www.mondolocofoundation.org

We have finally done it. Of course it has taken a while but we are now officially a charity!

The Dude and I were in London at the weekend, it was Bryony's birthday and we were both at the party. Chris came up the road on Sunday with a poly-tunnel that had been sitting in an attic doing nothing in the back of his car while I stayed till Tuesday. I had an email from the Office of Scottish Charities Register on Monday which I replied to when I was away and I was absolutely delighted to return home and check my email on Tuesday to be greeted with another email from them saying they were satisfied we had passed the charity test and we had been accepted as an SCIO and added to the charity register. Totally awesome!

Our charitable purposes are to promote health, advance education and fight against poverty. Official. 

We are planning to get permaculture systems into communities in both Scotland and Malawi while using sport as a focus for connecting communities together. We have our scholarship programme to help students through college in Malawi which has so far been very successful with Joseph's advance diploma in I.T. and we are planning to raise a shed load of money for the whole thing with our bungee jumps, skydive, west highland way and cycling adventure this year. Our next party is on March the 29th at 511 (below The Newsroom in Edinburgh) and by then we will have had our AGM and hopefully be well on our way to meeting our target of £200,000 in funds raised in the first year.

Our farm project in Bonnyrigg has hit a bit of a wobble recently. What we really need, and reading this now this might seem to you like it's way out there, is somebody to buy the farm so we can run our project on it. For free! Yep, we don't just want somebody to buy it and rent the land to us, we want somebody to buy the farm who wants to be on our team and help us establish the Mondo Loco Permaculture Project on Mondo Loco Farm which will run alongside the Mondo Loco Mushroom Project in the farm buildings and be copied in Malawi as part of the Mondo Loco Connect Project.

We were hoping we could work out a deal for a long term lease but we can only get a short term rolling contract as the owners are bound by agreement to sell the land if an offer is made so if you have some spare bucks and want to help out a really good team working towards a really big goal then get in touch, it's yours! ;-)

Things have actually started to move even faster than they were before and I'm sure the farm will all sort itself out if we just keep on trying, there's too many good people behind us for me not to be confident we can make it happen. At least now we have our own poly-tunnel so even if it falls through I'll still have somewhere to live!

Bryony's party when we were in London was totally wicked. I met up with an old mate who works as a sound recorder down there and we talked about putting on a Mondo Loco party in amongst the warehouses at some point this year. He's organised them before and has plenty of contacts so watch this space for something different from us this spring or summer. Canny wait!

Coco has  been enjoying a lot of success on the DJing front recently. After carrying the Mondo Loco name to the Scottish Soulful Weekender and smashing the party he has been awarded with a radio slot on a brand new internet radio station every Saturday from 2-4 in the afternoon and has opened talks about also taking us on the road to Glasgow at some point. We have a great venue in Edinburgh at 511 but Mondo Loco is just meant to be everywhere, crazy world not crazy town!

Look out for an announcement soon about our AGM on February 27th. It's open to the general public and we'll release details as soon as we have our location sorted!

January done, what a month. Here's to the rest of the year.

Peas and Love,

Here we go for 2013 then and I've found myself (pun very much intended) starting a new year in a position I haven't been in since October 1991...without a steady income! I started my first paper round two weeks before my thirteenth birthday when  I was officially allowed one and I am proud to say I have been gainfully employed to a degree that benefited a lifestyle I have been pretty comfortable with ever since.

On the 30th of November 2012 I quit my job for good. No more working for the man. I have a plan...it's to be the man for the little man and become the man who isn't the man, man!

I've got clients coming in thick and fast. Giving out mates rates at the moment so if you run a small business and want to join my online network I can be the man who helps you fight against the man. Check it out: www.mondolocodigital.com It's my not for profit internet company to help small businesses get online. The network is growing already and I've barely just started, things are looking good! Paulo is now the owner of his own company and has the application to be CEO of his own international charity registered (and on the second re-draft of the constitution) with the OSCR. Things are looking good!

At the time of writing I'm actually sitting chilling after our first volunteer day of the year at Mondo Loco Farm. Twelve people showed up in the snow to lend a hand and we managed to finish turning over one of the growing beds for the spring and covered a fair bit of it with compost before the wheelbarrow got a puncture. My hat's off to everybody who came and got stuck right in today, it's amazing how hard everybody worked and we're really chuffed with what we got done. If you want to come along and help out you can just turn upon any days that end in a three. Next one is Wednesday the 23rd of January. The farm is such an amazing place and an amazing project; I really can't wait to see how it develops over the next few years. 

