The BADER BRAVES Winter Wonderland Weekend, held at Calvert Trust, Kielder, Northumberland over the weekend  (27th – 29th January), was a sparkling success in every way. From the frost on the ground to the enjoyment of the Braves and their carers and families.

There was an excellent response to this event resulting in a lovely diverse group. New friendships were made, new challenges undertaken and a lot of fun had by all amongst some of the most beautiful and spectacular scenery in the country.

There will be a full report to follow very shortly so keep watching these pages but, in the meantime, here is a video from David Bickers, CEO of the DBF, who was not only there for the event but celebrated his birthday as well. (I won’t give away his age though.) Keith Delderfield, the DBF Director of Operations, just managed to make it home by a whisker to celebrate his on Monday. (I definitely won’t be divulging his!)

We’d also love to hear from any BRAVES, their carers or family members. Please send us your reports and photographs so that we can put them up on the Website to show those who weren’t there what they missed!

Please click on the link to see David’s video. He’s getting so good at this we’re expecting to see the Oscar nominations come rolling in….

* Click here: WINTER WONDERLAND *

The Douglas Bader Foundation is extremely grateful to all at the Calvert Trust, Kielder for looking after everyone so well and for giving the BRAVES a weekend to remember.

Our thanks also to all those who attended. You made the Event what it was.

We’ll keep you updated as to his progress but feel sure you’ll join us in wishing this inspirational man the best of luck and success in his latest challenge for a brilliant and very worthwhile cause.

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DBF Ambassador Phil Packer, MBE

Phil Packer MBE has embarked upon a mammoth 2,012 mile walking challenge, starting at Chichester College, which will see him travel right across the country.

The former army Major who lives in the Chichester area will be walking the distance through every county in Great Britain which will see him finish in London in December.
The aim is to raise awareness for the British Inspirational Trust which supports young people facing adversity, and the need to build a Centre of Inspiration Excellence for the trust which will cost £15m.
Phil, the founder of the Brit, suffered severe spinal cord damage in 2008 and was told it was highly unlikely he would walk again.
Over the course of the year he will make his way through locations chosen by young people in every county of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, including Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.
On the way, he will meet many of Great Britain’s youth who are facing physical and mental adversity, from community groups, schools, colleges and charities who will join Phil at the chosen locations where he will walk.
“The BRIT 2012 Challenge is the biggest I’ve undertaken and it is meets every principle my charity and I believe in,” he said.
“I’m asking 2012 businesses to pledge their financial support to share the costs to build the BRIT Centre. This means schools, colleges and universities can register for the BRIT 2012 Challenge to simply acknowledge and raise awareness of young people facing adversity by completing their 2012 miles as teams rather than fundraising.
“As part of the challenge I’m asking the British public to support their chosen charities by registering for the BRIT 2012 Challenge as teams or individuals.
“The BRIT 2012 Challenge is free to take part in – every penny goes to chosen charities and those charities do not have to pay costs to hold a fundraising event.”

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Find out more about the challenge, and what Phil has been up to in the Observer on Thursday, January 26.

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Please click on the photograph of Phil to visit his Website where you can find out more

Two of our new Douglas Bader Foundation Ambassadors, Margaret Biggs (Maggz) a b/k amputee, and Wyn Jenkins an a/k amputee, are cycling enthusiasts who already have quite a few thousand miles – and the occasional sore bottom, I’m sure – under their belts.

They are very keen to get a DBF Cycling Team together in much the same way as we have our loyal Team Bader running supporters. They are currently contemplating the many races and events on offer for 2012 and ear-marking some that might be suitable.

Maggz is also rebranding herself as DBF’s own Stella McCartney and overseeing the design of a very cool Team Bader Cycling Kit which can be worn by our intrepid supporters. This kit will be SO cool that you’ll want to be seen wearing it even if you hate cycling!! (Well – that’s one incentive to get fit and join “DBF Team Velo”…)

Cycling DBF is very much in its early stages but we are very excited about it and do hope that lots of you will join Wyn and Maggz on one or more of the rides and perhaps even introduce some fund-raising rides of your own. Joining these rides will be a great way of raising funds for the charity thereby supporting a very worthy cause and of bringing the Douglas Bader Foundation to the attention of others and spreading the word.

