A casual Sunday morning chat with Edith Bowman and free fall over Oxfordshire...

"What would you think if I jumped from a plane,

Would you stand up and think I'm insane?

Sponsor me a few pounds and I'll be grateful,

And I'll try to release my canopy.

Oh I get by with a little help from my friends,

Mmm,I'm gonna fly high with a little help from my friends,

Mmm, I'm gonna SKYDIVE with a little help from my friends."

(Sung to the tune of the Beatles- With a little help from my friends)

WELLL that was my poor attempt at writing a song to aid my fundraising... it must have worked a little as I have raised over £600 for ActionAid! 

On Sunday 20th March 2011 after only a few hours sleep, much to their dismay I woke my whole family up so that we could set of to Hinton Airfield. With the arrival time of 8am we had to set off just before 6:30am. On our way up we were dancing and singing along to Edith Bowman on Radio One and I decided to try to text in to get a shout out for all of the wonderful Bollocks to Poverty vollies that were preparing for their skydive later that morning! 

THE TEXT: Hey Edith, I am on my way to Hinton airfield to join 10 other ActionAid bollocks to poverty supporters and jump out of a plane at 10,000ft! We have been raising money since November and most of us have beaten our targets. I can't believe the day is finally here! A big shout out to everyone raising money for charity especially everyone taking part today...you are all AMAZING! Aliceja Fisher-21-Basingstoke

Little did I know that this text would lead to a bit of airtime on her show! A few minutes later I had a missed call on my phone, I didn't really think anything of it as I had text off a new sim that noone has the number for so I assumed it was just a prank call and left it to ring through. I then received a text saying I had a voicemail so I rung 901 to pick it up and another call came through, so I answered and it was Edith's production team. After having a little chat about what was happening, they asked me if we could pull over so that we didn't lose signal and whilst my family sat in the car listening I hopped about outside the services with excitement. I was put through and this is what happened next...

We were then in a bit of a rush to get to the airfield on time but we arrived dead on 8 am and met up with everyone else taking part. We had our training with Neil Long who prepared us for what to expect and had us all on our tummies practising the free fall position and actions.

It was then a waiting game for our turn, the first group set off, with everyone wishing them luck and then waiting to be able to see them falling through the clouds above us. They all landed safely and were very excited by the whole experience. The rest of us were still waiting anxiously for it to be our turn and to be called to get into our harnesses and meet our tandem instructor. My group were finally called and we set off to kit up and meet the person we were then to be trusting with our life! I was lucky enough to have Neil, who although at first had made me feel a little nervous with some wisecrack jokes was really great and chatty and helped me to relax a bit and not feel so nervous.

We headed down the runway to the plane in a Top Gun like fashion (minus the aviators) and clambered (in a lady like fashion of course) onto the plane. All ready to go my fear of take off set in and I kept my eyes firmly shut, waiting for a nudge from my cameraman when we were up. The wait to get to the right height was probably the most nerve wracking, nearing 13,000 we buckled up and prepared for the jump. Hats and goggles on, tightening up the attachments and last positive thoughts that in a few minutes we would be safely back on Earth! The hatch opened and I watched the girls in front of me fall with their instructors and cameramen out of the plane. Nicole was clearly nervous and wanted to back out but went for it (not that she had much choice). I was then suddenly hovering out of the plane eyes wide open, and ready to go....

The first bit was pretty scary, my goggles shifted position right into my eyes, so I had to sort them out, which freaked me out a bit, and I found it a little hard to breathe (which you can kinda tell from my video) OTHER THAN THAT it was AMAZING! I loved it! It was MEGA scary but totally worth it! Shouting Bollocks to Poverty on our way to land distracted me from the instructions on landing, but luckily we didn't land in a heap we were safely back on our feet. 


This post has mainly focused on the day of the event, but what I would like to highlight before I finish is the whole reason we all reached to the sky and leapt from a perfectly good plane. We were all raising money for Bollocks to Poverty - ActionAid who work to improve people's lives every day and work relentlessly to change whatever is keeping them trapped in poverty. Which means they have a better chance of ending poverty for good. 


You can check out where any donations to ActionAid go here!

The amazing group who particapted in the Big Bollocks to Poverty Skydive raising over £4,500 for ActionAid

Schtop Tax Dodging!

Tell SABMiller's Chief Executive to SCHTOP Tax dodging NOW! 






In the early hours of Friday 18th March 2011 armed with a cup of strong coffee I joined 4 other ActionAid campaigners in Woking to campaign outside SABMillers offices. Dressed in dashing beer bottle outfits our aim was to target employees as they entered the office and hand them a leaflet about ActionAids campaign. 

