Day 107: Honouring LB #107days

Today we come to the end of #107days of action, exactly a year to the day that LB died, whilst in the ‘care’ of Southern Health, an entirely preventable death.

As accidental campaigners we never really could bring ourselves to plan for today, we’ve discussed it often, but nothing felt appropriate. Yesterday we finally settled on today’s action, in keeping with the rest of this entirely crowdsourced campaign, it’s over to you, our amazing, passionate, creative, committed, dedicated network.

We have two options for you today, you’re welcome to do one of them, or both of them (or none of course, it’s really your choice).

Firstly, please leave a comment on this blog post with your ‘take away’ message from #107days; what one memory, or thought, or learning will stick with you. How has LB, and this campaign in his memory, had an impact on you? We’re hoping for lots of comments and you’ll be able to read them as they grow throughout the day. If you’re a blogger and would like to write a post on your own blog please do add a summary, and a link into the comments here. Please remember that comments are moderated, so if your comment doesn’t appear immediately there’s no need to repost it!

Secondly, please change your social media profile pictures to LB for the day. You’re welcome to change it on twitter, or facebook, or tumblr, or instagram, or any combination of the aforementioned sites (and of course any others). We think this collective action will have quite a visual impact, to maximise that please download our profile pic below (right click on the image will allow you to save it to your computer and you can then upload it to twitter) so everyone is using the same black and white pic.

For maximum impact we ask you to only use the picture for the day, we very much hope you’ll join us.

More information on what next for the #JusticeforLB campaign will follow in a couple of weeks. You can follow this blog, or follow us on twitter, or facebook. We will seek your input before we make any decisions, but before we ‘move on’, we’d like to honour LB today.

Thank you all, for your support throughout #107days and today especially.

Day 102: Three cyclists and a christening #107days

Day 102 is another shared day, in fact all remaining days are shared so I’m going to stop saying that! Day 102 reports on two events that took place yesterday (Day 101), both of which were linked to #JusticeforLB and #107days and honouring LB. The first, a christening, was adopted by Jemma, Simon, and the star of the show Eseld, and the second, a 107mile bike ride/marathon/torture trip across the Chilterns, was adopted by Martin, Chris and John.

Here’s what Jemma had to say about why they were supporting #JusticeforLB:

We’ve known Sara, Richard and their family since we moved to Oxford nearly a decade ago. Connor was always an exuberant presence keen to share his unique view of the world. We were appalled to hear of his death. It is remarkable and moving how Sara and Richard have used the passion of their grief to protect other young dudes.

Jemma and Simon decided to adopt a day to coincide with Eseld’s christening:

We knew we wanted to be a part of #107days but were unsure what to do. When we realised that our daughter Eseld’s christening would fall within the period it seemed a perfect opportunity to make all of our friends and family aware of the campaign and to raise funds for #JusticeforLB by asking them to donate instead of buying a present. Many of our guests wanted to know more and started reading Sara’s blog. We are honoured that our celebration was able to include Connor.

While Jemma and Simon and their family and friends were enjoying Eseld’s christening, about thirty miles away, (fab Uncle) Chris Newman and Dad’s Martin McCarthy and John Sparks were putting themselves through all manner of physical effort and pain. Here’s why:

We are ‘life raft‘ hubbies and Connor was one of our own who was much loved by us all and who we miss. As parents of dudes we are appalled by the way Sara and Rich have been treated since Connor died. Our dudes deserve better.

So John, Martin and Chris decided they would jump on their bikes to raise awareness and funds:

The cycle ride through the very lumpy Chilterns was 102 miles long and included 6000ft of climbing. Our trio of intrepid cyclists intent in honouring #107days legitimately added on an extra 5 miles to ensure they covered 107 miles.

That’s 8.5 hours of peddling. In addition to raising funds (details on how to donate here) they also raised awareness, including amongst fellow cyclists who asked about LB as they peddled past.

A truly phenomenal effort.