Today wasn't just significant for being the first volunteer day of the year though, for today we signed our first cheque! Chris and I signed off Laura's first pay from The Mondo Loco Foundation as project manager of the farm. 

The Scottish Community Foundation have provided us with just over £2000 in funding to cover a few months of wages for Laura and it really feels like we are now going somewhere. We have actually been given funding from an official body to an employee some wages...AWESOME!

On the fundraising side of things we have a bungee jump and a trek up the West Highland way coming up in March that people are starting to gather sponsors for already, we're doing a sky-dive in April and we're cycling to Inverness, this year with a group of twenty, in June. We're also planning another Call Of Nature at the start of May. Again...AWESOME!

Things are going great at the moment; we're so so grateful for all the support we get from everybody and long may it continue into a very successful 2013 for The Mondo Loco Foundation.

Peas and Love,

I once heard a saying that really rings true for me as I write this blog; I was thinking that maybe I should use it as the title but then I already did a part 1 of 2 so that needs to be followed up. I can't really remember where I read or heard it but the saying is... "Climbing a mountain is a difficult task, but when you stop and look back you've always come further than you think." I'm not sure it's even a saying, only thing I really know is if I put it down as words of wisdom of my own somebody could read this and call me a liar. So I'll not. Does make a lot of sense though and it's how I've been feeling writing this two part recap of the year.

Mountains eh, seen a few of them this year too. In this blog Mount Zomba is the first one. At 8000ft it's the second highest in Malawi and Queen Victoria once described it as the best view in the British Empire. Pretty spectacular vistas I have to say, not quite Scotland but pretty nice. I mention this mountain because I'm picking this blog up again in Malawi. I've done plenty writing about the actual bike ride so check the archives if you want a day by day account or whatever but that was really all I did in July. Malawi! I was meant to be doing the tough mudder after getting back but I had my flight times wrong and didn't get back for it. I arranged to stay on longer than everybody else in Malawi to stay with my godfather for a wee while. It was pretty awesome getting to spend time with him and he introduced me to some equally awesome people when I was out there. I even got invited to a meeting with the minister for youth development but he vetoed it at the last minute.

I do have to tell you about the part of the bike ride that was all about Mondo Loco though...the time I spent with Joseph, our Scholar from Mulanje who now has an advanced diploma in I.T. that he has gained with financial assistance from The Mondo Loco Foundation. We all raised the money to fund Joseph's education but we could not be more thankful for the way he has gone about his studies and passed every single exam he has sat in the last two years. Joseph is a great young guy and I was honoured to share a meal with his family at their home in Malawi. After dinner Joseph presented me with a plaque thanking me and my team at The Mondo Loco Foundation for supporting him which I will hang in every office I ever have for the rest of my life for all who work with me to see. It was the proudest moment of my life. (I just shed a tear writing this!)

August was a brilliant month...a new ongoing challenge was born: The Mondo Loco Munro Challenge! My mate Fras from Edinburgh Cleaning Services (sponsor plug) phoned me up and asked me if I wanted to go mountain biking up Ben Macdui, the second highest mountain in Scotland. As it transpires we ended up doing Mount Keen, which isn't one of the biggest but is still a Munro so therefore a beast and I had the most wicked time I've ever had on a mountain bike. Now, it must be understood that when I'm asked if I want to do stuff like this I have to turn it into a stunt or statement of some sort so there was only one thing for it...I was going to do it dressed as Wonder Woman to make a statement about gender inequality - obviously! We were going with the social team from Single Track Bikes (sponsor plug 2) and these guys are right up Mondo Loco's street...carzy b*****ds! They're the social team because they enter mountain biking events that are open to the general public and include company owner Dave McMillan who finishes in the top 10% of The Tour de Ben Nevis every year. Anyway, five of us were sitting in the dry stane bowl that's been made at the top of Mount Keen to shelter you from the wind, jovially eating our piece when Dave suggested that I do all the Munros dressed as Wonder Woman and make it a challenge. Me being me I had to accept the challenge and raise it one timescale so I said I would do it, but I was going to do it under a year. I've done three more so far, only 280 to go eh...It's not looking great! 

