June

June is my sister in law but it's also the 6th month of the year and I thought I would just blog a little blog before May ends and June begins. And once June begins you don't get a word in edgeways!!
Very little to report since last time. Still cycling to work. Still got about a thousand calls to the napac line each week and still wondering how we can manage to answer them all. Well, I know we'll probably never be able to do that which is why I will now share my next big idea with you................. napac branches in every town and city!!
Okay, now get up and think about it. Every place in this country is swarming with abuse surviors. We know that. Let's set up a network whereby any one of them who needs that sort of support can go to their local meeting. They could be held once a week. Once a fortnight. It will be down to the group. They will be autonomous, self-funding branches but they will be part of napac. They will have a solid structure and be facilitated by a trained person. I'm not saying they will be anything like an AA (alcoholics anonymous) branch in terms of structure but I would expect them to be safe, enabling places where confidentiality is paramount and support comes as given.
I was interviewed for BBC Radio 5 Live! on Friday (this is how we will be able to get great publicity for our plans) . Apparently the new Archbishop of Westminster said a few things at his investiture ceremony that some survivors of abuse found unhelpful. Apparently he said things which appeared (if not intended) to make him sound more sympathetic to the plight of abusers than to their victims. Well I had a very nice chat with Nicky Campbell and Donald Findlater live on the beeb and for the first time in a media interview I became overwhelmed with emotion and, rarely for me, found myself temporarily speechless..and that really is rare!

Someone suggested that abusers don't realise the harm they are doing when they seek "the comfort of children". I hope you are proud of my response. I didn't swear out loud but I had to point out that when an abuser is raping or buggering a child I think there is a pretty good chance that they know exactly how evil and depraved their actions are. I pointed out that the abuse of a child can never ever constitute an act of love. It is an act of hatred. It is the ultimate misuse of power and control. It is a direct attack not just on the mind and body of the child but on their very soul. And when this has been perpetrated by a clergyman................well I hope you can understand why I was speechless. I think the last thing I managed to say was that as a Christian, I know that there was no sin, no crime more evil in the sight of Jesus than to hurt a child. As for separating that child from a relationship with God....well again, what can I say?

Jesus said it all. "better you be weighted down with a mill stone and cast into the waters than take the innocence of a child". I know those weren't his exact words but you get the gist. Jesus was pretty good with words! He made it pretty clear where he stood on the issue of child abuse.

Pity more people, particularly some of our politicians, aren't the same.

Hope you are having a good week.
Love
Pete

PS Do you think I should stand for Parliament. If napac patron Esther Rantzen is I don't see why I shouldn't! Think about it. Pete Saunders.......the NAPAC Member of Parliament.

PPS Anyone want to be my agent????

And another!

Had you fooled! Short and sweet my armpit!

Just to let you know that I made it to Brighton and back on by bike and I expect to be out of hospital sometime in June......only joking. I rode really well and apart from a spot of the runs on the way back (good job I was sitting down) I did the 116 miles without too much discomfort. I even managed to win a few sprints to the top of hills!! Not bad for an old fat git.

But you don't want to know about that..........or do you? Perhaps you should consider joining the Big Foot Cycling Club (male and female) and come out with us sometime. For proof of my age and physical state you can see photos of the Brighton ride on their website. I am the handsome one, sitting in the ambulance.

NAPAC is doing well at the moment. Our wonderful new volunteers are getting stuck into calls and we love having them on board. Our old volunteers are also wonderful and it's absolutely marvellous when our long serving people are able to come alonside the new ones. It doesn't always work out like that but we try!

