As you might know Club 30-80 took part in a charity fundraiser on 26th June 2020 over at The Thursday Night Show .
I was talking to Karen Alexander (who contacted my about an online dance party fundraiser) to give some words we could use during the event; to give a bit of background to the Soroptimist organisation and context to the Girls in Nepal project. I thought I would share them here with you.
Our Northern Soul slot tonight [26th June 2020] is a fundraiser for an organisation that I am part of. My organisation is called Soroptimist International and I lead/co-ordinate/report on the various activities we arrange. Its a women’s organisation, working to help improve the lives of Women and Girls, locally, nationally and internationally.
We are raising money for an international charity that we are supporting for the next three years. it’s a women’s group in Nepal. The guy who is behind the charity has got a really sad story and it’s and about his efforts to rescue young girls well young children really a lot of them who were stolen or trafficked and sent to work in circuses (for example in India).
We are raising money to build a rehabilitation centre where they are taught basic maths and English but also skills such as jewellery making and sewing so that when it comes time for them to be released they’ve got a way to raise money and support themselves. The man behind the charity is called Philip Holmes and he wrote a book called gates of bronze which tells his story and He was in the military the army I think and he was married and the sad story is that they were unable to have children and his wife was so distressed by this that she committed suicide.
His way of coping was to go travelling and he went to Nepal and he saw the awful conditions and situations that were affecting children there and he decided to set up a charity to rescue those children in honour of his wife’s memory.
Karen’s original target for the event was £260, which tied in nicely with the 2.6 Charity Challenge, and 26 tunes plaed on the 26th. As I looked at the charity page just now, donations had more than trebled the initial target and with Gift Aid added was more than £1,000!
“We are the Northern Branch (of Sproptimist International), I love Northern Soul, let’s have a Northern Soul Dance Party from the comfort of our own kitchens” Yay”.
Many thanks again to Karen herself, Alan Jordan of Reflex Records in Newcastle for putting the playlist together and to all the crew at The Thursday Night Show for their help and support and not least for agreeing to host the show for us and sandwich us between some excellent sets from their regular DJs Jan Travell, A.Nu.Revolution and Psycho Blaster.
I had a great evening, DJing, dancing and chatting and if you would like to hear what all the fuss it about, the playlist is now live on Mixcloud.
Club 30-80 