Come the end of August I was beginning to become consumed by Mondo Loco. I couldn't really concentrate at work any more as my heart was somewhere else and I was beginning to get really stressed because of it. Fifteen years I worked at Heriot Watt and suddenly I wasn't able to do my job properly. I decided to hand in my notice. We were working on our charity application and everything was going great: the project was in place, the links were being set up, sports clubs were interested and I had made contact with somebody from the Kenyan Rugby Union who was interested in getting the project going there too focusing on rugby as the sport. My leaving date was set for the end of December but in the end I brought that forward to the end of November and left early. I actually got signed off with stress in September, it was best for everybody that I left when I did. Mondo Loco full time now!

The start of September was the highlight of Mondo Loco's social calendar...our very own festival was born...a project I had worked on and failed at before but this time we pulled it right out the bag...Mondo Loco Pres Call Of Nature!!! So much thanks to Stuart Irvine who we just couldn't have done it without. We're looking forward to having a great friendship with event organiser Stuart and are planning to put on a repeat performance over the May Day bank holiday weekend in 2013 (non-sponsor plug). All the DJ's that played were awesome and everybody who came played a massive part in making it the single most awesome party I've been to since Beachness! Call Of Nature is here, it's amazing already and it will only get better, see you at the next one!

We also had our first Mondo Loco Wedding in September when Coco and Leona tied the knot at The Quay in Musselburgh. It was an awesome day with some really beautiful moments and we wish them both a long happy life together. Everybody knows them knows what an awesome couple they are and we all couldn't be happier for them.

In October the plan came together. All the other months were good but October was huge. Mondo Loco Farm...the piece of the jigsaw that was meant to follow on from working in Malawi kind of fell into my lap. I met Mike in the summer at our meadows party and realised he was actually somebody I'd kind of known for years as he lived near me in Bonnyrigg. We had started to get to know each other and been chatting about clubs etc as he's a nightclub photographer who owns a company called Sound Proof DJ (sponsor plug 3). What I came to realise was that Mike lives on a farm that hasn't been getting used for a couple of years so I spoke to him about what we could possibly do with his land in a Mondo Loco styleeee! Of course Mike loved my idea. Who wouldn't want to own a project that teaches Scottish kids how to grow vegetables and has a growing system in place that can be replicated in communities in Africa to help fight against poverty. Mike was in, it was awesome, Mondo Loco Farm was now born too! I have too say that since the beginning when we first started backing Joseph this is definitely the biggest step forward in our short lifetime. We have an awesome project manager in Laura and Chris is running a separate Mushroom growing project to help localise the production of quality food for the area. It's all just awesome, a dream come true for all of us and we can't wait to see what 2013 brings!

Sometime in October I managed to squeeze in a couple of Munros with Rusty Long. Ben Vorlich and Stuc a Croin and then in November I also bagged Ben Vane with Rusty and Bryony this time. We were meant to do three that day but the weather came in and we got off the mountain before it ate us for lunch. We'll be back!

It was my birthday on the 11th of November, I turned 34. For the rest of my life I will always be able to say that on that day I was a very happy man. I was very proud to celebrate it with a romantic meal for two with Bryony at The Sun Inn (sponsor plug 4). Very happy to plug this sponsor as I actually am proud to eat there every time I go. I could easily argue that they serve the best food in the world in there as it's all locally sourced, extremely fresh, seasonal and prepared with the utmost quality. You have to go and try it to believe me, if you appreciate good food you'll find it hard to enjoy a meal anywhere else afterwards - be warned! Bryony said the only place she's been to before that could compare is The River Cottage Kitchen...that's pretty cool I thought.

In November we also got the application away to become a charity - finally! The board of trustees is set. Treasurer Karen has been joined by secretary Derek and proud president Davy More Miles who is also a corporate sponsor. Davy will be leading the support crew on all our adventure pursuits. (sponsor plug 5) At the end of November I quit my job and launched Mondo Loco Digital. My social enterprise company who's aim is to get small business's in my local area online and functioning  more efficiently. I have a plan, I wont bore you with business but I plan that when I start to make a profit I will give it all away to The Mondo Loco Foundation. A not-for-profit company to feed the charity like The Dude's mushroom project. All good.

Our Christmas party in 2011 was amazing; we started 2012 in a very good place. Satisfied that we had achieved a lot of good throughout the last year and excited about what was to come; we were building up a brand that was getting a reputation for being willing to put in a lot of effort to make good things happen. Joseph had started College in Malawi and everybody was extremely proud!