I have got lots going on in my head at the moment (suprisingly for me) in terms of where napac is going and I will share some of those thoughts another time but right now I want to remind you about our Fund Raising event in Dudley on Saturday 27th June. There are some fantastic items for auction (signed Liverpool and Villa matchballs, signed England shirt etc). It's at Club Dudley in Waterloo Road, Dudley (West Midlands) and starts at 7.30. It's ticket only so somewhere on our website the wonderful Helen will hopefully put full details.
Well, it's Friday afternoon and I am trying to think of an excuse to bunk off early. How about.....pub opening time? That's a good excuse. Again, only joking. I'm an athlete and besides, negotiating the Old Kent Road on the bike when sober is bad enough , how I'd manage it drunk, heavens knows. Funnily enough I've only ever been stopped for speeding twice. Once was in my car on the A56 near Manchester (the cops were brilliant. I apologised, told them the truth "I was running late officer" and they let me go) Good old British bobby. The other time was by the Royal Parks Constabulary in Richmond Park (apart 35 years ago!). Myself and 3 other riders were training there and we were exceeding the 30mph (eat your heart out Lance) speed limit. They weren't so friendly and warned us we were in danger of colliding with the deer (and those who know Richmond Park will know this) who stroll across the road. Venison steaks?? Now there's a thought.

Tonight I am having a secret meeting with Secret Mision, our rock band musician friends. There is a rumour that they are going to be doing a gig in the Bromley area. That's great news for me as they usually like to drag us all the way to the other side of London to watch them perform. When I know when they will be playing (and where) I'll let you know. Secret Mission really are different and well worth seeing................hey! I even have a Secret Mission tee shirt. Pete the 52 year old groupie!

Well I will sign off now and climb into the lycra. The Old Kent Road seems to be particularly busy on Friday evenings so I need to take care. I always say an extra prayer before making the journey because it was on that very road where I had my last crash. White van driver, on his mobile "didn't see me". Ran me off the road right next to Old Kent Road fire station then promptly drove right over my bike. Good job I had extracted my legs in time. And it was then that I discovered what a nice bunch of chaps our firemen can be. "We saw the whole thing mate, he nearly killed you". "He was on his mobile phone". "We''ll be your witnesses". Thanks chaps. It didn't do me any good. I wasn't badly hurt so the police said to forget it..........you win some???
Have an awesome weekend.
Love
Pete

Friday the 15th

Greetings! This is another short and sweet message.

Dudley and Rita.

No, they are not a couple! Dudley is in the West Midlands and one of our supporters, Chrissie, is holding a fundraising auction and social evening there on Saturday 27th June. I'll be there! Included in the auction is an England signed soccer shirt and a Liverpool signed matchball. They must be worth a good few bob to some soccer fans? More info to follow but if you are anywhere in the West Midlands here is your opportunity to support NAPAC with a good night out.
Rita is a lovely lady who has written a very moving and clever book of poetry called 'Parallel Lives' and it will be available shortly to purchase. Again, more details to follow shortly.
In the meantime have a great Bank Holiday weekend (hope the sun keeps shining) and if you happen to find yourself in Brighton on Sunday, stay clear of any big lump on a bicycle clad in pink lycra!!
Love
Pete

Getting started.

