for all the patterns that have to be printed.

 It also helps with any costs for our ‘Raising Awareness’ promotions during Ferry Fair week, and gives us a good start for next year.

2015, Benji and the Girls!

I had another adventure with the girls! I went to Girls Brigade Camp, and we visited Robert Burns Birthplace Museum!

                                                                                              Help, I’m flying off with this Corbie!

I love Haggis and Neeps, let me at it!!

Queensferry’s Teddy Blessing Service – November 2014

On Sunday 2^nd November we had our annual Teddy Blessing Service, before the Teddies set off on their travels.

We prepared the Church.

Norma spoke to the congregation, to bring them up to date with how this project is going, and to tell them what our special teddies have been up to in 2014.

The congregation were invited to’ bag’ the teddies in front of them in the pews, and bring them up to the front to put in our collection box (a very handy travel cot!).

We received  over 500 Teddies and bags this year, 250 of which were donated to Kirkliston for their Teddy appeal for Syrian Refugee Children. The remaining Teddies went to Malawi via The Raven Trust, Argyll. The 50 blankets, 146 hats, and other knitwear went to Eastern Europe (who don’t admit the Teddies in, due to Customs regulations) via Blythswood Care, Glasgow.

Another good year!

Many thanks to all the wonderful Volunteers!

Kirkliston Teddy Appeal – 2014

Kirkliston Church appealed to its parishioners for 500 Teddies for Tragedies to send to Syrian Refugee Children, after a visit to their camps by their Minister Reverend Maggie Lane. Reverend Lane visited these camps with a small number of teddies, earlier in the year, and saw firsthand the reaction from the children when given one of these teddies. Realising the value of them, she came back and issued this challenge to her congregation.

Queensferry donated 250 of our teddies to help towards their target. They had such good response that they were able to send 900 Teddies to the Syrian Children, through the Charity ‘Tearfund. A wonderful offering!

They had a Blessing Service in October, which was quite emotional.

(We had to keep our Teddies (in the bags) separate as we needed them for our own Service the following week, after which we gave them back!)

We liked their idea of hanging them around the Church, from a rope so much we used it ourselves for our own Blessing Service. We even borrowed Kirkliston’s rope!

Barny Bear and Amazon Hope – September 2014

Dr Barney Bear (seen here with Dr Bella Bear), took his friends Doctors Peter and Alison to Amazon Hope 2, which is based in Iquitis, in the Rain Forest, in Peru along with 3 of his teddy friends.

They all found homes with children who needed a good hug.

The little boy holding this bear was later given him to keep for his very own.

Well done Peter and Alison!