*27/06/11*
Hugh is cycling his way to Rome, in aid of S.E.P., as we speak! Get in touch to sponsor him. A video diary has been promised.
*30/05/11*
Sophie and Tom head off to our Happy Home school tomorrow - exciting! We hope that the new volunteer house is cosy and as lacking in insects as possible.
*05/04/11*
Burbs - AKA 'The Pride' - has won for the 'Pride of Harborough' award, for his extensive S.E.P. fundraising work in the local area. Check out local press coverage, here:
http://www.harboroughmail.co.uk/community/harborough-mail-awards/pride-in-harborough/ian_giving_children_in_ghana_a_good_education_1_2473922
http://www.lutterworthmail.co.uk/community/awards-competitions/pride-inharborough/bringing_education_to_poor_in_ghana_1_2567493
*20/03/11*
Says a massive thank you to Jess, Sarah and Auriol for their amazing half-marathon S.E.P. efforts today. What clever, lovely legs they all have.
*08/03/11*
The next Ghana trip is booked; 31st of July! EXCITED. Get in touch if you have anything that we can take with us etc. I will send another message when I am being less excited and more practical! Laura X Accompanied by Liam and Tommy!
*28/02/11*
Hello from Ghana! The sun is shining, all the kids are smiling, my update is rhyming and everything is twee as can be! On an even cooler note, our lovely new Kindergarten teacher Georgina is due to start today which can only be described as ACE. Exciting times! x Hugh
*28/01/11*
HUGH'S GOING TOO, HUGH'S GOING TOO!
*08/01/11*
Lots of exciting things in the pipeline for 2011, all to be confirmed at our AGM on 29th January. Basically, if you're sporty (or, at least, aspire to be) then get in touch...
We're also looking at school link-ups, having received some lovely Christmas cards from Parliament Hill School in Camden. If you're a teacher and would like to get involved in some international class storywriting, let us know!
The most exciting piece of news this week is that Ian will be popping over to school in 4 weeks' time. He'll be taking over lots more books and resources, so if you have anything to contribute, please do get in touch.
We had some really encouraging exam results at the end of last term - we're beginning to see some progress, which is great, considering that many of our students have never been to school before, and have only been learning properly since September. We'll be looking at mainstream sponsorship programmes once attainment starts to increase even further.
*25/11/10*
Three belated updates - the quiz in Lubbers raised over £900, and the jolloff rice went down a treat! Thanks so much to everybody who came along / helped out.
Book Swingers - our Shoreditch book swap/ poetry / gig night on 11/11/10 was also totally brilliant, and raised £400 to go towards a big shipment of books for Christmas. Watch this space for details of the next one.
Most importantly - WE'VE GOT UNIFORMS! This is a massive milestone for us, as it's something that both the children and their parents/ guardians KEPT asking us for. The uniforms are really important in terms of giving the students a sense of pride, unity and belonging and we think you'll agree that they look beautiful.
THANKS!
*28/10/10*
We're having a quiz on Sunday, in Lubenham. It's for the older demographic, really, but contact Burbs if you live there and want a ticket. Not to be forgotten, us young ones will be BOOK SWINGING in Shoreditch on Thursday 11th November, at The Book Club on Leonard Street (where else?) Come, and do bring your favourite book along. And a friend, if you bookish types have those. We'll give you music, love, and some free literary classics. x
*14/10/10*
Jolly excellent Jamie Pink is at school for 7 whole weeks, putting all of her brilliant teaching knowledge to good use, and helping Mike and Emmanuel set up the timetable. Photos pending!
*23/08/10*
We raised £685 at our sale in Market Harborough - thanks so much to everybody that attended / donated help us wheel and deal!
*07/07/10*
Lovely Katie & Emmet are at school RIGHT NOW. They're going to be staying with Molly in Cape Coast for a month, but going to see Mike and the kids every day, dabble in some teaching, paint some rainbows on walls, and generally tidy the place up a bit. For this, we really love them.
*06/07/10*
WE'VE FINALLY GOT A CHARITY NUMBER! IT'S 1136738! NOW WE CAN DO LOADS OF SUPER-CHARITABLE THINGS! BRILLIANT!
*25/04/10*
Rach was spontaneously on BBC Three Counties Radio whilst still in Ghana, because her Dad deemed it necessary to tell Look East that the S.E.P. were detained in Africa due to the Ash Cloud. Good project PR skills Rodge. The people at BBC Three Counties Radio seemed disappointed that the team were still chipper, and that the Ash Cloud hadn't caused serious injury to any of them.
*31/03/10 - 26/04/10*
The S.E.P. (plus Els) headed out for G-Land II: The Return, at the end of March. They were supposed to stay for a couple of weeks, but managed to arrange a cheeky Ash Cloud so that they could stay a bit longer and tie things up nicely.
*24/01/10*
Rock legends Route 66 fired up the amps and helped us raise over £700 for our next trip in April. Thanks to the boys and everyone who attended, as well as Dee and Arija for their excellent ticket marketing tactics.
*06/12/09*
We Caked Out and raised £400 - thanks to the residents of Olney, the cake-bakers, and to Tiffo for her ingenious charity-cake songs and slogans.
*29/11/09*
THE ROOF, THE ROOF, THE ROOF IS ON...ON.
*11/05/09*
WE'RE BACK...!!! Read the updated project description for more info, but everything went amazingly and we can't wait to get the kids in to fill their little African heads with knowledge.
P.S. for those of you still on myspace (anyone?), we got bored the other day and made this, so spread the word:
http://www.myspace.com/465622755
*18/03/09*
IAN BURBIDGE - SPOKESPERSON EXTRAORDINAIRE - ON BBC RADIO LEICESTER!!
Burbs did a BRILLIANT job promoting the project on the wireless on Monday. Old Tony decided to engage Burbio in a bit of a charity debate in the wake of Comic Relief, and he was magnificent - despite Tony's ocassional cynicism/inappropriate parachute analogies.
In other news, we raised £783 last weekend and are now well over the £3000 mark...we're off in just over 3 weeks and VERY excited.
*25/02/09*
We've FINALLY booked our flights for April 13th. Hurrah! Team Saltpond thus far is Rachel, Laura, Ian and Michelle, but it's not too late to jump aboard our love plane!
Thanks to the dazzling success of our Vintage Extravaganzas we've got about £2300 now, plus various other generous donations coming in at some point, and we're planning to have a couple more sales plus some kind of evening drinking event to raise some last minute cash...
all is progressing nicely but any other help would still be lovingly welcomed! (Especially if you send us clothes, we weren't expecting to sell it all so quickly...)