News
If the Cowfolk are doing it, this is where it’s at…
What Kind of Sp*stic Do You Take Me For?
Our Nik has recorded a track in memory of his late friend to raise awareness about disability, racism and discrimination. Download it for just £2 and help Nik raise money for Palestine, Easton Community Centre, Midsomer Norton Dog Rescue and our veg box scheme!
https://dolphinrap.bandcamp.com/track/what-kind-of-spastic-do-you-take-me-for
Chard Remains – Skimmity Hitchers
Friends of the Cowfolk the Skimmity Hitchers have released a new track to help us through these crazy times. If you like it, they’re asking for donations to our fresh veg delivery scheme…
When the world goes mad, the chips are down and a fight for survival is on the cards, where you gonna head? Any true West Country person knows that your best chance of survival is the Somerset market town of Chard – where folk be ‘ard and take no nonsense from no-one.*
Enjoy The Skimmity Hitchers classic ‘Chard Remains’, rebooted with brand new lyrics for these crazy times. Part news satire, part apocalyptic B-movie and part mindless Scrumpy & Western tomfoolery, we hope it hits all the right targets for the right reasons. Our thanks to video creators Fresh Cut Visuals.
We’ll get through the madness eventually and we’ll do it by working as one people. Big respect from us to all the frontline workers steering us through this time despite the ineptitude of government.
The video is for your enjoyment and not for profit. If you feel like making a donation then please support our amazing friends at Easton Cowboys/Cowgirls and The Plough Inn who are running a grassroots food box scheme in Bristol to support the most vulnerable and needy people being affected by the crisis.
Keep your peckers up people and we’ll sup a cider or two with you soon!
* We’re not sure if driving to Chard is currently allowed under government guidelines. It’s certainly no beauty spot, in fact it’s as rough as a badger’s arse, but you could argue that surviving the apocalypse is an essential journey.
#lockdown #chard #zombies #scrumpyandwestern #cider #realnews #fakenews #bbcnews #westcountry #fuelledbycider
Grant news!
The Easton Cowboys and Cowgirls and The Plough Inn are pleased to announce that we have been awarded a very timely £5000 grant from the Quartet Community Foundation’s Coronavirus Response Fund to help to continue our community fresh food box deliveries until the end of June.
What started as support for members of our immediate community has increased massively as the crisis has progressed. We’ve been doing delivery runs twice a week for 7 weeks now and have so far delivered over 2600 fruit+veg boxes and over 1000 cooked meals to folks struggling to obtain fresh, healthy food as a result of the pandemic. We’ve been receiving requests through our online form as well as referrals from the Bristol Food Service Helpline, Aid Box Community, Project Mama and various other organisations representing vulnerable people in the city. As the demand increases, this grant enables us to increase our deliveries. We have now been joined by the Lion, Chelsea, Pipe and Slippers and Star & Garter pubs as packing venues, each bringing their own community of volunteers and each adding around 100 boxes per day to our capacity.
This is all thanks to generous donations received through our Fundsurfer page and now the Quartet Foundation as well as donations of space, equipment and extra food plus a whole army of volunteers (around 50 people each delivery day)*. As each delivery run costs around £1250 and growing, the grant from Quartet is most welcome, but we do need to keep the donations rolling in so we can continue providing this essential service for our community over the coming weeks and meet the increasing demand.
Please share and donate if you can. All the information on how to order a box, donate or volunteer is on our fundsurfer page at: https://www.fundsurfer.com/crowdfund/community-care-package
*Big big thanks to everyone who is making this happen – the Plough crew doing all the buying and logistics; the packers and drivers from the Cowfolk; Linner, Izzy and Peg who’ve sewn a load of masks; Lemmy and UWE who are providing a food-safe disinfectant; All Hallows for letting us use their hall; the Volunteer Tavern for letting Izzy and Rosie use their kitchen to do cooked meals while the Plough’s kitchen is being refurbished; Mark Kidner from Arthur David who’s getting us bargains on fruit and veg; Hobbs bakery who are donating bread; Essentials Wholefoods who have donated food; Three Wise Monkeys, Southville Deli, Hugos, Pawsons and Ashton Fruit Shop who’ve been providing us with crates for the veg boxes; and everyone who has donated plastic takeaway tubs for the cooked meals.
Rage sport are making masks and they’re siiiick*
*in a youth speak way, not in a ‘spreading coronovirus left right and center’ way – these masks are made to strict quality standards.
Hello Compagn*!?
INFO: ragesport99@gmail.com
We waited a long time before we decided to produce masks too.
We wanted to make sure that what we were about to produce a certified product according to the current laws of production; a product that had passed all kinds of exams so that we could guarantee you that is 100% safe.
Our policy does not change, we will produce masks at popular prices, with the only purpose of safeguarding the health of those who contact us and in order to satisfy your aesthetic requests.
