Update March 2010

Right guys – this is easy.  All you  have to do is vote for “Hazel’s Dramtastic 4” on the following website  http://www.drambuie.co.uk/teams   by the 30^th March to get our team into the top 5 most voted-for teams so that they can get the opportunity to partake in the annual Drambuie Pursuit.  Click on Hazel’s Dramtastic 4 in the column of teams and then “Vote for Us” in the top right corner – that’s all there is to it!  They are currently lying in 12^th place so come on and give them a boost.  This costs you nothing other than a couple of minutes of your time.  Do it NOW, PPPPPPLEASE.

There’s some fantastic fund raising going on with Hazel’s Footprints Trust at the moment, which is all written up on the Fundraising Reports page on the link below.  It is well worth a visit as they make some great reading if you follow the links.

The Hazel’s Footprints 5^th Anniversary Trek in Nepal takes place in October with the aim of raising £20,000 for Nyima’s vision of providing a school and hostel in his home village away up in the Himalayan valleys.  We are planning to walk the Mansula Trek which is a 12 day journey and takes us up through his village of Ghap and over a pass of 5,300 metres near the Tibetan Border before dropping down the next door valley which is part of the Annapurna Circuit.  We still have a few places left if there is anyone out there who thinks they can raise both the energy and a minimum of £1,000 for the hostel!!!!  Get in touch for further details on 01896849677 or email the Trust at info@hazelsfootprints.org .  We are inundated with applications for Footprinter funding for this next session so, if you are applying, I’m afraid we are being very strict and turning applicants down straight away if they have not bothered to read the web site and applied with our form.  Please also remember that you have to be going for a minimum of 6 months and to a disadvantaged country to help with an educational project.  The trustees meeting to decide Footprinters is on the 16^th May.

Another excitement is that The Readers Digest is running a feature in their April issue on Hazel’s book “A Gap in the Life”.  This may well become a collector’s item because, as things stand at the moment it will be the last issue of the magazine unless a buyer comes forward to allow it to carry on so get your hands on a copy as soon as it hits the stands.

As always there are some fantastic Footprinter reports so please take time to peruse the latest additions and see what a fantastic job these volunteers are doing on their Gap Year helping others less fortunate than themselves whilst having the experience of a lifetime learning to live in a totally different culture and comfort zone to the one they are used to at home. 

Update August 2009

We know from the stats that many of Hazel’s friends visit the web site at this poignant time of the year and, as it is five years since the tragic day, her friend Pete Moore thought he would like to mark the occasion with this poignant contribution which we are delighted to include in this update.

Hazel – Five Years On

In the middle of a warm afternoon in July 2005, I walked into one of the charity shops that line Ludlow’s jumbled Tudor high street, and emerged ten minutes later having spent £5 on a cheerful-looking toy monkey. It was a few days before I was due to fly to Tanzania, where I was due to meet a group of 25 (ish) trembling adventurers at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro. The mountain was one of the very first, and most significant, goals for the newly forged Hazel’s Footprints Trust – and the monkey was going to go up with us.

The monkey was soon christened Boris. We carried him with us wherever we went and he became the star attraction for the knots of Chaga children who danced about us as we relaxed, acclimatising in the foothills. Within a week he had been transported like a relay baton to Uhuru Peak, the highest point in Africa, and three or four months later – at a charity ball in Scotland – he became the subject of a furious bidding war and was eventually sold for the staggering sum of £600.

Boris’ victorious (albeit slightly poorer) new owners were Bill and Joan Scott Aiton, Hazel’s parents. They had taken to the stuffed animal so much that they had decided to make him the Trust’s official mascot.

Boris’ meteoric rise to stardom from the shelves of Cancer Research was spectacular. He followed his assent of Kilimanjaro with a trip to Everest base camp; he was carried on sponsored walks and around marathons. In 2006, we were re-united with him once again, as we fastened him tightly to the roof rack of our mini before we set of on the Mongol Rally – a charity touring event which took us a third of the way around the world.

The point of this rather silly vignette is to explain that with Hazel’s Footprints Trust, you should always expect the improbable. The Trust is now five years old and it has evolved in so many ways that were never imagined when its founders sat down for the first time around the long dining table in the kitchen at Legerwood Farm.

The idea for Hazel’s Footprints Trust emerged in the weeks that followed Hazel’s tragic death. I still have a card from Bill and Joan which indicated that they were planning some sort of ‘fund’ aimed at helping ‘those causes that Hazel held so dear.’

Within a few months this ‘fund’ had become a trust. And in its first year there was the Kilimanjaro climb, the enormously successful charity auction, Hazel’s gap year diary was published and the first despatch of Footprinters (Ben Britton, Emma McGonigle and Michelle Davidson for the record) were funded as they set out for Nepal, China and Thailand, to a mixture of educational and charity posts.

The following year the number of Footprinters rose to 15. These Footprinters were drawn from people all over the country who were travelling overseas to work on a diverse range of projects from India to Guyana, Thailand to Haiti. Meanwhile, in far less exotic locations, volunteers were running the Great North Run, the London Marathon, climbing mountains, baking cakes, running raffles and doing just about everything in between – all helping to raise money for the Trust.

