June 2013 Newsletter - Number 6

 

 Welcome to our first newsletter posted directly on to the website.  We are featuring four topics:

• Auction for tickets to see Bruce Springsteen
• Upcoming Derwentwater School summer fair
• The search for unwanted laptops
• Buy a 'Red Letter Harley Day' and solve a gift problem

Blind Auction

 

We have been given a pair of tickets for the Hard Rock Calling gig on the re-opening weekend of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford on Sunday 30 June.

The day-long event runs from 1pm - 11pm.

We are holding a blind auction for the tickets (face value £69.75 each). The best bid received for the pair be e.mail by midnight Sunday 16 June wins.

Bruce Springsteen

Gig line-up

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

The Black Crows

Alabama Shakes

Doc Brown Band

Flamin' Groovies

and many more

Full details of the gig can be found here

How to win the tickets

 

Bid, direct to us, by e.mail.  All bidders will be informed of the outcome of the auction on Monday 17 June.

Help improve the life of Gambian school kids - and have a great day out at the re-opening of the Olympic Park, in the company of The Boss.

Please feel free to forward details to anyone you feel may be interested in bidding

Thank you

Derwentwater Summer Fair

 

When we were in the Gambia earlier in the year we were able to cement the schools friendship between Derwentwater Primary school in Acton and Sohm Lower Basic school.  The London school has already raised over £700 to help the children of Sohm.  The two schools have shared letters and class diaries and we have run some assemblies in Derwentwater in life for their opposite numbers in Sohm.

Our stall at last year's Derwentwater School Summer Fair

We are delighted to say that we have been welcomed back to Derwentwater to run some assemblies in June and will be having a stall at their summer fair. We hope that more funds will be raised, to help rebuild some of the badly damaged classrooms at the Sohm Lower Basic school.

Rehoming unwanted laptops!

 

We were able to take five generously donated second hand laptops with us to Sohm last year, and they have transformed the teaching of ICT in the schools, which lack a mains electricity supply. Gone are the days of the pupils relying on clapped out desk tops operating sporadically when the (expensively fuelled) generator runs.

We know that when people upgrade or replace laptops they are reluctant to throw the old one away - but, in reality nobody in the UK wants it and there are few takers in the second hand market for them.


Sohm Lower Basic's deputy head gratefully receiving a donated laptop, earlier this year

We have been offered a limited amount of free storage space in a container going to the Gambia at the end of September.  We would love to help fill that space with a dozen unwanted laptops (with pretty decent batteries). If you could clean them up, and give us the wink, we will be able to get them picked up and dispatched to Sohm at no cost to you, us or the students.  We can assure you.  They really do transform lives, and help prevent some African youngsters from getting left even further behind the developed world in a rapidly developing technological era.


 Make it a Red Letter Harley Day, as a gift for Father's Day - or any other special occasion!

 

Live your dream, or make another's come true with a Harley ride.  It will also benefit the education of Sohm's children.

Biker, Bill Carson, will pick you up and take you on an hour's ride on his Harley (pictured below), on a route of your choice. We'll provide the leathers. There'll be rock 'n roll ablarin', and a photographic memento of the experience
And all for £60.

Longer trips, by negotiation, are possible; including a visit to the iconic Ace Cafe, or central London.  Just call us for the details (minimum age 18).

 

Red Letter Harley days - from £60

 

Welcome to our re-launched website!

It may look the same to you, but we've migrated to Blogger, for the administration of the site.

Confused? Basically our wonderful web designer (see below) has moved all of our, revised, web  content over to a new system which will mean that we can be much more hands on about running it, in future. We will update it regularly with news and views about Sohm.

The site now has lots of interactivity possibilities.  So you can comment, offer suggestions whenever you want, almost anywhere on the site. The only proviso is that it has to be "moderated" first, which means we have the right to reject it, if we don't feel it is appropriate. We will only use this option to omit abuse, spam or frankly racist, sexist or homophobic material (which we don't expect to receive).

Coming up, soon, we'll be posting a video that out good friend Ian Wiggins shot for us, earlier this year, when he was in Sohm, with us.  So, that's something to look forward to.

Summer Fair

We are happy to announce, too, that Derwentwater School, in Acton, which is twinned with the Lower Basic schools, is letting us run a stall at their Summer Fair on 5 July, as we did last year.  There will be a table top stall, raffle and the chance to sit on the back of a Harley Davidson, with Bill Carson, kindly providing the equipment, as last year.

Sandra with Gibril, the head and Lamin, deputy head
 of Sohm Lower basic school, in front of sign at school illustrating
twinning with Derwentwater Primary, in Acton

Bill and Natalie Carson, at last year's Derwentwater School Summer Fair

So, hope you enjoy the new-look website, and looking forward to getting your comments and feedback!

A word of thanks

We don't like to blow our own trumpets (well, not too much!), but we thought we'd share with you a recent e.mail of appreciation we received from Gibril Bojan, head teacher of the Sohm Lower Basic School, following our recent trip there.  We'll blush while you read it, but see what a difference the generous help we get makes!

Hi Great friends & Derwentwater primary school, 

On behalf of teachers, pupils, the S.M.C. and the entire parents of the pupils of the school, I write to you with great hope and pleasure. 

Friends of Derwentwater and the community we over here are very pleased with you people for all that you have done for us. Friends, the pupils of my school are happy for the pencils, pens and sporting materials are a thing of the past for the reason that what you gave us will serve us for a very long time. The excursion is done and many places were visited thanks to you all for sponsoring the trip. Pictures of the children and the places visited will be sent to you through e-mail. 

By the second week of May we would schedule our mock exams which you sponsored. The night watchman is also quite pleased for giving him money for rain coat and boots. The workshop you did with us is also quite helpful to both teachers and pupils. The training exercises we had with Gambia football will be remembered by all the pupils and teachers of the school. Sandra Walker and John are great people, we will miss them and we hope to see them the soonest. For the exercise books we are also making good use of them, every child got one. 

Yours faithfully,
Mr. Gibril Bojang
Head Teacher

Sohm Lower Basic school head teacher, Gibril Bojang - a happy man!

Finally... a quick plug

A big word of thanks to Michelle who has run our website, to date, and managed the migration (and teaching process) to enable the new look and style.  Michelle runs New Moon Web Designs. She is a hands-on, one woman, web design outfit, who works incredibly quickly, is ever helpful, matches a brief to the letter (even with novices and difficult people, like us) and is fantastically reasonable priced.  We can't recommend her enough (this is an unpaid for, and unsought announcement!). So if you need a hand with your web needs, try her out.  You won't be disappointed!