For a long time we will be forced to wear this new ‘absurd’ accessory useful for the gloomy times we are living; the principles of RAGE remain the same, we want to continue to spread our ideals and help those who can not afford the constant purchase of this product.
For every 100 masks ordered, 20 will be donated to Charities, Associations or individuals who need them (chosen by you).
We play the match with the unique purpose of continuing to team up with all the realities of popular sports with which we have collaborated in recent years, we can do so much with your support and guided by the principles of equal solidarity.
We’re not just cowboys!
We’ve changed our domain name from eastoncowboys.org.uk to eastoncowfolk.org.uk* to reflect the fact that, while it started out as a men’s Sunday League team 25+ years ago, our wonderful club is nowadays made up of lads, lasses and everything in between.
To commemorate our interweb persona catching up with the times, here’s Willie Nelson covering Ned Sublette’s ‘Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other’ in 2006. Cos “…inside every lady there’s a cowboy who wants to come out. And inside every cowboy there’s a lady that’d love to slip out.”
Keep on being exactly whatever you are amigxs y Compañer@s
*p.s. in case you’re interested, we are hosted by Xtreamlab, who provide “Internet services running on purely Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) to a range of organisations in the UK with particular emphasis on small to medium sized ethical businesses, community groups, co-operatives, and social projects”. Among others, their clients include Easton Community Centre, Acorn, The Bristol Cable, Bristol Palestine Film Festival, Bristol Radical History Group and People’s Republic of Stokes Croft.
Easton Community Centre, Felix Road Adventure Playground and Up Our Street merge
A bit of nice community news. Easton Community Centre, Felix Road Adventure Playground and Up Our Street have now merged. Not sure what they’ll call themselves, but it seems to be ‘Places of Possibility’?
This is of interest to the club because, if you cast your minds back a year or so, we were thinking of putting in a bid with Up Our Street, Wellspring and Bristol Pakistani Cricket to take over the Netham park sports ground and pavilion if/when Bristol Council put it up for tender.
“After over 40 years serving the communities in east-central Bristol, we are over the moon to say it’s official. After months of hard work, we are delighted to announce the merger between Easton Community Centre, Felix Road Adventure Playground and Up Our Street is now complete.
Thank you to everyone that has supported us through this, our community for being so positive, and those of you that contributed to the community consultation. Your ideas and aspirations will help us create a place of possibility for all in east Bristol.”
Up Our Street newsletter
“In spite of the difficult climate, the reasons for our merger are so positive. During the lockdown, we have shown we are stronger together. From Easton Community Centre, the team has been delivering food parcels and children’s toys and games to over 65 children and 41 adults weekly, supporting families who usually rely on Felix Road being open. This has really put us to the test in the very first days of our new organisation and we are proud of how the community has pulled together.”
Stacy Yelland CEO
Play backgammon, raise money, win cash!
Andy Kenny has organised an online backgammon competition to raise money for the community food box scheme. The maximum prize will be £100 (or 5% of of funds raised if less than 200 players are involved).
In order to take part you will be asked to make a donation of £10 to:
www.fundsurfer.com/crowdfund/community-care-package
Contact Andy or comment below if you’d like to try your, um, hand? If you’re on facebook, you can also request to join the competition group: www.facebook.com/groups/245017596884473/
Competition rules
Round 1 will start on 1st May. All players registered at this point will be allocated a random opponent. They will play the best of 3 games. The winner will then go through to round 2. All round 1 games will need to be played by 7th May. Unplayed games will be forfeited.
In round 2 Again all qualifiers will be allocated a random opponent and play the best of 3. These games will need to be played by 14th May. Rounds will continue on weekly basis, until we reach a winner.
In rounds where we need an additional player , a loser from the previous round will be picked at random and invited to play.
Rules of play
There is No Doubling dice and No points. All games are to be played to completion (no choice on the system we will use) and the person who gets all their counters off 1st is the winner.
We will be using gammon.io to play online. It’s not perfect but works well and allows you to invite players via password. It allocates first dice roles to the higher number, so No re-rolling at the start. It does plot out potential moves which is of advantage to the lessor skilled players but there you go. If you’re good enough you’ll win anyway
Cowgirls ‘training’ has moved to the virtual world
Harry has set up a Zoom meeting so we can chat on Thursday’s from 7:30pm (normal training time).
Check your emails for the link and meeting ID to join the chat.
This link and meeting ID will work every week, so what ever week you feel like coming to “training” you can.
Community crisis veg boxes
Together with our home pub the Plough, we have mobilised a free delivery service for our community during the current crisis. We are providing a free fruit+veg box as well as home-cooked meals to folks who are vulnerable, self-isolating or struggling financially due to the lockdown.
We’ve been receiving requests through our online form as well as referrals from the National Food Service Helpline, Aid Box Community, Project Mama and various other organisations representing vulnerable people in the city. There is no judgment of ‘need’, we aim to get a box to anyone who asks for one.
