We’re here for you

Santa Cause 3

Come along to a great charity evening where everyone wI’ll have a fun night whilst supporting our specialist charity.

Every year we support thousands of survivors of rape, sexual violence and sexual abuse whether they are men, women, children, asylum seekers or trafficked people. The demand within Birmingham and the West Midlands is growing at an unacceptable level. We need your help and support to raise our profile and to also help engage supporters.

Santa Cause 3 – The Return of Mrs Cause, will take place on Wednesday 23rd November 2016. The plan is to meet at The Bank Restaurant & Bar in Brindley Place, Birmingham for a welcome drink  of wine, beer or bubbly and photo shoot starting at 6pm. Everyone will then be given a special seasonal outfit before we leave for our second venue. The first 100 people to book will be given a free seasonal outfit sponsored by our good friends and supporters Orton Estates Ltd…… So book your tickets here !

Then at approximately 7.30pm we will move onto Zizzis where you will receive another free welcome drink of bubbly and food.

We then will move to our final destination of the night Nuvo, at approximately 9pm where we spend the remainder of the evening where there will be a DJ, a raffle with some great prizes and treats for a Christmas party!

Unlike our Santa Cause events on previous years we are keeping this event to three venues to allow for a more leisurely approach.

Book your tickets on the link above but if you do require any additional information please contact us on:

info@rsvporg.co.uk

We look forward to seeing you there!

The Tahlia Banks award – helping young people achieve their educational goals

We are extremely grateful to Supatrax for supporting one of our clients via the Tahlia Banks award. Tahlia Banks passed away in April 2015 after a life long battle with Cystic Fibrosis, aged 20. Despite her condition, Tahlia inspired many to achieve through her media and radio skills and successfully enrolled on a BA Hons Degree in Media and Communications.

Through this award, one of our young clients now has her own laptop that she can use to do homework, and achieve at school. Huge thanks to the Tahlia Banks award for supporting this young survivor to overcome disadvantage for a more hopeful future.

Grow Your Tenner is live

It’s Grow Your Tenner time with Localgiving. Donations of £10 will be doubled by Localgiving at no extra cost. That means a £10 donation made to RSVP today turns into £20, and a new regular monthly direct debit donation of £10 is turned into £20 for the first three months. If you’d like to support our work providing specialist services to survivors of rape and abuse, this is really the best time to give. The scheme is live until the pot of money (£345,000 for all charities’ match-funding) runs out. Each charity may receive up to a maximum of £2,500 of match funding through the campaign: £1,000 from one-time donations and £1,500 from Direct Debit donations matched for 3 months. Donations to RSVP will be matched until the limit is hit or the match fund has run out.The money was all used up in 11 days last year!

Go to our LocalGiving charity page to donate www.localgiving.org/charity/rsvp-wm/

Read more about Grow Your Tenner www.localgiving.org/what-we-do/campaigns/grow-your-tenner

Thank you in advance for your support, and please feel free to spread the word!

Thanks to Waitrose Community Matters

A huge thank you from the RSVP team goes out to Waitrose Four Oaks branch for presenting RSVP with a cheque for £380. The sum was raised via their Community Matters programme, where shoppers vote with tokens for the charity they most want to support.

The funds will  go towards specialist services for survivors of sexual violence, so we can continue our work supporting people across Birmingham and Solihull.

BCLC Autumn Quiz Fundraiser!

On Tuesday 18th October, Birmingham Chinatown Lions Club will be hosting their Autumn Quiz in aid of RSVP! The event will take place from 7:30pm at Edmunds Brew House (B3 2ES), and costs just £5 per person to enter – which includes canapes on entry.

If you’re a keen quizzer, or just want to support us in the work that we continue to do, book in a team of up to six people with Lion Stewart, who can be contacted on 07973833519 or stewart@chamberlainssurveyors.co.uk. Thank you in advance for your support, we can’t wait to see you there!

(Click on the image below to take you to our event page for the quiz)

Don’t be Afraid.

A guest blog by Lisa Thompson, RSVP’s CEO.

“Don’t be afraid”… that’s what my late beloved grandma, Nana Gina used to say when I was considering helping myself to more of her home made cooking. However, exactly 4 weeks before the beginning of my Icelandic, 6 day 155 mile run (250km for you more modern folk) I confess to being a little bit scared, well perhaps even more so.

Just like my Nana Gina’s comments which were meant to encourage and give permission to go for what you wanted, that’s how I’m choosing to interpret my fear. It’s telling me to go for it and feel encouraged. Going for a big challenge and a dream you’re chasing is not quite as easy as helping yourself to more of Nana Gina’s home made apple pie but maybe the message is no different; don’t let fear stop you from going for what you want. It’s a good thing to be reminded of as it’s easy to let fear and self doubt talk us out of a dream or to delay it until another day, which rarely seems to arrive. So for you and for every survivor of rape, sexual abuse and sexual violence (who I’m running for and being inspired by) let me give you a ‘thumbs up ‘ to go for that apple pie, to be open about your fear, reach out for support and achieve the dream you want, after all life is just too short not to.

