Writing letters: The art of communicating the old fashioned way.

In a post last week I wrote about why I share what I do online, mainly because I'm looking for interaction, sadly I just don't get the response a lot of the time that I'm after. For me, communication is a two way process and a 'like' on facebook just doesn't cut it for me. Since Skype was blocked this year in the UAE, verbal communication has come to a halt, to be honest that was pretty much one way anyway and I don't think our land line rings more than twice a year, we randomly call it just to make sure it is working.

At 46, I'm of the generation that can't live without the internet, but I also know how to live and survive without it. I also have many relatives who don't use social media and being from the generation where I wrote thank you cards for birthday and Christmas presents, I love to write and receive letters and since leaving the UK 7 years ago this month, I've been corresponding with family and friends all over the world. I have pen pals from the world of twitter who I've never met but we write on a regular basis and some of these friendships have had me traveling for meet ups, with my furthest distance travelled to date being a 14 hour flight from Dubai to Toronto to stay with Catherine and her family, known as Always a Redhead.

My two oldest pen pals are an old school friend, Sharron and I keep a shoe box of her letters from when we were 11 and I moved away up until we stopped writing around the age of 19 when boyfriends, work and children came along, but we're still in touch on face book. My other pen pal is my Dad's cousin's daughter Carol and despite us being on face book, we still change physical Christmas cards every year.

The postal system is much improved since moving to Dubai from South Africa where sadly most letters rarely made it in or out, but you'd be surprised with a bit of determination what you could do and I value those people who made extreme efforts and at great costs to keep those avenues of communication open and in fact still do.

A friends mother once stuck a UK 2nd class stamp on a Christmas card and it arrived in South Africa within 5 days, a cousin in Australia addressed the envelope as below and it arrived in under 2 weeks.

31 Valley Crescent

Centurion

Africa

I have my favourite writing spot.

I have a variety of novelty pens.

I keep every letter written and a copy of every letter I send.

I walk to the post office in temps of 40c+ to get your letter or card to you.

I have a box full of note books, I use for blogging, pretty covers and inspirational quotes.

I have cards for every occasions and I have lots of paper.

I keep a record of birthdays, anniversaries and deaths and make sure cards and gifts get to people on time, even if it means leaving them in the UK with my mother months in advance. sadly this doesn't always work in reverse and it does upset. Too many excuses about lack of time, advance planning, the cost of postage and why bother if it's not going to get there.

But those who matter do make the effort, for which I am eternally grateful.

How about you? Do you like to receive post? Do you send letters and cards through the post? Do you have pen pals? Would you like another one?

Just drop me your address in a message on Social Media, I'm found under the name of Chickenruby on twitter, instagram and face book. I'd love to hear from you and add you to my address book.

Macaroon and Tracy Paul

I attend the Tracy Paul Macaroon Launch in Greenside this morning and I was very impressed with the range of stationery they had on offer. The Tracy Paul merchandise caught my immediate attention with a giraffe wearing a snorkel.

As an expat I'm expected to bring back African related gifts for birthday and christmas and after 4 years I think I've exhausted the market and TBH on my last trip to the UK in April I found more 'Safari' animal related goods there than I do over here. So it was really nice to see something new.

I had a chance to talk with Tracy (centre of photograph) and she told me she's been interested in art since the age of 4 and her favourite thing to draw are giraffes and anything wearing a tutu, this appeals to me greatly.

With cakes, coffee and champagne on offer and familiar faces I would have like to have stayed longer, but hubbies plane landed half an hour early so I had to leave.

I'm not often in the Johannesburg area, but next time I am, I will call back in.

Some of my favourite items of stationery were the menu and shopping plan, the travel journal and the coasters.

I received an original personalised Tracy Paul notebook and gift labels in exchange for this blog post.

What's on your wish list?

Wish List

Solar Panel, battery and convertor.

Lethabong Township has no electricity or running water, the local Municipality delivers water once a week.

Electricity would allow the people who live there to set up and run a sewing group. They can supplement their salary to provide lunches for their children in the day and stationery items their children need for school. A group of parents will make school uniforms for the children, book bags and will be able to teach others basic sewing skills to mend clothing.

Ink Cartridges, printing paper and data allowance.

To be used by Santa Shoebox in Gauteng for advertising and recruiting individuals and companies to donate approx 42,000 filled shoe boxes to distribute to children in rural locations around the province. Printing work sheets, lesson plans and information.

School Uniform and Stationery.

For Legora Primary School in Mamelodi. Children are in classes of 40+ often 2 to a chair, there are few resources and teaching is delivered by ‘chalk and talk’ if the children don’t have stationery they can’t write down and improve their learning. There are 1956 children on register.