We’ve been doing delivery runs twice a week for 9 weeks now and have so far delivered over 4,200 fruit+veg boxes and over 1,600 cooked meals.
As the demand increases, we have now been joined by the Lion, Chelsea, Pipe and Slippers and Star & Garter pubs as packing venues, each bringing their own community of volunteers and each adding around 100 boxes per day to our capacity.
This is all thanks to generous donations received through our Fundsurfer page, a £5000 grant from the Quartet Foundation’s Coronavirus Response Fund, plus an ever-growing and very dedicated army of volunteer coordinators, packers and delivery drivers as well as various donations of food, space and equipment*. The club has agreed to donate up to £1000 to help keep those boxes coming.
We are not asking for payment for the food but will take donations from those who want to give. All info on how to order, donate or volunteer is on our Fundsurfer page. Please share and donate if you can:
www.fundsurfer.com/crowdfund/community-care-package
As each delivery run costs around £1250 and demand is growing, we need to keep the donations rolling in so we can continue providing this essential service for our community over the coming weeks.
£5 will cover the cost of a box, £10 will also pay for a box for somebody else. Everyone involved is donating their time so all donations go to buying produce. We are coordinating and sharing with various organisations, such as Bristol Outreach Services for the Homeless (BOSH), FoodCycle, Helping Homeless Believe, BASE cafe, Wild Goose and Coexist Community Kitchen, to make sure that no surplus food is wasted and that food reaches those most in need.
*Thanks also to: All Hallows Hall, who have given us free use of their hall as a packing centre; the Volunteer Tavern who have let us use their kitchen while the Plough’s is being refurbished; Essential Wholefoods who have donated food; Hobbs House bakery who are donating bread; Nibly Leaves who have donated salad; a lab at UWE who are supplying us with a food-safe sterilisation solution; Linner, Izzy and Peg who have been at their sewing machines frantically sewing double-layer cotton masks so that we can do our best to prevent the spread of infection; Three Wise Monkeys, Hugos, Pawsons and Ashton Fruit Shop who are providing us with crates for the veg boxes..
If you want more information on what else is being done around Bristol, the Bristol Cable is collating an online database of organisations who are providing food or other support during the crisis, as well as volunteering and support groups.
An urgent message to members
As some of you may know the club and HQ (the Plough) have started to deliver free veg + fruit boxes to people in the community who are struggling to obtain fresh food (links below). The team have been crowd funding to pay for it and we chipped in £250 from the club account, the maximum that the committee can authorise without a club vote.
The demand is so high, we now want to ramp this up to 2 then 3 deliveries a week for the next 9 weeks. To do so we are applying for a grant from the Quartet Community Foundation as a partnership.
However, given the lockdown and short timescales, it’s impossible for us to hold an EGM to vote on anything and, as discussed at many previous meetings, online voting comes with a whole host of issues. Given the unprecedented nature and seriousness of the situation, WE ARE THEREFORE WRITING TO ASK FOR THE CLUB’S APPROVAL FOR THE COMMITTEE (Jody, Sal and Vern and Reps Steve T, Bex and Ian) TO ACT ON YOUR BEHALF.
The main decisions to be made are;
Do we enter into the partnership grant application? The committee feel that it seems right to pull together to support our members and community through such a rough time. We’ve discussed a number of potential issues with Kimmer, who’s working on the grant application, and are satisfied that there’s little or no risk to the club financially or legally.
Do we donate more than the £250 donated already? The veg box team have asked for a further £750, which would constitute 10% of the total budget. Again us committee folk feel that this is exactly the kind of thing we should be doing with our dosh, which we’ve been sitting on since our 2017 tournament. We can easily fundraise again when this is all over, and have a good record of making money on our tournaments.
Kim wants to submit the application on Monday morning. IN LIEU OF A QUORATE VOTE, WE ARE THEREFORE ASKING FOR ANY OBJECTIONS TO US SAYING YES TO THE TWO QUESTIONS ABOVE TO BE SENT TO US BY 9AM MONDAY.
We’re effectively asking you to override the constitution and trust us to make sensible, informed decisions that align with the club’s ethos and are what we believe the club would want. If any objections are raised, we will rethink how we might be able to get the club to vote on this, accepting that this will delay the grant application. Feedback/objections can be given to any of the committee/reps, or webgimp@eastoncowfolk.org.uk, or comment below.
PLEASE CAN ALL TEAM CAPTAINS/REPS ETC SHARE THIS ON ALL CHANNELS POSSIBLE ASAP.
Cheers,
Sally FW
Easton Cowboys and Cowgirls secretary
P.S…
To order a box:
https://forms.gle/sSfbzHNp6VFDMUs46
To volunteer your time:
https://forms.gle/y4HkxmPfSFLVU7fo8
To donate and spread the word:
www.fundsurfer.com/crowdfund/community-care-package