WHY!? Our objective was to influence staff moral and force an internal communication on SABMiller's approach to tax planning.


WHAT IS THE MESSAGE? SABMiller's approach to tax planning undermines the positive work the company does on sustainable development, they can take the lead and develop a socially responsible approach to tax planning.


WHAT DO ACTIONAID WANT? SABMiller to stop using tax havens to siphon profits out of poor countries and to make tax justice a key part of their sustainable development programme.


For more information about this campaign head to the ActionAid website now. Find out how you can be a part of the campaign.


Key Facts:


SABMiller:

• The world’s 2nd biggest brewer and number 1 in Africa
•  Owners of over 200 brands, including Grolsch, Peroni, Castle and Miller
• Make profits of £2 billion a year
• HQ just off Park Lane in London

Why should you take action?!

• Developing countries lose more to tax dodging than they receive in aid.

• SABMiller, owner of Grolsch, dodges its taxes by siphoning millions into tax havens.

• The money African countries lose each year could put an extra 250,000 children in school

ActionAid - Don't be a biofool...

DID YOU KNOW?... 

The amount of corn required to fill a 4X4 tank with biofuel would feed a child for a year – that’s a staggering 1,000 meals, or the equivalent of 40 meals in every gallon of biofuel.

Using industrial biofuels means putting poor people’s food into rich people’s cars ... in a world where one billion people are hungry, this is simply wrong. 

ActionAid's campaign against biofuels - explained
Uploaded by ActionAidUK. - Watch original web videos.

Back in September I attended two days of training with ActionAid Activista in London. A group of young people from Universities across the UK met to learn about the new biofuels campaign and look at ways to campaign on campus, gain signatures for our petition and lobby our local MP. It was a really great experience and I was enthused about going back to Southampton and shouting "Bollocks to Poverty!" and trying to encourage people to sign up to be a part of an Activista group in Southampton. I massively failed though... 

James Blair from the ActionAid office came down for our stall during freshers week at the end of September and together we managed to sign up a good 50-60 people, of which I was hoping at least 3/4 people would attend the first meeting. I booked the room for the meeting, spread the word, bought some chocolates and capri-suns for refreshments and eagerly planned what would happen in the first meeting...I planned away and the evening of the meeting arrived. I convinced a friend to come along for moral support and to find out more, and we headed to meet people on campus...after 15 minutes only one person had turned up. I was gutted, at the time I thought that I had done enough to rally the troups to be a part of Activista. This blow knocked me off course for a while. I was convinced noone wanted to be a part of it, I thought I had done enough to get people interested and I decided for the simple reason of not having the time to spend organising things on my own I would back off for a bit and try and spend my time in a different way.

However recently I have seen the great things that other Activista groups are up to and I realised that I most definitely have not tried everything and I am now more determined than ever to get University of Southampton Activista group up and running properly. I graduate in July and I really want this campaign to run on campus. I don't want to let my fellow Activistas from across the UK and across the world down! 

I have spent a lot of time recently learning more about biofuels so that I am able to tell people more about this campaign. I am determined to inform students at the University of Southampton about the negative impacts that the use of them can have, even if I am doing it as a one man band! I would also encourage anybody reading this to learn more and look to join the biofuel debate. It would also be great if you could email the UK Secretary of State for Transport now to remind him that biofuels cause hunger and climate change!

Do something about it TODAY! Don't be a biofool! Understand the impact of biofuels and shout Bollocks to Poverty! Don't let anyone else be pushed into a life of hunger! Use your voice, stand up and shout out, tell the Secretary of State that this is unacceptable...

Continue the fight for a HungerFree world. Help put the brakes on biofuel production by demanding Zero Meals Per Gallon

Fairtrade Fortnight 2011- Show off your label!!!

This year Fairtrade Fortnight is the 28th February till the 13th March! Campaigners are being asked to be LOUD AND PROUD and show off their labels!!!

Order some Fairtrade cotton and make some Fairtrade bunting! Before doing this perhaps you would like to find out more about this years product focus which is Cotton. 

So what can you do to further your understanding of Fairtrade?! Ask questions and do research, find out about the supply chains of products that you regularly buy! If you aren't happy with the results, and find that your dress was made by a child working in poor conditions in a factory, or your chocolate was made from cocoa that was picked by children trafficked  from their homes and taken from their families with the hope of earning some money?! DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Ask the shop selling the product why they are stocking it!? Ask them to look at making their products more ethical and environmental. If they don't respond, or make changes you can decide to stop buying the product. We (the consumers) are the people that are demanding cheap products, but this comes at a price to other people! We are the only ones that can make the change, it is the consumer demand that companies listen to and we are the ones with the power in our hands.