Our end of year celebration in 2011 was in Edinburgh's best nightclub Cabaret Voltaire on Friday the 16th of December; the busiest night out of the year! Not only did Robin and Michael, Coco, Wanless and another four DJ's rock the disco but I was delighted to be telling everybody that we had just joined forces with an Edinburgh branch of a massive development charity called Engineers Without Borders who do absolutely loads of work at community level across the world based on sustainability and education. We weren't quite sure where we were going at that point but we knew that in the new year we were going to put our heads together to identify some needs and get some sort of projects on the go. There was even an engineering lecturer at Heriot Watt university getting involved who was hoping we could get underprivileged Scottish kids into uni through our projects - somehow. None of these plans have changed; the EWB students are in the design phase of an irrigation system that will be built in Malawi this summer but we're still to figure out how to get the kids from Scotland involved. We'll get there...in phases!

We didn't do much in January and February. I spent a lot of time in meetings with EWB which were more about getting a feel for what they do and who they are than  anything productive but one particular meeting was extremely inspiring. We had booked in a guest speaker from Loughborough University called Bob Reed who was coming to give us a talk on the worlds water situation. Bob does a lot of disaster relief work with the UN and was on the task force that made the recovery strategy for Port Au Prince after the Earthquake in Haiti. After this talk I started to look for things that we could actually make happen; we needed stuff to do!

In April, round about the same time as we did our second Mondo Loco bungee I made contact with Tom, the guy who set up Building Malawi and we set the project ball rolling. Through Building Malawi Tom has managed to oversee the building of a couple of schools and libraries already and is in the process of developing the Lingadze Sports Academy just outside Lilongwe, the capital city. Long story short, since my first call with Tom I've visited the site, the EWB students are designing the irrigation system and I have my local football club in Scotland, Bonnyrigg Rose lined up to provide the kids with uniforms and equipment as for as long as they like. Once the irrigation system is in place the Mondo Loco team will help the locals establish both sports pitches to play on and a permaculture system to feed the community. :-)))

May saw the first signs of summer hit Edinburgh and Mondo Loco started the season with a party in The Meadows. We were invited by the owners of the Pavilion Cafe to do a soul style afternoon in the sunshine. Coco was toiling to get down early but we got Lee Marvin and Steven Wanless to come down and spin some summer tunes. We were actually invited on the Thursday to come down and play on the Friday so we did really well to get the party organised overnight. The deal was to play in the sunshine all afternoon and shut down at six. I had a physio appointment so I left a bit early expecting it to close down with the cafe but young Dave Polson - who's decks we had borrowed - still had the place rocking at 10pm with Edinburgh's hippy community partying in the Meadows until dark fell. I actually had to go back because the owner of the cafe wanted me to be there in case there was trouble when it closed. There wasn't, there never is at a Mondo Loco event and everybody was so pleased to know we were planning more. The most important thing that happened that day was that we met Stuart Irvine and organised another bigger party that would gatecrash the Meadows festival and eventually lead to us putting on Call Of Nature in September - a project we had attempted the year before and not been able to follow through on. Call of Nature was the highlight of our year.

I also ran the marathon at the end of May, still not sure how injured I was but I was in accident and emergency getting an x-ray on the Wednesday and I ran the marathon on the Sunday. I'm tough. I felt something go during my final 30k training run the week before the race. The problem was my trainers were now too old and my foot was moving inside them so I had inflammation where the tendon on the outside meets the fifth metatarsal. Like I said, still not too sure how injured I actually was...I finished the race in a brand new pair of trainers and that's tough enough! I was planning to do the tough mudder in July too but never got back from Malawi in time. For an indication of how fit I was at the time my team qualified for the worlds toughest mudder; top five percent in the country!

By the time June came round I was well behind in my fundraising for Malawi. I actually put out a rant on Facebook that was an expression of anger which was a bit uncalled for but it got a pretty good response and suddenly I went from £1400 raised in total to just under £2500. I was on the plane! I know that I took on too much in the summer. It would have been enough for me to be training and fundraising for one of the events I did, two would have been loads. I was trying to do four. In between running the marathon at the end of May and cycling across Malawi at the beginning of July Big Greig and I cycled cross country from Edinburgh to Inverness! It took us eight days in total and was probably the most challenging thing I've ever done in my whole life. We're taking a group of twenty to do it this year - without the bags - and I cant wait to be leading a whole team of people over The Pass of Glencoe by bike for Mondo Loco. Big G raised £400 for The Sick Kids on top of what I raised for Link, handing it over was an extremely proud moment for the big guy!