While the operations centre still remained in the downstairs office at Legerwood Farm, the Trust grew in all directions – fuelled by Hazel’s close family and supported by a vast network of her school and university friends.

The energy of the young HFT was reflective of Hazel herself. I remember meeting her for the first time, squashed in an overcrowded courtyard outside a horribly busy bar that was nestled somewhere in the winding alleys behind Saddler Street on the Durham bailey. It was the first in a series of pre-Kilimanjaro social events that we had lined up in the weeks before we left for Heathrow.

Trying to be friendly I offered her a drink, and marched off through a forest of elbows, upturned shirt collars and swaying rugby players in search of an orange juice (her) and a bottle of beer (me). It was an exhausting journey and the return trip took around 20 infuriating minutes. When I returned to the court yard, clutching the two drinks as if they were hand grenades, Hazel was already surrounded by ten or so other people half way through a loud conversation about mountains. She lowered those blue eyes at me and called out in a strange accent that I hadn’t quite deciphered:

‘Ah! There you are. Where the hell have you been all this time?’

I soon discovered that her impatience wasn’t personal, but it was characteristic. She explained that the following morning, before we were even hauling ourselves delicately out of bed, she would be rowing in the River Wear. It was the perfect introduction to the girl who was always busy.

Our friendship quickly found its feet, aided by the fact that she soon struck up an amorous relationship with my housemate. Over the next year – throughout the term times – I saw her daily, as she darted from one side of the city to the other, constantly entangled in an endless procession of rowing stints, play rehearsals, charity events, magazine articles and the odd niggling philosophy essay.

But in between these outbursts of frenzied activity, there were glimpses of Hazel’s quieter side. She was a letter writer, a reader and a note-taker – always posing nagging questions or ready with some inspiring or introspective quote. For months she bothered me to read Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things (I’ve tried many times and I’ve never quite got it) – explaining over and over again that it was wondrous, deep and revealing.

And all the while she had an amazing capacity to keep in contact with just about everyone. After our Kilimanjaro climb, I remember being slumped cheerfully in the wicker chair of a beachside restaurant in Zanzibar, staring out at the Indian Ocean while chewing kingfish and supping of Safari beers when Hazel strode in. She announced angrily that she was fed up with her Hotmail email service as it only allowed you to send email to thirty five contacts at a time.

‘Thirty five?’ we asked, as if she had just announced that she was from the moon.

She then sat down, and proceeded to count on her finger a list of ‘at least forty people’ with whom she was in constant contact, leaving us all suddenly feeling guilty that we had barely yet managed a single email home. It was the mark of someone engaged with life in an extraordinary way, and by a quirk of fate, these forty people comprised the bulk of the team that returned to Kilimanjaro in her memory two years later.

One of the greatest achievements of Hazel’s Footprints Trust is that it manages to echo this unique personality. Just like Hazel the Trust is outgoing and open, ambitious and worldly, energetic and quietly philosophical. The website is dotted with some of the many quotations that Hazel recorded during her life, perhaps the most poignant of which is the ancient Chinese proverb:

‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.’

Five years ago, Hazel’s family took the first step by establishing this Trust in her name. Half a decade on they can only be proud and comforted by what followed. The Trust has sent volunteers to all corners of the globe, they have supported the Otjikondo Village School Foundation in Namibia and they have now established a successful outpost in London – bringing Scottish culture to the ignorant in the form of Burns’ Night Suppers and an annual Highland fling.

I can’t imagine that we’ll ever meet anyone quite like Hazel again. She was unique. But through the Trust her ideals and her personality live on – transcending all of the old boundaries of space and time. And it’s nice to think that whatever mountain we’re climbing, whichever rally we are struggling to complete, in whatever corner of the globe that we might be trying to herd schoolchildren along - that there is a little bit of her in us all.

Fundraising

London HFT ran a Ceilidh for the second year and, boy, what a night it was!! It was in the Hurlingham Club which is a magnificent venue well suited to reeling the night away and it is surely now becoming a must on the London social calendar. What is even more impressive is that they managed to raise over £17,000 on the night so congratulations all round!  See the pics and read all about it on the Fundraising Reports page.

Footprinters

At the May trustees meeting we chose 9 volunteers to give support to from a very strong field of candidates. We now have the latest batch of Footprinters in their blocks and ready to head off to all corners of the world – well not Antartica yet! – so we wish them well and hope they get as much out of their year as Susan Molloy has. If you want to read a summary of why we feel so strongly about supporting folk to go off on a year out, just read Susan’s latest report. Enough said.

So, who’s off round the world as a Footprinter?

Portia Bailey from Hull is going to Cambodia with Project Trust to work with HIV kids in an orphanage.

James Macrae from Edinburgh is going to nearby Thailand to teach English and Art in a school with 2,700 pupils and still reckons he will have time to go up into the hills to work with the ethnic tribes!

Kristina Dunning who is a post-grad of Lancaster University is off to Equador in South America with Lattitude to teach in a State Primary School in the mornings and work in an orphanage in the afternoons.

Alice Hunter from Manchester is going to China with Project Trust to teach in a middle school in the Gansu Province.