ENTHUSE about your cotton socks,

GOSSIP about your roses,

PARADE your instant coffee

RAVE about your Brazil nuts

Make Fairtrade your favourite this year, be proud to support Fairtrade, be part of a new bunting world record and show off your lable because...TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE TRADE FAIR!

Reflections on my past year...

It was around this time last year that I threw myself into volunteering my time for different causes that I care about. I started to get more involved with Fairtrade in my home town Basingstoke and started to attend meetings in Southampton, where I studying at Uni. I then applied for a training course with My Social Innovation, applied to be on the Campaigner Advisory Group (CAG) at the Fairtrade Foundation and applied to volunteer with ActionAid at some festivals over summer to raise awareness of their Bollocks to Poverty campaign. I feel really lucky to have the opportunity to be involved with all of these organisations and work with them to raise awareness of the work that they do. I also got involved with People & Planet in the summer of 2010 and I attended their annual conference Shared Planet in November 2010 for the first time. I had the opportunity to attend a conference titled 'Trust and Integrity in the Global Economy' (TIGE) in Caux Switzerland in August 2010, where I met some incredibly knowledgeable and interesting people through Initiatives of Change.

I have had such an amazing year, I have met some really great people, and I have learnt so so much about myself and about the campaigns that are being run by different charities. It seems that before this I was stuck in a bubble of my own life and although I study Sociology I hadn't ventured much outside of this bubble of friends, family, socialising, baking etc. If you had asked me this time last year what I would be doing today, I would never have thought that I would be involved in everything that I am. Recently I was introduced to a fellow student by someone who said "this is Aliceja she knows everything about ...well everything" but this is so so so untrue, it made me feel a little uncomfortable. I am still a beginner in this I feel like I have so much to learn and so many people to learn from. This is a continuous journey and without the help and support of people working for all the organisation I have mentioned I would never have been inspired to carry out the work that I have been doing! It is the kindness and accepting nature of the people that I have worked with as a volunteer that has allowed me to develop with everything. I find myself signing up to things because I am really keen to find out more and do more to help, and also to develop myself. I can't even begin to tell you how much this past year has meant to me and how grateful I am to have met everyone I have along the way.

I cannot wait to finish my degree so I can develop my knowledge and experience in this area even further and spend a little more time learning and volunteering.

Over the next few weeks I will be promoting different campaigns that I have been working on and looking at the work of different charities and organisations that I have been working with. Perhaps if you see something that is of interest to you, you can follow the link and find out more for yourself and maybe volunteer a bit of time. I would recommend it to anyone that has a bit of spare time, it will be the best thing you do with your time I PROMISE!!!

And in the coming months I will be revealing what I have been working on since I completed my training with MySI last year. :-)

That is all for now

MyFairLady89 :-)

2011 - The year of the revival of my Blog...

...this time I have made a New Years resolution that it will be updated regularly and full of things to think about! (Inspired by one of my followers who reminded me that I haven't blogged in a long time.) I am going to make sure I take the time to update you all on a regular basis with great things about how we can all make small changes to the way that we live...things that might benefit us and others around us.  I am also going to give my blog a new look for its new year!

So before I embark on making these changes I am going to leave you with a few links :-)

• If you haven't already made any New Years resolutions, here is a great article that will help you to form ideas for promises that you can make for 2011 that will help to make a difference! 
• Or perhaps you would like to get active this new year and help raise money for charity?! PICTURE THIS: Flying in a plane at 10,000 ft...then falling at 120mph with the wind screaming past your body, "an unbelievable experience of total freedom"...plummeting to the ground...before deploying a canopy and landing safely back on two feet (hopefully) ...Have you ever thought about doing a skydive?! Have you got it in you to take the plunge!?...By participating you will be raising money for Action Aid UK. Feeling brave?! Check this out...!
• Or perhaps you would feel more comfortable with two feet firmly on the ground?! Maybe instead you wouldn't mind sparing £1 to help me reach my fund-raising target?! My Sponsorship page

Before I sign out I will leave you with a link that leads to some incredibly stunning photographic images African Lens "seek to tell the story of Africa through visual elements which captures the essence of (their) everyday lives."

Banking on Change

Two-thirds of India’s population of a billion people live in the nation’s 600,000 villages. Despite India’s economic growth, the disparities between wealth and poverty are enormous. Many villagers migrate to the cities in search of work and end up begging on the streets. South Indian bank manager J S Parthiban set out to do something to help their economic circumstances. He encouraged beggars to open bank accounts in New Delhi, and pioneered micro-loans to villagers in his home state of Tamil Nadu. This is his story—and theirs.


Banking On Change (12 min version) from Pilgrim Films on Vimeo.