Buttons and Beads.

For Kungwini Protective Workshop for Adults with disabilities for improving fine motor skills, encouraging team work and making crafts to sell at the Nickel Xmas Market.

Toiletries.

Kungwini Childrens Home for 15 children. They require toothpaste/brushes, deodorants, soap and shampoo.

Toiletries, stationery, books, sanitary pads, hand sanitisers, cleaning materials, detergents

For The Viva Foundation, Kungwini, Lethabong.

Can you sponsor me some stationery and printer ink?

I’ve been involved with The Viva Foundation in Mamelodi since December 2012 whilst volunteering for Santa Shoebox. In March 2013 my son and I took part in the Viva Township Art and Living Art Gallery and I’m currently delivering training programmes to the teachers at the Early Learning Centre. I also raise funds for specific items used in the day to day teaching and raise awareness through social media.

I am currently delivering training sessions to the teachers at the school, for children aged birth to 5, focusing on discipline and engaging the children in their learning. The school day is long from 8am often till 6pm and the teachers are struggling to keep the children engaged throughout the day, especially when they have very limited equipment, mainly in the form of stationery items.

There are 3 class rooms: 0-2, 3 & 4-5 year olds. Part of the training I am delivering is to develop the curriculum and introduce new methods to deliver literacy, numeracy and life skills.

The following items of equipment would make a huge difference to the way the teachers deliver lessons and to the students learning.

Plain and lined paper

Crayons

Paints

Pens

Pencils

Erasers

Sharpeners

Rulers

Glue

Scissors

Sensory items: Soft balls, play doh

In order to deliver training sessions and develop lesson plans I urgently need a sponsor for the printing costs involved.

I develop worksheets and activities for the teachers to deliver to the children, as you can appreciate drawing 46 worksheets just once a week is time consuming. The worksheets designed teach the children body parts and how to keep safe, recognising shapes and letters in preparation for writing and I provide information sheets on child development for the teachers to gain a wider understanding of the stages of development. I also plan on delivery child protection courses for the teachers.

I am a qualified learning support teacher and have trained teaching assistants in the UK, taught in pre school, secondary school and in further education. I was also employed prior to a move to South Africa as a Child Welfare Officer for The English Football Association.

I need your help please

I volunteer with #santashoebox in Pretoria.

We are short of pledges for Christmas shoe boxes this year, around 3000 more pledges are needed by drop off days the 3rd week in October. Where we check the boxes, pack and store till mid November before distributing to disadvantaged children in the surrounding area.

This is a country wide initiative. We still have facility names to release and 2 of my facilities are on that list.

I'd hate for any child to miss out, I'd hate to have to go to the facilities and tell them that we didn't reach our target.

I can't name the facilities but I can tell you a little bit about them.

The first facility needs 12 shoe boxes. This is a home for girls no longer able to live with their families. The second facility is a care home for children with mental health issues, they need 10 boxes.

If the pledges don't come in I will be donating boxes to these 2 facilities myself. I haven't made an individual pledge this year or last year as I donate fillers and my time to raising awareness, promoting and sitting on the committee both locally and regionally.

This year I'm making up stationery packs. So far 150 for ages 2-18. It is amazing how many people forget to put one of the required items in the boxes.

Each box requires:
Stationery
Toothbrush & paste
Sweets
Clothing
Toy

It doesn't have to cost the earth. Around R100 for a basic box and some people, judging by the contents, spend R500+ per box.

It doesn't matter if one child gets a bumper box and another gets a basic box. These children have nothing and anything and everything is cherished and a much wanted gift.

So if you feel like taking on a facility or you can donate X amount of boxes. Please contact me. You don't have to be living in Pretoria to pledge a box.

How would I spend £20,000.00

How would I spend £20,000.00? Well that's an easy question to answer. I live in South Africa, I've travelled the world, I've had my dream holidays. I've stayed in the Balligio in Las Vegas, have safari's on my door step. I've been to University. I have my kids in private school, so I don't want or need to spend ANY money on me.

With the exchange rate, turning £20,000.00 into R300,000.00

I could make up 1500 Santa Shoeboxes for children in townships this Christmas.

I could bake 100,000 cupcakes to give to all the receipients of a shoebox this christmas.

I could provide a pen, pencil, sharpener, eraser, note book at the cost of R18 a set to 16,666 children to support their education.

Don't get me started on the one off projects I'm involved in such as painting shacks in townships, delivering hygiene lessons, accompanying children with mental health problems to horse riding lessons, working in a protective workshop.

£20,000.00 would go so far in South Africa, I could do so much physical good with it. I could turn people's lives around with just a fraction of that amount.

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