OneKind's latest guest blogger is Edinburgh-based Judith Dryden, a DJ at RADIOENJOYMENT who took to the water in early September for a music-filled fundraising event in aid of animals.
Like most things in my life, the RADIOENJOYMENT cruise started off as a joke which I then decided to pursue.
I first heard about the Weezer cruise on a friend’s Facebbok post. “Never mind the Weezer cruise”, I commented, “What about the RADIOENJOYMENT cruise?” And so the seed was sown.
For those of you not familiar with RADIOENJOYMENT (pretty much everybody then!) it’s a radio show broadcast on Fresh Air radio from Edinburgh University showcasing the best in up and coming Scottish music.
From my time at the station I had been fortunate enough to meet some extremely talented musicians and it was only a matter of time until I organised some kind of event in the name of the show featuring some of those artists. It made sense that any such event should be a fundraiser for OneKind as this is a charity which truly strikes a chord with me.
Rather than trying to help animals already in trouble, OneKind focus on educating people and influencing legislation and practice to improve the world for everyone. I do believe that most people are genuinely decent and if they knew what they could do to help reduce suffering they would do it. A lot of the time all that’s required is a small change in behaviour or two minutes to sign a petition to make a significant difference. The words of the mighty Frabbit spring to mind, “And while I'm alive, I'll make tiny changes to earth”
And so the idea was established and a musical cruise in aid of OneKind had to be organised. A very quick google search revealed that a canal boat could be hired on the Union Canal for a reasonable price, complete with crew.
How to fund this hire? In my day job as a Solicitor at Wright & Co, we operate a charity scheme whereby people can have simple wills drawn up, or documents notarised, for a fixed fee which is paid directly to our charity fund. After some persuasion on my part, my boss kindly agreed that the boat hire and other costs would be met out of this account.
Organising the musicians was the easy part. RADIOENJOYMENT regulars Luke Gareth Joyce of I Build Collapsible Mountains and Chris Lee-Marr of Esperi were first on board (no pun intended). The fabulously talented Mr Finn Le Marinel of Trapped in Kansas also signed up without hesitation. Special thanks are due to him for travelling to Edinburgh especially for the gig and refusing to even accept reimbursement of travel costs. A late addition of Edinburgh’s own Raff and Chris of the OK Social Club completed the line-up.
With the stellar line-up in place some major pimping out was necessary, which required a last minute website being muddled together (to facilitate the sale of tickets) and a healthy dose of social networking.
Much sewing of bunting and baking of cakes later, the day of the cruise was finally upon us! To say it was a success is an understatement. The point of the cruise was to raise funds for OneKind, and the fact that everyone had a fabulous time to boot was simply a bonus!