The festive period is a notoriously difficult time for people with mental health/depression issues. If you find yourself struggling, talk to someone. If you have no one to talk to, I will be available right through the festive period. You can message me via crisis@p4810.com - I will be checking messages regularly.

If you'd rather talk to someone anonymously, these details might be of use

http://waveringoptimist.blogspot.co.uk/p/useful-contacts.html

When did we start accepting children being homeless?

Have a look at this:

http://www.shelter.org.uk/

75,000 children in the UK will wake up on christmas day homeless.

let me run that by you again

75,000 children in the UK will wake up on christmas day homeless.

When did this become something that we accept? What are we going to do about it? There is enough money, sufficient resource and housing for this not to be the case, it's just not spread out correctly. Our society is fundamentally broken.

Here's a link to contact your local MP

http://www.parliament.uk/about/contacting/mp/


Here's a link to donate to Shelter

http://www.shelter.org.uk/donate?cam_id=4&src=christmas_landing&appeal=&consid=


I don't even know what to say to your MP. I think it's down to each of us to decide that. But we need to say *something*. don't we?

Help keep people warm

It's getting chilly out. We can't change that. There are people living on the street. That's not likely to change any time soon. For the majority, what they own is whatever they can carry.

So how about we make sure, to the best of our abilities, that what they can carry includes a hat, a scarf, and some gloves? Have you got a spare set? Can you knit? Did you just get a payrise?

My suggestion would be to get one of each (well, two for the gloves) and put them in a bag. Maybe put some other stuff in there - money, food, maybe a short note explaining why you've done it, and then carry it with you wherever you go.

When you next see someone who's sleeping rough, and you will, give them the bag. Then tell people what you've done. Encourage them to do the same. Feel good.

Let's make things better

do what you can, when you can

this came to my attention via social networks. it is a piece on buzzfeed containing several images that will restore some faith in humanity. i looked, and they certainly do that, but some of them do more. some of them are right-place-right-time things, where someone has done something completely selfless in response to a particular one-off event, but several of the pictures show ideas on how people can help someone without doing anything they wouldn't be doing ordinarily. these in particular struck me, and made me think: surely most business who deal with the general public can do something like this? if every business in one town, or even just a few of them, did something like this, te benefits would be immediate and obvious. none of them are difficult to do, in terms of preparation, but their impact could be beautiful.

this next one is a different type of gesture altogether, but one whose ethos i can't help but love:

so what do you think? do you run, or work in a business that could do something like this? would you be prepared to ask local businesses to do the same? would you be prepared to just ask your neighbours round? don't do anything you're not comfortable with, but have a think about ways you can do something similar that which is relevant to you. let's make things better.

Wavering Optimist Now Offering Free Tech Support to Charities

If you are a charity and in need of help with technical issues, we will do whatever we can, for free. Whether it's helping you design your logo, configure your email client, or setting up your web presence, we will do it all for free, and show you how to update everything so you don't need to rely on third parties to update your site.

Example setup:

Multi-page site with embedded twitter feed and link to facebook page; contact us page, donate button etc (essentially whatever you need to have)

Facebook page (which will update automatically from the blog so you don't need to update it)

Twitter account (which will update automatically from the blog so you don't need to update it)

additional extras:

youtube account, tumblr or wordpress blog, flickr/picasa account for photos, any social networks


In addition, we will also come and visit you to do tech training either for your staff, volunteers or clients. If you are local to us, we will do the course for free. If you are able to pay travel expenses we are also willing to travel. This can either be training on the services we have set up for you, so you can update them yourself, or general IT training, or a mixture of both.

This is entirely a voluntary service so service levels cannot be guaranteed, but we will not take on a project we are unable to complete.

contact us here

*UPDATE* 15th May:
First site has now gone live. Check out Rochdale Citizen Advocacy

Do It!

Want to volunteer your time to help others, but don't know where to start? Start here:

http://do-it.org.uk

Search by postcode and find loads of volunteering opportunities in your area.