Spread Some Loveiosa

Today marks the end of #spreadsomeloveiosa, our week-long celebration of good deeds to better not only ourselves but the world. With love as our weapon we aimed to give, share, discover, teach, make, self-love and discuss. It may seem simple, just do one thing everyday after all doesn't everyone  want to do good? But the hard reality is that it takes a lot of effort and perseverance to encourage others to participate.

I still believe small acts can make a difference and if this week we encouraged one person to donate to a charity, to try something new or to be kinder to themselves then I am proud of what we have achieved.

We are all linked by our love of books, and I have found that readers are imaginative, creative and are empathetic toward fellow humans. Often, a taste of ostracism early in life has encouraged us to be more compassionate as we grow up.

For London Loveiosa and other fan-led campaigns to succeed we need to recognise our own power, as strong individuals with voices that deserve to be heard. Just like the right book can demolish the profound loneliness of adolescence, a safe community can provide support when the world deals us an ugly hand.

To those who participated this week, I thank you so much. London Loveiosa will keep fighting evil.

Rebecca xx

                                  

                                            

 

          

HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY, LONDON LOVEIOSA!

To mark our 2nd birthday we invite you all to help us #spreadsomeloveiosa

London Loveiosa has always been about more than just raising money for good causes (although that is important in of itself) we want to build a community of people from all different backgrounds who are able to unit together to help make the world a better place. We all have stories and experiences we can share and I truly believe by educating ourselves, by being empathetic and thinking about topics complexly we can use our voices to make a difference.

From Monday 31st August - Sunday 6th September, we will be having a week long celebration of all the things we can do to better ourselves and the world, to encourage everyone to act now.

Everyday we will be giving away a special prize to one person who has shared a photo/video/text post of themselves participating in that day’s theme on Facebook or Twitter using the hashtag #spreadsomeloveiosa and tagging LondonLoveiosa. Full terms and conditions can be found on our website.

Today we are celebrating GIVING. To be in with a chance of winning a pair of tickets to the Muggle Walking tours, share photos/videos of yourself giving something. This could be anything from giving blood, giving away books, clothes to charity shops, food to food banks, giving your time to something or even just giving someone a hug!

Tuesday’s theme is SHARE. Share book/movie/music recommendations, share recipes, your favourite places to go, share your story.

Wednesday’s theme is TEACH. Everyone can do something, from speaking a foreign language to knitting to air guitar. Teach someone you know or teach the internet. Short video tutorials are encouraged.

Thursday’s theme is DISCOVER. Could simply be trying out one of the activities from Wednesday or one of the suggestions from Tuesday. Or it could be going outside and finding something/somewhere new, trying a new food, or reading up on a topic you want to know more about.

Friday’s theme is MAKE. Time to get creative, make a cake, make a hat, make a friend. Just have something at the end of the day that you didn’t have yesterday.

Saturday’s theme is SELF-LOVE. It is so SO important to look after and be kind to ourselves. This day will be all about spending time doing something positive for our bodies or minds.

Sunday’s theme is DISCUSSION. Talk about what’s on your mind/ a topic you feel strongly about. Reflect on what we have done this week. Blog/tumblr posts are encouraged.

Please help share what we are doing on your social media: twitter, blogs, HP Facebook groups, and even with IRL friends so we can get as many people involved as possible! We can't better ourselves and the world without a little international magical cooperation!

Rebecca xx

My Hunger Games Story 1

A #MyHungerGames story from a chapter member

I am very lucky to have had a childhood where I had a loving family and a roof over my head. I wasn’t unhappy and I have very fond memories of being a child. I am grateful to my parents and to the tax payers money that helped support my family during the difficult periods. 