Getting started is one thing. Keeping it going is quite another. Although I had every intention of being a good little blogger I realise now that I am just not cut out for this game. I know I have been neglecting you and I apologise but it's just that I have so much on my plate that I never know quite where to start and how to prioritise and the thought of blogging (which to me is quite an attractive thing to do because I like talking about myself) is just a distraction from getting on with my job....which is to expand this charity...........and raise the money to pay the phone bills. But I do believe in miracles and I'll share a little one from last week. We got a phone bill. A big phone bill. A nine hundred and something pounds phone bill! I said a little prayer (I often do) and said, "please God, let the next thing we open be a cheque" (we haven't had too many of them recently - credit crunch etc) and lo and behold, there was a cheque for £1000!!! No one can tell me that wasn't a prayer answered.
As you know we lost Julie, our Training and Development Manager. But since losing her we have found a few others. We now have Dawn, our Volunteer Coordinator and Tamsin, our volunteer Admin person. What's more this past fortnight we've seen 5 new volunteers join our Support Team (the ones who staff the free phone) so you see it's been a time of miracles!
Earlier this week I visited a great charity called St.Mungo's and spent the morning with their 'Women's Focus Group' (why am I always being asked to woman's groups? perhaps its' the pink lycra tops I wear when on my bike). What a lovely bunch of people. And what great work they do with our homeless people. They sent me a lovely email thanking me for coming along and I sent them one saying that I wish a big, well resourced charity like St.Mungos would take us under their wing.....and give us a place of our own to work from.You can only ask! There's too much to tell to know where to start so I guess the best bet is to sign off and get on with my work. I'll tell you what though. We have been getting so many calls and enquires that we have got to make this whole dream of napac so much bigger. Because in many ways it is a dream. I dream of helping the millions out there who have been absued and need help but I know we can never do that until we get more help. So, it's back to the drawing board, a bit of dreaming...and lots of prayers............PLEASE.
Look after yourself.
Love
Pete
PS Hope to be cycling to Brighton and back on Sunday if anyone cares to join me. I don't advise it though. It will be a very painful experience!

Happy Easter

Wishing you a Happy Easter is about all I have time to say so apologies for this brief blog. Our Training and Development Manager, Julie, left today and we are feeling very sad. Still, we have another wonderful person joining us next week, on a temporary basis and I will tell you all about it soon. I am off to Liverpool in the morning for a meeting with a chap who wants to help us out with fundraising. I'll go anywhere to get money for napac and Liverpoool is as good a place as any. A fine city............and particularly as their football team (well the Red one) are sending napac a signed matchball for us to use as a fundraiser. Up the Reds!

I'll be back in blogging mode soon...............I hope!
God bless
Pete

I warned you!

One of our wonderful Trainers (Sarah) reminded me that I hadn't blogged for ages and she's right. But I did warn you. I tend to either go full blast after something (like setting napac up) or I lose interest and forget about it (like blogging!). But now that I've started this lark, and because quite a few people are reading it, then I must make the effort. So, having not blogged for a month.............this could be a long one! Just warning you.
Well I went to Hyde Park to watch the 7in7in7 team complete their epic adventure (7 ultra marathons in 7 days on 7 different continents) but I couldn't find them! I went to Marble Arch but I either got there too early or too late. And because there was about a million people in the park, further exploration seemed pointless. Not that I would have seen our Oli anyway because he was still on a drip in a hospital in Jo'burg recovering from a nasty virus. Strange that, you wouldn't think running all those 50ks in between sleep deprivation and transcontinental economy class flights would affect you very much would you??? I'm sure I would have managed it. It's the younger generation you see. Can't take the pace!! (I'll come back to the younger generation)
Now some bad news. Our Training and Development Manager (Julie) is leaving napac. She has got herself a job in her locality with a slightly better salary (about £10k per year better!) so whilst we are devastated to be loosing her ( SHE HAS DONE A HUGE AMOUNT OF WORK FOR NAPAC) we completely understand why she has to take the job and we wish her all the very best. BUT, like most people that napac gets its hooks into, we aren't letting her go entirely because she still wants to help the charity in any way she can..........as a volunteer. Well done Julie and THANK YOU. Having you here this past year has been an amazing, educational and uplifting experience for us. How can anyone say they don't like the Welsh?

Talking of amazing women. We've just had a visit from another one called Martha Jesty. Peruvian born Martha has lived in the UK for over 20 years and has written a book about overcoming her experiences of a traumatic birthing experience. Her book is called 'Real Healing after Caesarean' and it's definately worth the read if that's happened to you......or if you are the partner of that person. To obtain a copy and to read about some of the other stuff this lovely lady does visit her website www.helpwomenandchildren.com. And tell her napac sent you!