So that was it for the first six months of 2012, I have to say it was the quieter half of the year. After finishing the cycle to Inverness I still had a bit of work to do before I was sure I had raised enough money to do what was next up...MALAWI! Hope you've enjoyed what you've read so far, stay tuned for the next blog, I'm getting on it straight away!

Peas and love,

It was all going to be easy. It was going to be the experience of a lifetime, we were jumping into the abyss, but it was going to be easy. I’d been up there twice before. Both forwards and backwards I had leapt of the 140ft high bridge over the river Garry beside Killicrankie so I knew what I was doing. Haha!

It was in the car on the way up. I realised Luggsy was toiling with the idea. First ever bungee jump in the dark. Brave guy.  I'm really glad I had my two daytime jumps so I knew what was happening but they never prepared me. Not really. I thought they had, but they hadn’t really. It dawned on me in the car. Suddenly it was dark. We were on the A9 heading for Pitlochry. It was dark. Really dark! It wasn’t going to be the same!

There was eleven of us jumping and six of us had jumped in the daytime so logistically we knew what we were doing. The staff at Highland Fling are totally awesome and the registration, weigh in, briefing and harnessing process went smooth as mustard (?!?) and in no time at all we were up the ladder and under the bridge walking along the service plank to the platform!

Now, what you jump off is actually a permanent cage that’s fitted underneath the top of the bridge. It has a waiting area above the edge you jump off. Everybody is fenced in, the lights are on and the tunes are pumping. It’s a great place to get a banter with your mates and definitely a big part of the experience. Bungee JumpScotlandhave got it so right with the way they work it all. Waiting area. Nice and safe. Lit up. Slag yer mates. All good.

Until it’s your turn!

Big Greig went before me. I had worked it out that if I went second last I would be Mondo Loco’s 50th jumper. I’m not so sure of this stat now; I got home and checked and I think we may have done 48 in tota. I might have forgotten some from the first time! When Big G came back up he was all excited about the fact that he’d had a big moment he wasn’t expecting. Greig’s a veteran now; forwards backward and darkness, just like Myself, The Dude and Maff; so he wasn’t expecting to be actually standing there totally bricking it when he was on the edge. Neither was I to be honest!

It’s just not the same when step out into the dark. There’s nothing. Absolutely Nothing. Black all around. No Light source at all for miles down the vast expanse of river. The stars are bright above you; but your not jumping towards them. You look out in front of yourself to where you know you have to launch your body and all you can see is nothing. You are consumed by the overwhelming expanse of complete darkness covering your complete range of vision. You are aware of the safety of the platform lit up behind you but you can’t turn round. You are facing what you now know is a life moment in front of you.

You enter into a different state of consciousness I think. When you make yourself leave that platform into the abyss there’s nothing you can do anymore. It’s then not terrifying. You now have to just let it happen. There was no way I could not have jumped, it was always going to happen. I was always going to launch myself regardless of how I felt. I just never expected it to feel so good in flight or so bad before! You actually don’t know where you are. In relation to anything. You can’t see the bridge when you’re swinging. You can’t make out if you’re moving out the way, down the way or back up the other side. All you know is total freedom. You’ve let go, you’ve left your fear on the bridge and you’ve jumped into the unknown. You let go of all control and put your faith in a rope when you couldn’t even see what was going on! You’re totally free man, totally free!

  Massive well done to first timers Jez, Kriss, Luggsy, Ross, and Tony. Massive thanks to Randy, Big G and Maff for keeping the banter flowing and the heavy rope busy. Awesome shout out for Kirsty for being the only girl and going last and a huge round of applause to The Dude for organising it all.

Here’s to the next one…Easter Bungee No.2!!!! Sign up here: 

http://mondolocofundraisers.weebly.com/mondo-loco-easter-bungee-2013.html

Peas and Luv,

Here's Councillor Ian Baxter of The Midlothian Green Party showing his support and dropping by to meet Chris on his first day working on the mushroom farm.

The blue barrels in the background are what we'll be growing the mushrooms in!

Our mushroom project is a not-for-profit sustainability project aimed at reducing landfill through recycling coffee grounds, waste wood products and plastic barrels to grow the mushrooms; reducing carbon emissions through localisation of industry that cuts down transportation needs; improving the quality of local produce for the community and enhancing the communities already strong local produce reputation.

If you would like to make a financial donation to help us sustain ourselves thrugh the initial period you can contribute using paypal by clicking on the blog item below.

Thank you so much already for helping us make this wonderful community project happen.