My earliest memories were living in a hostel in the early 90s. Social hosing was in limited supply and we had nowhere else to go. My parents had separated when I was a baby and my mother moved me and my brother back to near my grandparents. She met my stepfather and had my baby brother. We were placed in ‘temporary accommodation’ which meant living in a house with many other families, sharing a bathroom and a kitchen. One room to a family, so 2 adults and 3 children living in one room. We lived here for many months before moving into a pretty shoddy privately rented house. Looking at Shelter UK’s Website, there are 90,000 children that will be in that position this Christmas. For children older than I was, and the parents, I can imagine this is rather difficult, especially for long periods of time. 

After this point we were a low income family and money was very tight. We always had something to eat, but I do remember crying because I didn’t want to eat some less than appetising canned meat because I believed I was being fed cat food. I had no choice that night as we had nothing else in the house to eat. I have another memory of being asked to write about my summer holiday at school and while everyone was talking about all of the amazing trips they went on, I told my teachers we didn’t go anywhere so I was told to ‘make something up’. I realised Santa was not real when friends got megadrives and game boys and I got colouring books. Now these are I guess trivial things in the scheme of things, but they are things that made my childhood a bit different to my friends'.

Later things improved, my parents got OK paying jobs. Things were still tight in my teens, but not on the same scale as my early childhood. Doors were opened which allowed me to get a university degree with the aid of government grants, (Though I still borrowed around £17,000). This is something I never even considered doing, as I felt university was for more affluent families.

I have found as an adult there is a lot of prejudice against someone from my background, regardless of whether I have a well paid job where I pay taxes into the system that helped me. I have been told by a healthcare professional in general conversation, that poor kids shouldn’t get university grants as it is a waste of money. I was told by an acquaintance that my parents should have been sterilised as we were a burden on society. These things are very hurtful and I feel for families that are in this position right now. How can a society help people out of difficult times if they are persecuted for losing their job, becoming ill or many other difficult circumstances that are often beyond a person's control?

#MyHungerGames

Halloween sponsored walk 2014

Starting from Platform 9 3/4 members of London Loveiosa toured different Harry Potter locations around London, amounting to 9 and 3 quarter miles. It was the warmest Halloween on record in the UK, London reaching 23.6C (74.3F). Last year many of us on the walk were too cold in our costumes ad now we were too hot!

Locations visited included 12 Grimmauld Place, The Leaky Cauldron entrance, the Millennium Bridge (destroyed by Death Eaters in Half Blood Prince),  Downing Street, The Ministry of Magic Entrance, Gringotts and more! 

A signed HP book spotted in a shop window in Cecil Court!

The total time was 6 and a half hours including breaks which meant we beat last years time. Money raised is still being collected!

IT'S OUR BIRTHDAY!!!!

London Loveiosa is one year old!

To celebrate I made a cake! (The first cake I have ever made by myself I must add, and if you couldn't tell that is supposed to be a giant book made of icing!)

I remember the first meeting like it was yesterday, Jessica and I sat nervously at King's Cross, worrying that no-one else was going to show up. It turns out we didn't need to worry about a thing.

So, as it is our first birthday I thought it would be fun to look back over some of my favourite memories of the year.

• Our first flyering/ donation collecting experience was terrifying at first and disheartening at times but it was a real bonding day. I think it was the first time we realised that raising money was going to be a lot of hard work.

• The book drive at King's Cross was incredible, we raised over £500 and received over 1000 books. I will never forget the pure joy on the faces of the two little boys who won prizes in our raffle. It was such a magical day, and for our first event it could not have gone any better. This was also the first day we wore our London Loveiosa shirts, and I have to say we were definitely the best dressed stall!

• Knitting hats for St Mungo's is another highlight for me, because not only were we helping the homeless but many of us also learned a new skill. It may have taken a few practice hats and a couple of knitting parties, but I was so proud I was able to complete 5 hats. I hope we can increase our total of 21 hats next year.

• It feels good collecting a large amount of books, but it feels even better when you can give them away to people who need them. We delivered 300 books to four St Mungo's projects scattered across London. The staff at each stop were incredibly grateful and we spent time talking to them and some of the residents about what we could do to greater improve the quality of life for people who rely on the centres. We also delivered almost 200 books to Whistler's Walk, a children's home which is going to use the books to set up a library. The residential support workers were incredibly supportive of our cause and very excited to present the books to the young people who live with them. 