What else have I been up to? Despite giving up booze for Lent (over 4 weeks now without so much as a sip of vino!) my memory still needs a kick start..........so a quick peek in the diary. Oh yes. Yesterday I went to a meeting of the Survivors Trust in Newark. Most of the dicussion was around the funding crisis in our charity sector, not sure we can call it a crisis though as I'm not sure we've ever not been in a funding crisis! If you know what I mean? napac has definately seen a drop in donations recently but we are not worried..........yet. When the Big Lottery finally comes to its senses and give us a grant and when Government realise the utter common economic sense in supporting us our worries will be over! Oh yeh!

One of our Support Team members is taking part in the Marie Curie Swimathon and will be swimming 2.5 kilometres at the Arches Leisure Centre in Greenwich on 16th April. Good luck to her. Marie Curie is a great charity, worthy of our support.

I forgot to mention. Our Office Manager Helen was in a pantomime at her church at the end of February. Julie and I went along (out of loyalty to Helen really we weren't that bothered about a panto) BUT it was FANTASTIC! I was singing and dancing in the ailes and we had a thoroughy fabulous evening. And guess who the star of the show was? You guessed it.....me! only joking............it was our Helen! She was brilliant. If she ever tires of napac (if she dare) she won't have any difficulty making it in the West End!

During the first week of March I went to Bognor Regis for the day. No, it wasn't to sit on the beach (it poured down anyway) it was to attend an event at the Butlins Conference centre organised by Littlehampton Community College. And what a great day it turned out to be. The theme was 'Peace One Day' and it was attended by 120 sixth formers and about 15 other charities. The day started with an hour long film about one mans struggle to establish an annual day of world peace. A day when everyone, everywhere put their guns down and gave peace a chance. What a fantastic prospect. One of the things my bitter, twisted and cynical brain was going to say was "until the trillion dollar arms industry gives up it's evil ways there will always be war" And I sadly know that's true. But I didn't! I said peace is in all our hands and we have to vote for people who will insist that the arms trade be turned into an unarms trade. As long as there are people making money out of death then war will be promoted. We live in a world that's lost its way don't we? We wonder why there is so much violence in society because when we don't like what people are doing in other parts of the world..............we bomb them. What's the difference.............. knifing your neighbour or firing a cruise missile at a school? The outcome of both events is highly likely to be the same.............................................more violence.
However, what made me leave the event feeling really good were the dozens of young people I spoke with. How they filled me with hope. I hate the way society always seems to pick on the younger generation. They didn't start the wars, they didn't create the atom bombs and ICBMs, they didn't institute our culture of greed (that was Mrs T wasn't it!!)? But we seem to blame them for everything. The loons who almost run me down on my bike as I cycle home from work tonight are not kids, the chief executives of tobacco and booze companies are not kids and the bankers and estate agents (some now richly rewarded) who have lead our economy to ruin..........are not kids. So let's leave them alone. God forbid I should side with David Cameron and exult us all to 'hug a hoodie' BUT I actually think he has a good point. As a famous song once said "what the world needs now is love, sweet love............not just for some but for everyone". Of course these words were penned by the greatest hero of all time...........about two thousand years ago. I like them. What a world we could have if we all lived by them? As someone else pointed out..............with love capitalism could not exist and communism would not be needed! John Lennon agreed with JC. "All you need is love".
I agree with them both!
Unil the next time!
Love one another.
Pete

PS To the lady I nearly ran down in New Cross a couple of weeks ago. Sorry! You called me an idiot and from your perspective you were right. The trouble is, when lights change you can't stop on a bike like you can in a car and whilst I never go through red lights (unlike some cyclists and hundreds of car drivers) had I tried to brake hard in the wet I would have somesaulted and cracked my skull open. As it was I kept going and missed you by about ten feet! In nearly 40 years of cycling I've never hit a pedestrian (or a car for that matter - they've always hit me) so I must be due a bump soon. So, dear friends, if you see a fat git riding towards you along the Old Kent Road and it looks like me..........................stay well clear!