If you can help please share my sponsorship page: https://localgiving.org/fundraising/fireandice

JamFest 2016 Launched!

We’ve had an exciting day in the office today, finalising our partnership with the annual music festival, JamFest, hosted by Birmingham’s premier Jazz and Soul music venue – The Jam House!

Tuesday 11th October will see a host of exciting acts descend on The Jam House, bringing an eclectic mix of musical delights right to our doorstep. All proceeds from the night will go to RSVP to keep supporting, inspiring, and encouraging survivors of rape and sexual abuse to be bold, hopeful, and to have self-belief.

We think this could be the start of something big, so if you’re interested in music and want to change some lives then come on down, we’d love to see you!

Why not like and follow our JamFest Facebook page and follow us on Twitter whilst you’re there? We’ll be releasing more details about the event and about the artists who will be supporting us in the run up to the event, so keep your eyes peeled on our social media! (Click on the icons below to take you to our pages, and to buy tickets).

#Giveme5 – £5 donations doubled tomorrow

Tomorrow, Thursday 16th June, £5 donations to RSVP via Localgiving will be placed into a draw. 1000 donations made to charities via Localgiving will be doubled. There’s no limit to how many donations to RSVP could be doubled, it’s a random draw, so the more £5 donations the more likely!

Start date & time: Thursday 16th June at 00:00:00

End date & time: Thursday 16th June at 23:59:59

Conditions of entry: Each £5 donation made to a participating charity through Localgiving between the promotion start and end times will be placed into a draw to be doubled by an extra £5 of match funding. Donations of other amounts will not be included in the draw. The promotion only applies to one-time donations.

If you’re able to donate please do so using the following link localgiving.org/charity/rsvp-wm/ from midnight, and please spread the word to family and friends.

Infinity Stage Company make RSVP their charity of the year!

We’re delighted to be Infinity Stage Company’s charity of the year for the next academic year. Charlie from Infinity has written this guest blog, as an introduction to the group, and explaining why the members chose to support RSVP.

Some of the members of Infinity Stage Company

The University of Birmingham’s Infinity Stage Company produce roughly six shows a year, specialising in contemporary theatre. However, what sets us apart from other drama societies at the university is that, every year, we choose a new charity to which we donate the proceeds from our shows. This allows us to combine our dedication to high quality performances with a contribution to charities and causes that we consider important. This year, we put the decision of choosing a charity down to a poll by our members and RSVP was chosen.
It isn’t difficult to understand why so many felt so passionate about supporting this local charity. As students, most of us are living alone and away from home for the first time in our lives. While this is obviously an exciting new chapter in so many ways, the flip side of this new independence is a new vulnerability. There are new dangers that we have to deal with and it means a great deal that there are institutions, such as RSVP, in place to help us if the worst should ever happen. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that RSVP should resonate so profoundly with Infinity.

The University of Birmingham and its Guild of Students have always taken an unwavering stance against sexual harassment, as shown by its #NotOn Campaign, which has mobilised students to challenge and prevent sexual violence wherever they find it. We hope that, by supporting and promoting this cause, we will not only encourage people to donate and contribute to the great service that it provides, but also raise awareness that, if you should ever need it, help is available. We plan to be actively involved in RSVP in whatever way possible, in order to benefit the
charity as best we can.

Enormous thanks to all the members at Infinity for supporting RSVP, watch this space for future updates on fundraising activity.

West Midlands PCC Awards Funding

Good news! We have secured £80,000 funding from the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, to support survivors of sexual violence and abuse. “We are delighted to have received this one off grant,” Lisa Thompson, Chief Executive of RSVP said. “This will make a big difference to our clients.”

We can now increase our helpline hours for crisis support, and increase our counselling hours, which will help reduce the time that people have to wait for counselling, currently 7 months, down to 4 months. To give extra self-help support we will also introduce a 10 week cope and recover group, to build people’s coping and self-help strategies. This therapeutic group will support clients to understand their symptoms and deal with the immediate effects of sexual violence and abuse.

“There can be life after being raped or abused,” says Lisa. “People do not forget what’s happened but they can learn to cope with the effects and turn their lives around. We are extremely grateful to the PCC and his Office for providing funding, to enable us to help even more people to turn their lives around.”

As one of our clients commented, “RSVP gave me the confidence to come forward and speak about what had happened to me. I am ready to live my new life now.”