I’ve been really busy mainly going around Birmingham. Although I was too small to go, I got a very cool bowtie to help celebrate Birmingham Pride because some of the young people who use our services are LGBT and we support them just as much as the young people who aren’t. I did get to go to one of the St Basils projects near the Villa ground and I hope they’d let me join their pride, but then I got told we also have projects near the Blues ground and also there is a team of Wolves nearby too. Maybe I should stick to cricket because Edgbaston has a sleepout to raise money for us – and they have their own team of Bears.
I also got to meet some of the cool people who help raise money for the things St Basils does looking after young people who are homeless or might be homeless if they didn’t get help. I got to visit Remy, Bridget and the rest of the team at Network IT Recruitment who raised over £500. Me and Brother Basils got to meet loads and loads of people at the University of Birmingham’s Vale Festival, where the people who organised it chose St Basils to raise money for. It is loads of fun going to fun events, but mainly the best bit is meeting the people who help St Basils do their work by making sure they have the money to do it.
But one of my favourite things I’ve been to was the Woof Run. St Basils put it on and they got loads of people to bring their dogs to a park in Solihull to help raise money. Even though I’m really little and even the littlest dogs are bigger than me, I think dogs are brilliant so I had loads of fun meeting the dogs and handing out treats. Some of the dogs did say I could go with them on the run but I was too scared. I’m not that adventurous yet, but perhaps I’ll feel braver at the next Woof Run on 8th December! But my brother Bas is really brave.
Bas hangs out with David and they’re both cycling mad, which is good because so are some of the people at St Basils and they’re putting on some cycling events including Bike for St Basils Sportive coming up on 20th July. Bas has been cycling with David loads, even in the rain, and they did 100 miles ride with Cycling UK which is really, really far. But I think the most super cool thing was when he met Jason Kenny, the Olympic cyclist. He also got to meet one of the cycling legends from West Midlands Police as well.
Lots of my other family have also been on adventures too. Cousin Basil went to the Lake District and also to Switzerland with Emmalene and they sent me a postcard. Brother Basil had a really awesome trip to Russia, where he got to go to St Basils Cathedral and loads of other cool places there. They’re definitely the travellers of the family, as Brother Basil went to Paris recently too.
My human helper (Laura) told me I had to write a whole page and I’ve done that now, so I’m going to go find my walking boots for the annual St Basils Walk!
Much love,
Basil the Bear