• World Book Night at Paddington Station was incredibly hectic and tiring but so much fun, we managed to give away over 700 books and spread the word about London Loveiosa and the HPA. The kindness of strangers that night was incredible, we were given so much free food! It was amazing to be able to share our love of reading and books with people who don't read for pleasure or don't own books.

• I'll never forget the dedication and commitment that went into winning the Chapter's Cup. We crammed as many members as we could on to Jessica's bed to appear on the HPA's livestream and we sang The Mysterious Ticking Noise with the Potter Puppet Pals! Neil was drowning in puppets and there was a time delay but it was fantastic! Oh and also Andrew Slack called us the "greatest people on the face of the planet." That's pretty cool.

There are so so so many other things we did this year including attending a Very Geeky Christmas in Macclesfield, the Halloween sponsored walk, being interviewed for Radio 4, raising money for the British Heart Foundation on Valentine's Day, receiving $500 from the HPA's Granger Grant and selling Hunger Games inspired muffins at the Catching Fire premiere. 

None of this could have been accomplished without the unwavering dedication of our members and the tremendous support we have received from the HPA.

I feel so extraordinarily grateful to be a part of London Loveiosa and I know we are going to achieve incredible things in the years to come.

Rebecca xx

We Are Writers, Co-branded book with Scholastic

London Loveiosa have been given the chance to co-brand a book with Scholastic as part of their 

"We Are Writers" campaign!

We're giving 7 - 12 year olds who are living in London the chance to be published authors! Each child can submit a story under 1500 words and we will add every single one of them to our book, which will then be available to purchase through London Loveiosa. The money raised will be split between schools in the UK and London Loveiosa's future campaigns.

Children can submit their stories here or find out more information on our website.
The closing date is for submissions is 11.00am BST on Monday 1st September, just as the train sets off for Hogwarts! So all of us witches and wizards will have plenty of reading material on our long train journey!

Please share the above image with your friends and family. This is an amazing opportunity for budding authors in our community and we're so excited to be apart of this campaign and to have our name on a book alongside Scholastic, as well as all these budding new authors- who knows, we might  have the next J.K. Rowling or John Green on our hands!

Jessica X

A Wonderful Day at Seven Stories

Last Sunday, Jessica and I visited Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books, located in Newcastle. This not only gave us the opportunity to spend the day singing the Byker Grove theme song, but also to see what this inspirational charity has been able to accomplish.

 

There really are seven floors!

Seven Stories runs exhibitions, events and learning programmes all with the aim of making children passionate about reading. They have original artwork and manuscripts on show from many of Britain’s favourite authors and illustrators.While we were there we were lucky enough to handle some of Philip Pullman’s original manuscripts of Northern Lights and Nick Sharatt’s original drawings for Tracy Beaker, only while wearing white gloves of course.

 

 


         

The centre encourages active participation, children can make art inspired by their favourite stories and can even dress up as their favourite characters.

 

Story time is held throughout the day on the beautiful top floor which features original beams and books hanging from the ceiling. I could have easily spent hours in this room, it has such a cosy atmosphere.

When there's a giant chair, you just have to sit in it!

The current exhibition is Moving Stories: Children’s books from page to screen, and although we were a little disappointed Harry Potter wasn’t featured it was great to see all the rare and intriguing objects on display. These included Roald Dahl’s original annotated notebooks from Fantastic Mr Fox, original manuscripts and illustrations from The Borrowers and a Disney sketch of Snow White taken from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

What's that Jacqueline Wilson? What are my favourite children's books?

Why all of them, of course!

I would highly recommend a visit to Seven Stories if you are visiting the North East. The staff were all extremely helpful and informative, and the cream tea wasn't bad either!

Seven Stories is a wonderful champion of children’s books and we left feeling thoroughly inspired that one day, we too, could create a space to promote a love of reading to as many young people as possible.

Rebecca x