We recently sent letter to our ZANE donors soliciting support for its clubfoot programme. To remind you, ZANE has been party to transforming the lives of 400 children by correcting their clubfoot conditions; we are embarking on another 400 operations this year. We are hugely proud of this work which is making a real change at a grassroots level in Zimbabwean communities.
I have to admit that this year, because of our merger with another charity, we have been obliged to send an unusually high number of letters. However, we have been very busy highlighting the cause of those in Zimbabwe that we seek to help.
ZANE is, to the best of my knowledge, unique in sending donors anthologies of Christmas verse. We have found this to be greatly appreciated and highly effective in raising money and awareness. The poems sit around in donors’ houses for a long time, meaning that more people get to find out about Zane and its work.
The same applies to the printed version of the walk blog.
A Modest Fellow
For various reasons, over the last few years Jane and I have seen a good deal of John and Elizabeth Gittins, and we are proud they have become such good friends. I am ashamed to say that only last week I discovered that John is in fact the author of several books and an Emeritus Fellow of Keble College, Oxford. He is a professor of statistics and has just returned from a lecture tour in America where he was described as a “legend in his own time”.
Well, if I had written half of what John has written and had achieved even a fraction of what he has, everyone, but everyone, would certainly know! I had to Google him to find out! John and his dear wife are modest and retiring, and a delight to all who know them.