Cycling is a wonderful sport for amputees and, by joining one of these rides, you will not only get fit and reap the benefits of the exercise (great for circulation) but you are pretty much guaranteed to make some new friends  at the same time. Cycling DBF is about encouraging participation in the sport, there will be something for everyone – cyclists of all abilities and at all stages of their cycling career will be welcome.

Listed below are some suggested events. These ARE only at the “potential” stage at the moment as Team DBF rides but, if you see one that appeals to you geographically or otherwise, do please get in touch so that we can turn the potential into a reality.

FEBRUARY:-
NW WINTER SERIES – HQ Poynton Leisure Centre, Stockport
http://wintersportiveseries.blogspot.com
Event 1 Sun 12 Feb – 27/60 miles
£15 / EOL £20
Event 2        26 Feb     30/50
£15 / EOL £20
MARCH:-
JODERELL BANK CLASSIC
http://joderellbankcyclosportive2012.blogspot.com
Sun 11 Mar – 25/50/80 miles
£15 /£25   EOL £20/25/30
Manchester (TBC)
CTC NORTH WEST SPORTIVE AND CHALLENGE RIDE
http://ctcchallengerides.co.uk
Sun 18 Mar – 75 miles
£17/27      EOL £22/32
WIGGLE CHESHIRE CAT
http://kilotogo.com
Sun 25 Mar – 100/74/45 miles;
£33/30/22.50
APRIL:-
PENDLE WITCHES VINTAGE VELO
http://pendlewitchesvintagevelo.co.uk
Sun 8 Apl – 53/13 miles
£15/5
THREE SHIRES SPORTIVE – Buxton
http://www.threeshiressportive.co.uk
Sun 22 Apl – 100k
£15     EOL £20
WRYNOSE OR BUST – Army training camp, Lancaster
http://wrynose.org
Sun 29 Apl – 112/60/37miles
£33/27/25
MAY:-
BANK HOL W/E Sun 6 May
FOREST OF DEAN SPRING CLASSIC SPORTIVE - Monmouth Showgrd
http://www.wheelsinwheels.com
89 miles
£30      EOL £35
PRESELI ANGEL – Newport
http://www.velo-teifi.org.uk
40/80 miles
£10/15 EOL £13/18
ISLE OF WIGHT RANDONEE
100k

AMPUTEE GAMES – Stoke Mandeville
Sat/Sun    12/13 May

To register your interest or find out more, please contact Maggz directly in the first instance by emailing:leggz.space@rocketmail.com

The BADER BRAVES Young Aviators’ Days have been an enormous success since they became part of the Douglas Bader Foundation strategy to help children with amputations and other disabilities and their families.

Last year we held 9 of these immensely popular events and this year, despite the Olympics and the Paralympics, we intend to extend that.

We are continually adding to our list of participating airfields so that we can broaden our scope across the country and offer more BRAVES what is often their first experience of flight in a light aircraft.

This is a wonderful experience for the BRAVES and the joy and satisfaction they get from it is evident from the photographs and testimonials. It also provides a great day out for the families and carers.

We are currently planning our Young Aviators Days Programme for 2012 but you can expect to see your favourite venues and some new locations as well.

Please keep checking the BADER BRAVES Young Aviators Days Page for more information.

Not only have we been in existence now for almost 30 years following the charity’s inception after the death of Sir Douglas, 30 years ago in September this year (no mean feat for a small charity) but, during that time, we have gone from strength to strength with new initiatives and help for amputees and other disabled.

We recently incorporated BADER BRAVES, a joint acknowledgement of Sir Douglas Bader’s honourary Chieftainship of a Canadian Indian Tribe and the bravery of children with limb deficiencies and other disabilities specifically to help children. Our BADER BRAVES Young Aviators Days are already a proven success with a programme increasing every year and we’re broadening the BRAVES line-up to include more Adventure Weekends and many other activities and opportunities.

We have enlisted new DBF AMBASSADORS, thereby broadening the team and the support, advice and service we can offer.

Thanks to one of these Ambassadors, Margaret Biggs, and some loyal participants, the Limb Loss Information Centre Forum (reached either though the DBF or LLIC Websites) is now widely held to be one of the strongest and most successful in the amputee community. As well as being a communication centre, the Forum gives the opportunity for amputees, those with limb deficiency or their families, friends or carers, advice, support, or simply a sympathetic ear from people who have first hand knowledge and experience.

