Blind Veterans’ Welsh fire walk and other service charity news

Blind Veterans UK is holding a Fire Walk event this November, which will be happening in Llandudno, Wales.

As the organisation notes here, it involves walking across a 15 ft long expanse of hot coal.

One of the people who will be undertaking the challenge is 52-year-old Kerry Reed, who lives in Holyhead, according to the charity.

She's been helped by the organisation since 2008, and given educational grants by it which have supported her in training to work in reflexology and physiotherapy.

"For anyone who is nervous about walking over hot coals, Blind Veterans UK will be running training sessions on the day to show people how to do the Fire Walk," she has said, according to Blind Veterans UK.

Ms Reed said the occasion is set to be fantastic, and urged people who want to take a challenge to become involved and bring in money for a worthy cause.

She was an RAF Aerospace Systems Operator in the late 70s and early 80s. Many years later she began to lose her eyesight following a stroke.

"Blind Veterans UK have turned my life around, and I can't wait to do the Fire Walk to raise funds for the charity," she explained, the charity reports.  

It costs £25 to register for the event, which is taking place on November 8th. The charity wants people who are going to fire walk to fundraise £50 or more each.

It comes after the organisation reported that Bryan Adams had donated over £45,000 to its cause.

Adams, the rock singer famed for songs like (Everything I Do) I Do It for You, which spent several months on top of the singles chart back in 1991, has a foundation called The Bryan Adams Foundation, which brought in part of the money with a concert.

The rest was part of the money brought in by "Wounded: The Legacy of War", a book by Adams.

The Foundation has also been helping other charities such as Combat Stress and SSAFA.

Director of fundraising and communications at the Blind Veterans UK, Andrew Jones, has said it is very grateful for the singer's continued help. The money will give veterans with sight loss the right help to rediscover life, he explained.

He also mentioned that the charity is about to turn 100, with the cash providing a lot of help to it and the ex service people it supports as it goes into its next century in action.

Elsewhere in the world of service charities, a knitted blanket has managed to bring in in excess of £300 that will be supporting Help for Heroes.

The Swindon Advertiser reports that the blanket is the product of different squares which its creator Jane Young, 64, was sent from around the world. The eventual covering measures six by eight feet.

The piece was the prize in a raffle in Royal Wootton Bassett, where Jane lives.

It had been displayed in Emma Rose Furnishings, Boroughfields, which is also where the raffle draw took place after several weeks of ticket sales. Mayor Teresa Page made the raffle draw.

Ms young told the news provider that a local woman won the prize. "She has a relative currently undergoing rehabilitation for an injury suffered while serving in the Forces," she added.

Meanwhile, another service charity, the Royal British Legion, has just brought out a list of things it wants the government to do following next year's general election, in the form of a manifesto.

Overall, the document calls for 12 policy moves, the organisation reports. It can be read on the charity's website. 

One of the recommendations is that the government should make is so that people who are Armed Forces widows can always keep their pensions if they end up living with or marrying someone else following their partner's death.

Meanwhile, Combat Stress' latest annual general meeting was attended by the minister for defence personnel, welfare and veterans, Anna Soubry.

She thanked the charity at the meeting for the work it has done in the area of ex service people's mental health for nearly a century, it reports. 

Meanwhile, the meeting also saw General Sir Peter Wall, made the charity's president, a role he takes over from General Sir Redmond Watt.

He said he is delighted to take on the role and looks forward to taking on "a full part" in the crucial charity, according to a quotation published by the charity. 

Several of the charities we've mentioned today – Help for Heroes, Combat Stress and the Royal British Legion, are all part of the Tower of London ceramic poppies installation which is still underway in the capital.

These organisations, along with the Confederation of Service Charities, SSAFA and Coming Home, are all getting an equal share of funds raised for charity from the institutions poppies, which are being sold at £25.

Posters have appeared in London advertising the sale and showing the poppies, 888,246 of which will eventually be involved in the artwork, called Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, housed in the Tower moat.