Category Archives: Campaigning

Queenie & Wildblood 27033+ steps for Red Nose Day

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This year I’ve has been stepping up towards better mental health by taking on the 10000 steps a day challenge. Experiences not things. Blisters not boredom. Its been a massive change for me and one that living with BPD can make a little, well, lets just say interesting to say the least. Depression and the symptoms of BPD can often make you feel like you are battling through concrete just by getting out of bed in the morning so walking 10000 steps has been, as Salt’n’Pepper would put it, a chance to push it.

And so all this activity got me thinking. Why not make the most out of my new found love of putting one foot in front of another? So on Friday 24th March I’ll be walking from Rottingdean’s White Horse Hotel to The Big Beach Cafe at Hove Lagoon and, deep breath, back again for Comic Relief. Dressed in suitably Red Nose-d clothing. Shaking my collection tin. Accompanied by my Queen. With a stop off at The Tempest Inn for refreshments and a PE kit spruce up. Okay walking 12.8 miles may not seem a lot to many of you marathon addicted beauties out there but to me its a big step. So any pennies or pounds you have going spare please do donate today and help me fundraise to help people living incredibly tough lives in the UK and across Africa.

To donate please click here. To encourage please follow us on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. Every comment, hashtag, retweet and share helps.

Our Comic Relief walk will start at 9.30am at The White Horse Hotel, Rottingdean and we aim to be at The Tempest Inn, 159-161 Kings Road Arches at 11am* (outbound) / 1.30pm* (return)  and the Big Beach Cafe, Hove Lagoon Kingsway 12pm* with our collecting bucket. Come join us with your donations / laughs.

*Arrivals / departures are approximate based on weather, blisters, gossiping, wind factor and Queenie’s mincing times. 

About Red Nose Day 2017 Red Nose Day is back on Friday 24th March 2017 and it’s all about your power to make the world a better place, simply by having a great time. By raising cash this Red Nose Day, you’re helping to change lives. That’s because Comic Relief spends the money raised to help the people who really need it most, both here in the UK and across Africa. From workplace bake sales and fancy-dress fundraising in schools, to danceathons, quizzes and surreal sponsored challenges, put on a Red Nose and make your laugh matter by doing whatever you enjoy to raise life-changing cash. It all culminates in a massive night of comedy and entertainment, live on the BBC.

About Comic Relief Comic Relief is a UK charity which aims to create a just world, free from poverty – where everyone is safe, healthy, educated and empowered. Since 1985, Comic Relief has raised over £1 billion. That money has helped, and is helping, people living incredibly tough lives, both at home in the UK and across the world. For information about Comic Relief and the work it carries out, please visit www.comicrelief.com   Comic Relief, registered charity 326568 (England/Wales); SC039730 (Scotland)

Meryl Streep: Stand up, be up, Act up!

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Need a break from the Trump train? Trying to find away out for the foetal position after last nights bizarre and terrifying Whitehouse presser? Then its worth heading Streep’s way again and listening to her full speech for the Human Rights Campaign and imagining for a moment what it could be like if a leader of the free world spoke words that inspired not baffled, united not divided. Because, as Meryl so eloquently stated at the HMC Awards, a world filled people with targets on their foreheads placed there by the Trump administration needs us. They need us right now.

“It compels me to stand up in front of people and say words that haven’t been written for me, but that come from my life, from my convictions, and I have to stand up. It’s embarrassing and it is terrifying to put the target on your forehead, and it sets you up for all sorts of attacks by armies of brownshirts and bots and worse. And the only way you can do it is to feel you have to, you don’t have an option you have no option is to stand up. Be up. Act up!” Meryl Streep

Human Rights Campaign Facebook | Twitter | Web

One Day Without Us

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Just one question. Where would we be without them? I know where I would be. My wife wouldn’t be here because they wouldn’t be there to heal her. I wouldn’t have been abled to study for my degree. My cats wouldn’t be treated. My house wouldn’t be warm. My clubbing life wouldn’t be as rich or vibrant (or occasionally very random). Those late night beachside conversations would never happen. My bus wouldn’t arrive.My flat white coffee wouldn’t taste so good. My Brighton Pride weekend wouldn’t be as brilliant. My street wouldn’t be cleaned. My parents wouldn’t be cared for. My nieces and nephew wouldn’t be taught all they needed. My life wouldn’t be as rich and cultured and glorious and my country wouldn’t be as wonderfully diverse as it is. Without migration we are not whole. So stand with every migrant who’s built our lives, made our cities and created our amazing nationwide community on the 20th of February and say loud and proud “without you we are nothing”.

