November 3rd 2024 represents the third anniversary of the tragic passing of our friend Burt. Following on from our memorial match last year, a group of us have organised a football tournament on Saturday 9 November to raise awareness around mental health as well as encouraging those who are struggling to speak out and seek support. We will be playing on the same pitch where we spent many Mondays playing football after work, creating wonderful memories with Burt.
Our football fundraiser will be held this November, and this year we have chosen to raise money for Mary Frances Trust (MFT). MFT is a Surrey based charity which celebrates 30 years of supporting their community this year. Anyone aged 16+ with a Surrey GP can access their FREE support, no GP referral needed. There are a variety of face to face and online self-help groups, peer support groups (including a men only group, a young people group, an autism peer support group, and a bereavement group), and lots opportunities to get involved in different physical activities and interest groups. They even have their own football team, The East Surrey Eagles, who were top of the Surrey FA Mental Health League! MFT works alongside their clients, designing and shaping the services their clients need with them. They also employ lived-experience practitioners (LexPs) to support their clients - LexPs can draw upon their own personal experience and recovery journey as a tool to support others. This way of working is called Co-Production and is a core part of the charity's strategy. There's so much more which the charity does (for example they run a face to face and virtual Safe Haven for anyone in crisis every evening of the year in Epsom, they are part of the campaign to End The Stigma about mental health and also publish a huge library of Blogs with real-life stories offering support, ideas and comfort), so for more information go to their website www.maryfrancestrust.org.uk
Your donations will be used to support MFT's football team, The East Surrey Eagles, with their running costs - they train twice a week and then have a coffee and a snack afterwards (very important social interaction time), and once a month they head off for their league games. One of their players said this:
"I have played with the MFT team for a year now, and it has been a profoundly life improving experience. The MFT team has given me and all our players a lifeboat that just doesn't sink. A constant, dependable lifting of spirits that gives us momentum to manage and improve other areas of our lives. I've played football with my teammates whose mental diagnoses include schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, OCD as well as players with autism. For many of our players it will be the only exercise and social contact they will partake in all week".
In memory of our friend Burt, please donate what you can to support better mental health in the UK.
**Update on our fundraising on 8/11/24 - we completely smashed our original target of £500, and so to keep us all motivated we've increased it to £1000. Thanks for all your support.
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