For one-to-one communication, we have our already popular LimbLine run by Leggz and available through the LLIC Website. Leggz will either be able to offer you advice herself or will put you in touch with someone who she feels may be in a better position to help. The DBF will, of course, endeavour to do the same if you contact the charity direct.

With another of our Ambassadors, Wyn Jenkins, the DBF is intending to create a Peer Support Programme, an ambition dear to Wyn’s heart and certainly an enterprise that we know Sir Douglas would back wholeheartedly as well. He spent many hours and travelled hundreds of miles to visit and encourage amputees and other disabled people and it was as a result of literally sackfulls of letters received following his death by those he inspired with his motto: “an amputee who fights back is not handicapped but inspired“, that the DBF was created in the first place.

The LIMB LOSS INFORMATION CENTRE, an online resource created to guide individuals with congenital or acquired limb loss and their friends, family and carers through the emotional, physical and psychological process of coming to terms with limb loss, was set up in 2005 by the Douglas Bader Foundation with the help of the Sir Jules Thorn Charitable Trust. We are about to revamp  this Website to bring the information up to date with some of the amazing advances and developments in both medicine and Prosthetic Technology and the opportunities that offers for amputees and those with limb deficiency. In the meantime, we hope that you will still find the information on the site comprehensive and useful but, if there is anything you can’t find or feel should be there and isn’t, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us so that we can put you in touch with the right person to help. We are always delighted to have your input and positive suggestions.

We are going into 2012 with more supporters than ever and plan to make this a bumper year for the charity. The Bader Braves Young Aviators Day schedule will soon be announced and we already have a Winter Wonderland Adventure Weekend set up for Braves with more to follow as well as a variety of sporting events and challenges that you can become involved with.

Several of our Ambassadors have exciting ventures planned or in the pipe-line for 2012 and we will keep you informed so that you can support them and thereby the DBF. With 2 of the Ambassadors being keen cyclists, we anticipate a flurry of cycling events to support or participate in so keep watching this space! Designs for a cool DBF Supporters Cycling Kit are already underway…

You can find out more about all the aspects of the Douglas Bader Foundation mentioned above through the various pages of the Websites or, for any information you can’t find, by contacting us direct.

However…We need your help. The Douglas Bader Foundation relies almost entirely on donations to continue our vital work on behalf of amputees and other disabled so do, please, keep supporting us.

Your Support

You can do this by sending in donations or organising events etc. to raise funds. We will always be happy to offer advice and support with events you organise on our behalf and will be able to publicise them on the Website. You can also participate in other organised events, which will be posted on the Website hopefully in plenty of time for you to get fit and enter for! We are also delighted to have your participation and support in the form of ideas and suggestions and, of course, input to the Website in the form of relevant stories and photographs etc..

We look forward to hearing from you and to your participation in 2012. Please help us to continue our positive start to 2012 and to make this the charity’s best ever year.

Thank you from all at the Douglas Bader Foundation

As you can see, the Website had been refreshed and largely redesigned and we hope you’ll agree it’s a lot better for it!

We are especially pleased with our brand new BADER BRAVES pages and extremely grateful to the excellent Coreware team, particularly Rob Sumner for his inspired design.

The BADER BRAVES initiative would have delighted Sir Douglas. We’re very excited about the idea and we’d welcome your suggestions and input to help us to maximise its potential.

The DOUGLAS BADER FOUNDATION welcomes your involvement so please contact us with your thoughts and ideas; any stories or information you’d like us to include or just to let us know how we can improve our service. We’re always open to positive suggestions.

Anyway – we’re back!

Please enjoy the new Website and don’t fail to get in touch if you’d like more information about the charity. Contact details can be found on the top menu bar.

Adam Layer accompanies Phil Packer on Mile 4. Photo: Robert Pascall

Phil had come up with the amazing concept of “26″; 26 Miles for 26 Charities in 26 Hours, and the Douglas Bader Foundation was honoured and delighted to have been nominated as one of his 26 charities. The DBF representative, 18 year old Adam Layer, walked Mile 4 with Major Packer and then joined the other 25 charity representatives to accompany him over the Finish Line. Congratulations to Adam and thanks to him for his ongoing support of the Douglas Bader Foundation. We couldn’t have wished for a better nominee and were proud have him as the charity’s representative.