Oh and just for the record it may have been way back in 1066 but this Huguenot ain’t no Anglo-Saxon. We were cobblers in France don’t you know.

#1DayWithoutUs

For info and details of events on 20th Feb 2017 check out 1DayWithoutUs 

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Joining the resistance 

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Brighton has yet again made me proud #standuptotrump #brightonemergencydemo #brighton #resist

Celebrate and save The Sussex Beacon

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I love Brighton for many reasons but up there at the top is our ability as a community to rally together, to support, to fundraise and to, in the case of The Sussex Beacon’s current situation, save. Its simple. Step up and support The Sussex Beacon or we will lose their vital services.

Here’s the fundrasing bit: tickets are now on sale for Celebration, a gala to benefit the Sussex Beacon on February 3rd. Grab your tickets at Prowler and Nice ‘n’ Naughty and join a host of sparkling performers including Myra Dubois, Lorraine Bowen, Maisie Trollette, Miss Jason, Dave Lynn, Davina Sparkle, Kara van Park, Sally Vate and dancers from The Brighton Academy, choreographed by Emma Green. To pre-book tickets online click here.

And here’s the science bit, the bit sadly too familar in today’s times of austerity. “The Beacon is facing the prospect of closure including its ten bed inpatient unit, following a reduction in the funding it receives from the NHS. Changes to local commissioning arrangements have led to a reduction in statutory funding. The Sussex Beacon has already lost funding and further cuts seem likely in the future. The charity costs over £2 million a year to run and cannot continue to absorb the budget cuts. The Beacon has already made the painful decision to close its psychological services at the end of March this year, due to a loss of funding”.

“The Sussex Beacon provides specialist support and care for people living with HIV through both inpatient and outpatient services. It helps hundreds of people living with HIV in Sussex each year and was rated ‘outstanding’ by the Care Quality Commission in September. While many people living with HIV are now able to live long and healthy lives, there are still many who need specialist services. Last year The Sussex Beacon’s inpatient unit had 233 admissions and was full for the majority of the year. It provided over 2,000 bed nights, relieving pressure on both health and social care services in Sussex”. For more info visit sussexbeacon.org.uk

To sign the petition to save The Sussex Beacon please click here.

Don’t tell me not to live, just sit and putter! 10 Actions for the first 100 Days.

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Where Streisand leads I’ll always follow. Chasing tugs, running after Doc’s rocks in San Francisco, and even Up The Sandbox (yep I’m that much of a dedicated fan!) Since K-K-K-Katie protested in The Way We Were I’ve always had a thing for Babs and a cause. She didn’t disappoint this weekend when her words took on Trump at the Women’s March in Los Angeles joining the many legends speaking out against Trump and his administration. Joining voices across the world on day one of the long fight ahead.  As the woman I will always followed said that day “sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to rise up again”.

And rise we will. The stakes are too high not to. Our voices will be heard. Babs insists. “When you refuse to back down, when you refuse to be silenced, when you demand equality for yourself and your fellow men and women…you will be heard in the end. We can’t give up. Today is the beginning of a new movement to hold power accountable to the truth”. Us. Fighting the new world order. Fighting Trump. Fighting back. Together, always stronger together.

Join the millions of voices coming together across the world here and take part in 10 Actions for the first 100 Days.

 

A much needed perfect distraction: Nina Simone’s Revolution

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Today I need hope. Today I need to know its gonna be alright. So today I’m reaching for Nina Simone. And filling my belly with fire for the fight to come. Sure it maybe just over the pond but just as in Russia, Indonesia, Lithuania, Eygpt, Iraq, Jamaica, Maldives and over 79 countries across the world, the LGBT+ community of the USA need our support. Anti-sodomy laws were ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003, but they are still on the books in 13 states. Trump, Pence and their chosen cabinet include many who remain solidly opposed to full LGBT+ equality including Ben Carson, Betsy DeVos,  Jeff Sessions,  Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo. It won’t take much to roll back the progress made in the past eight years.

So today as we witness a seismic change in Washington DC we need to carry on the revolution. For every LGBT+ person, for every person of colour fearful of the future, for every muslim wondering how their new government will view their place in society, for every immigrant wondering if their family can remain together, for every woman about to lose their reproductive rights. It must be peaceful but it needs to be loud. We must place pressure on our governments to put rights above trade, equality above our so-called special relationship. We need to see the face of things to come and join together to say not in my name. Forwards not backwards. Hope not fear.