redfiona99

Was about to post that had been sucktacular at the Leicester Open this week, only it turns out that 5 of the 7 people in my pool are in the top 100 in the country. It doesn't excuse my dreadful performance, I got nil-ed four times (1 of those I was happy enough with, it took her a few minutes to do that to me), but it makes me feel a bit better.

My timing and distance were horribly out so that was why I kept getting hit.

There were also way too many people, there was 83 male foilists, 32 women and all the associated people (parents, coaches, boy/girlfriends) and then the men's sabre lot arrived, which was an extra 20 people. So that was about 200 people, plus kit which takes up a heck of a lot of space all in one sports hall. I trust you can imagine the chaos.

I'm not entirely sure yet where I finished, I was 30 out of 32 at the end of the pool stages but depending on DE results that could change and then someone got a black card for not turning up for her DE after being called 6 times so I might have moved up one or down one. But it'll be around 30th.

Sunday I went fencing, enjoyed myself even though I aggravated the tendonitis a little using french grips for epee and steam foil. Sadly we have no pistol grip steam foils and someone else had snaffled the pistol epee. I also gave away the stupidest point ever to Dave, about which I shall not hear the end of unless I drink him under the table at the pirates bar-crawl on Tuesday.

Upon which tip I shall leave you with the bus pirates which is lots of fun - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJe0-NHqXk8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9MuUDhRBu4

One thing, and one thing only

Amnesty International Greetings Card Campaign 2005

Every year Amnesty organises a campaign were people send a message of hope to various causes in the form of Christmas card, so instead of sending me one, how about sending one to one of these cases.

Details here - http://www.amnesty.org.uk/gcc/2005/

Best thing about it, it works.

Greetings Card Campaign 2004 Update #2

Ignatius Mahendra Kusuma Wardhana and Yoyok Eko Widodo, Indonesia RELEASED

Ignatius Mahendra Kusuma Wardhana and Yoyok Eko Widodo, Indonesia
We are delighted to announce that Indonesian prisoner of conscience and member of the Street Musicians Union, Yoyok Eko Widodo, was released on 26 July 2005.

Fellow prisoner of conscience and Chairperson of the Yogyakarta branch of the National Democratic Student's League, Ignatius Mahendra Kusuma Wardhana, was released on 17 August 2005.

Both these releases were to mark Indonesian Independance Day on 17 August. Yoyok had his sentence reduced as part of a series of sentence reductions to mark 17 August, whilst Mahendra benefitted from an amnesty for some prisoners also to mark this day.

Just hours after his release Mahendra contacted AIUK to say "Thank you for everything and please send my regard to all of your friends in Amnesty UK."

Mahendra & Yoyok were arrested at a demonstration against fuel price increases in Yogyakarta on 7 January 2003. Both were sentenced to three years' imprisonment in April 2003 for 'insulting the President or Vice-President' because they had burnt photographs of them during the demonstration. This was clearly a symbolic action, not a threat of violence. The two were due to be released in January 2006.

AIUK featured Mahendra & Yoyok in the Greetings Card Campaign 2004. As a result, they received more than 800 cards with messages of support, and Mahendra also took part in the Greetings Card Campaign himself, writing to several other people featured. The organisation which he belongs to, the National Democratic Students' League, have also been inspired by this campaigning to set up their own Indonesian website for prisoners of conscience.


SOFAD - Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
The AIUK greetings card campaign has had a terrific impact for the NGO, SOFAD in Uvira, South-Kivu.

SOFAD received over 8,000 cards addressed to victims of sexual violence. This was a really wonderful demonstration of the value of mass letter-writing. It provided enormous encouragement to the rape survivors and the NGO workers.

It has helped in increasing the NGO's profile locally - because of the cards they have been able to expand their activities from around 30 to more than 50 local communities.

It has also helped in their protection because the authorities were in awe at the sack loads of mail they were receiving (they had to bring them over the border from Burundi where their PO Box is located).

SOFAD are hugely grateful to AI and they are enthusiastic about their plans to use their cards.

For one thing, they plan to construct a public house of cards to represent the need for greater "shelter" and support for survivors of rape, they have held marches with the cards and they will share the cards with other NGOs in the region working on women's issues.

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Okay, so the main reason I highlight this second one, other than it working is that Leicester Uni's students sent 4 of those 8000 cards, one of them was mine. So the message is, send a card, you never know what might happen.