Rhanna Wills from Joppa, near Edinburgh is also going with Project Trust to South Africa, having been inspired to take a Gap Year by reading Hazel’s book A Gap in the Life.

Caroline Bewell from Wetherby is one of this year’s Project trust volunteers going to Otjikondo School in Namibia which the Trust supports annually with a donation.

Emily Preston form Buckinghamshire is going to Uganda with Project Trust.

And finally 17 year old Roseanne Rogers from Stranraer in Dumfries and Galloway is heading out to Guyana in South America with Project Trust.

Third Aims

If you go to Third Aim Reports below you will get a very good report update from Jo Bayley (who was given a HFT Third Aim award) on the work she has done in Kenya with AfCiC

Nepal 2010

We are getting itchy feet again and thought it would be good to mark 5 years of the Trust with another trek. Knowing that half you wimps would refuse to scale Everest or even Kilimanjaro again we are planning a multi-day trek into an area of Nepal which is severely restricted from tourists with only a few hundred being allowed in each year. So why are we aiming to take this on? Well we met Libby Hogg, a GP from Forres in Aberdeenshire, whose family are trying to raise £20,000 to support the building of a school in the remote Manasulu area of Nepal and one thing led to another over a few wines!!! Volunteers (victims) are very welcome for this 2 week+ treck with the proviso that you are willing to pay your own costs re flight etc and think you can raise £1,000 in sponsorship towards the building of the school and hostel. It promises to be a fascinating trek into an area of Nepal rarely visited and all in a great cause so why delay – first come first served for the available places.

Please go to our Fundraising Reports page to catch up on what else has been going on and is in the pipeline.

Late News……..

We are delighted to announce that we are also supporting jointly  Grace Smith and Jason Finch to go to Ghana.  Jason will set up a bicycle workshop training programme in the town of Dodowa, whilst Grace will be teaching in schools in the area.  Grace has good experience of this already as she had a Gap Year at Otjikondo with Peter, our son, and Tabitha before going to university, whilst Jason has been involved with 2 wheels for many years and knows them inside out.   

Update 30^th March.

Always,even though we are in the throws of the middle of the lambing, our thoughts turn very much towards Hazel and her birthday today and it gives us great comfort to know that so many of her friends feel the loss so strongly on this particular date. But what a wonderful legacy she has left behind and she would be chuffed to bits to see how much you have all contributed in time, energy and money towards her Trust; particularly with the advent of London HFT as the major fund raiser for the Trust.

Applications.

We have many applications for funding to sift through before the meeting in mid-May to decide whom we are going to support and if anyone out there is planning a late application time is running out as we like to interview as many as possible. Please, please read our conditions carefully to make sure you qualify (see “Forms”); for 6 months minimum period, education related and in a disadvantaged country (New Zealand doesn’t qualify I’m afraid as we had to tell one applicant!). It is also really handy if you can send us an email copy and a posted version as well as it saves us a lot of work and we aren’t exactly flush with administrators!

HFT London

The London HFT Burns Night extravaganza was a great success and raised over £2,200 from about 20 different events and proved highly popular so if you missed out this year it would be great if you could run one next year on Burns Night in January. London HFT have also been spending their hard won cash on a teacher project in Viet Nam and more recently another one in Kenya providing sports equipment for a school…. so click on our “Third Aims” page to read more or go to http://www.hftlondon.com/

After last year’s Cielidh success the London committee is holding their event in the Hurlingham Club which allows a later finish so more reeling can be fitted in on Saturday the 1^st of August. Some may say it is a brave move in the current economic climate, but come on, we need to be cheered up a bit with a good night out and for a good cause. Remember Red Nose Day hit a record amount raised this year in spite of all the gloom and the Cielidh was such a huge success story last year. 

Third Aims

Also under the Third Aims we have given a small grant to Sophie Rogers from Earlston. Sophie, who is at Cambridge, is going out to a secondary school in the Kisii region of Kenya with the Kenya Education Project http://www.kep.org.uk/ but only for a shorter time than we can support. However she has applied to us under our Third Aim for a small grant of £300 to cover school text books and science equipment and we are delighted to award it to her and wish her luck with the trip in the summer.

Fundraising

There is to be another Garden Opening in aid of Hazel’s Footprints this Spring at Baddingsgill, West Linton in Peeblesshire on Sunday 25^th May by kind permission of Gavin and Elaine Marshall. They have an Opening every year as part of Scotland’s Garden Scheme of their beautiful woodland garden 1,000 feet up in the Pentland Hills above West Linton - a stunning situation. Woodland and riverside walks, several re-claimed recently. Bluebells, azaleas and rhododendrons. Water garden. Treasure Hunt for children (of all ages)… If you are anywhere near the area on that date we’d love to have your support if you can come along as 40% of the proceeds go to HFT.

Trustee Ben Newman, not content with driving to Mongolia in a Mini a couple of years ago, has secured two entries in the Africa Rally which is run in December and is even more of a mad-cap idea to try and get from London to Cameroon by any route in a car of less than 1000cc engine size. Find out more about this crazy idea at http://africarally.theadventurists.com/