Celebrating Our Armed Forces Day - Sunday 30th June

Good Morning Friends!

Well of course, Armed Forces Day was yesterday and there was lots going on in our County; here where I live, we had an event in the library encouraging children to make thank you cards for armed personnel, plus a talk from a former Reservist, Jake Wood.

I am officially one of the organisers of this event (or rather the Volunteer Centre where I work is!), with friend and colleague Paul, who works for another community organisation covering our town, but to be honest, he did all the work and I just turned up on the day, along with Andy, a police officer (who also enjoys craft) to help the little ones make cards!

It got off to a slow start... when a photographer for the local paper turned up to take photos, we virtually dragged a Mum, Dad and daughters across from where they were looking for Library books, to make a card. As it turned out they made great cards and the Dad came back in the afternoon to listen to the talk!  After that we had quite a few children come over - of course they all love glitter don't they? And we've come home covered it it!

Having at some point in the last 10 years been at a similar event in the USA, where children were invited to make 'Thank You Soldier' cards, ours was so different! The attitude to loving your Country and those who serve, is so different over there. In the US I felt swept up in the whole occasion and the enthusiasm of the children, but here we really had to try hard to get the message across..however having said that, didn't these boys and girls do well?

I couldn't photograph any of the children because of all the 'permissions' nowadays, but thought you might like to see their cards.

You can't really see what one girl wrote but I think the troops these cards are being sent to will be moved; she has written "Thank you for all your amazing work that you have done for us, you are  all 'one' in a million"

Some of the younger ones added so much glitter glue that I think it will take a week to dry!

The talk was by Jake Wood, who has Post Traumatic Distress Syndrome and has written a book about his experiences in Afghanistan and how it affected him. He was a fabulous speaker and it was obviously very hard for him. He didn't bring any copies of his book to buy, but I have been inspired to read it and will do so.

We were worried about how well attended it would be as we weren't allowed to pre-ticket, so Paul's partner Howard came, Tom came and then...so did quite a few others..phew.

The talk was thankfully well attended and there were lots of questions..he was such a lovely guy too!

That's it for me today, hope you all have a great Sunday, 

Love,

Carole X

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