Major Packer used his time with each charity nominee to learn more about them and their individual situations so that he could gather information to help with his hugely ambitious next project; the creation of a multi-million pound British Centre of Excellence. Phil’s aspiration is to provide a residential retreat for disadvantaged young people where he hopes they will be able to gain inspiration and hope for the future. You can learn more about this from Phil’s Website by clicking on this link.

We will be publishing more on Phil’s amazing achievement over the next couple of days and hope to have photographs coming in soon but, for now, we just wanted to congratulate him and to thank him for supporting the Douglas Bader Foundation in true Bader spirit.

Adam Layer and Phil Packer having completed Mile 4. Photo: Robert Pascall

Adam Layer, the Douglas Bader Representative who walked MILE 4 with Major Packer sent this comment:

“I thoroughly enjoyed my weekend in London for the Virgin Money London Marathon and, in particular, representing The Douglas Bader Foundation and walking mile 4 with Phil Packer it was a fantastic experience that I will never forget and I’d like to thank everyone who made it possible and supported us for that mile. Walking for that mile, Phil’s focus was to find out as much as possible about me and also about the Foundation which was brilliant and along with the comments and cheers of encouragement received from the spectators, photographers and reporters the whole adventure was just so memorable

For the last 365 yards of the Marathon, all 26 support walkers (one from each of the charities that Phil had chosen to support) joined Phil, which was a wonderful chance to meet up with other young people who had met their own personal challenges. Following the 0.2 miles and a flurry of press, I was presented a certificate and t-shirt by Richard Branson’s daughter who had completed the marathon as part of a caterpillar the day before.

I hope that by parading the Douglas Bader Foundation logo through Woolwich and also down the Mall, I and my small army of supporters, have raised the profile of a small but purposeful and very focussed charity.

Where to go from here? Well I’d like to think I can continue to support the DBF and hope to get involved in some of the activities, particularly the flying days and the latest Bader Braves activity weekend.”

The Douglas Bader Foundation was enormously proud to have you represent us, Adam, and look forward to working with you in the future. We are very grateful for your ongoing support.

WELL DONE, PHIL AND ADAM, AND THANK YOU. AN AMAZING ACHIEVEMENT!

You can click HERE to see a Sky News interview with Phil Packer during his DBF Mile 4 with Adam Layer.

We will bring more News Items and photographs as they come in so keep watching this space.

…is a very important year for the Douglas Bader Foundation. We have several exciting developments planned to mark this auspicious year. One is our first venture into licensing: we have agreements with collectible company 288 Group under their Westminster Press and Casco divisions, agreements with Bradford Exchange and with former Military Gallery owner, Pat Barnard.

We are delighted to have these opportunities to increase our fund-raising potential thereby enabling us to benefit more amputees and other disabled through our various initiatives and are grateful for the participation of the companies and individuals involved.

Please click on the link to see the Press Release

Grateful thanks to Steve McNeice for his design skills and his time.

Thank you, Ray – you’re an inspiration.

You would have thought at nearly 71 I would be pursuing more sedate pastimes like gardening etc, instead of crazy things like parachute jumping, running half marathons and 10ks, and rowathons. All or most in the name of charity!

All of these activities have happened in the last 6 yrs. I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2003, and had successful surgery. (Well I’m still here, so it must have been.) Afterwards I decided to get myself fit. And after shedding some 2 stone in weight found I had an aptitude for running.

I’ve run 25 races so far since my cancer and have 3 more this year.
My parachute jump was from 13000 ft over Netheravon in Wiltshire and was in aid of the cancer unit that treated me.

My last road race was the St Albans half marathon on the 14th June, my toughest yet, (so many hills).

I did this one for The Douglas Bader Foundation, a charity very close to my heart .

I have been organizing a golf day for the foundation at Bognor Regis GC for the past 20 years called The Bader Pipe, and in the process raised several thousand pounds.
Although I did my national service in “khaki” I admire individuals like Douglas Bader for overcoming their disabilities and becoming an inspiration and example to others in similar circumstances. And proving life can go on.

While I am fit enough I will continue to do all can for others less fortunate than me.”

All the very best.
Ray Blackwell.