WELCOME TO OUR FIRST FRIENDS OF HIGHGROUND NEWSLETTER!
 



LIFE BEYOND THE MILITARY – OUTDOORS

WELCOME TO OUR SECOND FRIENDS OF HIGHGROUND NEWSLETTER!

It has been a very hectic time for all of us at HighGround as you’ll read below – our really big news is that finally, after months of planning, fundraising and no little patience and persistence, we made it to Stanford Hall!

Jon and the FHG Steering Group have been busy, and at our reception at Whatton House, by kind permission of Lord and Lady Crawshaw on 16th October to thank everyone who helped us get over the line at Stanford Hall, we officially launched the Friends of HighGround. You can see photos of the event here.

Anna Baker

It was a huge honour for me to be invited as the civilian VIP to the 257 Troop King’s Squad Pass Out Parade at Commando Training Centre Royal Marines, Lympstone on a windy day in October.

Nothing can be more inspirational than watching 32 young men receive their green beret – the Commando Spirit is alive and well and I am hugely indebted to Colonel Mike Tanner the Commandant, and all his team for an unforgettable 48 hours.

Anna BC
Founder and Development Director

FRIENDS OF HIGHGROUND

FHG is the voluntary arm of HighGround which supports and promotes the work of the Charity through Fundraising and community awareness initiatives both locally and nationally.

The Vision is to create a community of Friends who will promote and facilitate the work of HighGround.

FHG’s Trustee Jon Chandler and a small group of individuals with a shared desire to support HighGround has formed a Steering Group to take this forwards, both locally and nationally.

Whilst the majority of our funding still comes from grant-making trusts and foundations, by starting the Friends of HighGround our aim is to diversify our funding sources to include more corporate and personal donations.

To that end, we have drawn up a Wishlist which we will update quarterly. Currently our pressing fundraising challenge is to raise the funding to recruit and employ a full time Rural Employment Manager to co-ordinate work experience and employment opportunities and support the growing number of Service Leavers and Veterans (our HighGrounders). Each item on the Wishlist is currently unfunded, and we hope that this will inspire you, our Friends and supporters, to help us to raise the funds for all these essential items – we run a pretty tight ship...

BECOME A FRIEND OF HIGHGROUND

HORTICULTURAL THERAPY

Massive thanks to all our Volunteers who helped us to pack and unpack on our journey from Headley Court to Stanford Hall, to WH Cox who moved us, and to the wonderful Volunteers from Severn Trent Services who put our sheds and summerhouse back together on a wild and windy October day at Stanford Hall. Packing at Headley Court.

Packing at Headley Court
Packing at Headley Court

Jane Taylor our new Horticultural Therapist joined Team HighGround on 1st October and she and Andy have been working hard to make HighGround HQ ready to welcome the first patients although the greenhouse will take a bit longer than we had hoped... Click here to read the updates from Stanford Hall.

Jane Taylor

Thank-you to Help4Heroes and our other funders and supporters who came to see our progress – a serious team effort..!

Help4Heroes

PROFILE: JON CHANDLER

Everyone at Team HG does something different and each quarter we thought you would like to read about what they do for the Charity and why they do it.

READ JON’S STORY HERE
Rural weeks
The game fair

RURAL WEEKS

Yet another HighGround milestone as we welcomed our first Gurkha on Rural Week 22 at Bicton College during which Sybil Ruscoe from Radio 4’s On Your Farm came to record a programme to be broadcast on Remembrance Sunday at 06.30.

READ MORE

THE GAME FAIR

Our friends at the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (otherwise known as BASC) generously invited us to share their stand at the Game Fair, held this year at Ragley Hall in Warwickshire and we spent 3 days in sun, gales, and driving rain with 6 hardy Volunteers meeting stacks of people and making lots of new contacts!

READ MORE

FUNDRAISING NEWS

Our intrepid travellers Nick and Seb in their mighty car Virgil completed the Mongol Rally and raised a staggering £3,680 for HighGround as well as precious awareness of our work.

Lesley and her team at Coed Helen Holiday Park had a fun day on August bank holiday, and raised nearly £3,000 for HighGround and we received our first donation towards the cost of the 2019 Rural Weeks programme from the Veterans’ Foundation – huge, huge thanks to everyone for your brilliant support.

Nick and Seb
Bhadra

LAST WORD from Bhadra who joined us on a recent Rural Week:

Bhadra the first Gurkha to join us for a Rural Week said “What a fantastic week. I really liked it and learned a lot. I am sure most of the Gurkhas will love this course and just wanted to say thank-you from the bottom of my heart for arranging such an amazing week.”

GDPR AND OUR STANDARDS

GDPR came into effect on 25th May 2018. We had an extremely busy run up to this date, but our small team were able to pull out all the stops and get things in place in time. As a charity we take GDPR and the security of your information very seriously. To this end, we have ensured that all of our data processors comply rigorously to keep everything secure. You can read about our Standards here.

Thank you for reading and please do share this email with anybody you think may be interested in supporting HighGround or who may be in need of our support.

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HighGround, c/o, The London Scottish Regiment, 95 Horseferry Road, London SW1P 2DX

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