Dear H4H Supporter,

With Spring finally here and an election on the way, one might think that not much else is happening. The media is full of these stories and with the poppy harvest starting it seems to be pretty quiet in Afghanistan; for the moment.

It’s not that quiet at H4H, great things are happening as you gear up for a summer of fundraising to help our wounded men and women. The London Marathon had over 600 H4H runners raising hundreds of thousands of pounds, there were St George’s Day rugby matches and dinners and over 500 events were registered with our team in just one week. Our 300 Big Battlefield Bike Riders who will cycle 350 miles across France are gearing up for their challenge and starting to pack in some extra training hours; it’s all go at H4H. Your fundraising efforts are extraordinary and it will not be long before we pass £50m raised since we began in our Tin Hut on 1st October 2007.

To raise such huge sums is quite literally a phenomenon; a wonderful demonstration by donation that we care about our wounded and want to help. Despite all the other distractions, our H4H supporters are just getting on with the job and I am overwhelmed at how big this has become; thank you for doing this.

However, the key to H4H must not be how much we have raised but how many we have helped. That is our motivation and why we continue to cycle, race, run, climb, bake and all the other mad things we do; we simply want to help our blokes. All your efforts would be pointless if the money raised sat around gathering dust; you want it spent.

The Headley Court Rehabilitation Complex is complete, the pool is full of water and the complex will be fully operational by the 1st May. The complex at Combat Stress is well under way and parts of it are already functioning. Our Recovery Centre in Edinburgh, partnered by the Army and Erskine, is working and providing Individual Recovery Plans to help accelerate the recovery of those there. Tangible evidence that the money you have raised is helping already.

We are working closely with the Royal Navy, Royal Marines and the Army on the Personnel Recovery Centres and plans are advanced to build the centres at Colchester, Catterick, Tidworth and now Plymouth. We have seen the sites, poured over the plans and are working hard on helping to deliver the centres, to the Services’ requirements, as quickly as possible.

It takes time to build major facilities like the centres and many individuals need help now, so that is where our £5m Quick Reaction Fund (QRF) comes in. Working with the ABF- The Soldier’s Charity and the other Service equivalents, we have created a fund that can help individuals. We provide the money, they help us to deliver it, working with the welfare teams, SSAFA-Forces Help, the Regimental Associations and other agencies to ensure that whoever needs funds to enhance their recovery, gets it and gets it quickly. The fund is set up to minimise administration and maximise support, to deliver support swiftly and to date, cheques have been written and despatched within hours.

Our QRF fund is there for urgent needs for both the wounded and those relatives and loved ones who are affected by their son or daughter’s injuries. The fund has already helped a Service widow get a house to live with her children and the team at ABF-The Soldier’s Charity are working to help in many other individual cases.

Further to agreeing to fund the Recovery Centres, we have also pledged to help fund those who are in the Recovery Capability by paying for courses or activities to help with the recovery process. As an example, a young wounded Serviceman has been able to use our funding to qualify as a locksmith and others are being assisted to move on to future careers. Our funding has supported Battle Back to get the blokes back into Adventure Training and sports, Skill Force to learn new work skills and now we are working with The Princes Trust to learn how to motivate disadvantaged children.

We see the process as being a Road to Recovery, stretching from the moment of traumatic impact, through the support we can offer through SSAFA, Troop Aid, the Patient’s Welfare Fund at Selly Oak to the superb new facilities at Headley Court and onto the Recovery Centres and the new Individual Recovery Plans. At any stage along the Road, individuals (and their families) can get help from the QRF. In the long term we are working with Combat Stress to help with the mental injuries that tend to show later in life and we are looking at how we can provide further support along the road with the other superb service charities.

So, we are busy here at H4H! We are doing our best to get the money you raise to the people who need and deserve it. We do that by funding both facilities and organisations that can support our wounded. Our funds work across the Services so Sailors, Marines, Soldiers or Airmen all benefit equally. Our funds work across borders so we are funding the Scots, Welsh, Cornish, Fijian, West Indian, Londoner, Brummie, Scouser, city boy, country girl and all the others equally. It does not matter to us where they are from, what capbadge they wear or whether they were blown up, shot or injured in training; as long as they have been injured in the service of our country, we want to help.

We are doing our best to help and you are doing your best to raise the money to allow us to do so. With the income from The H4H Trading Company, we are very efficient, probably uniquely in the charity world and all of our costs are covered. Take comfort from that, when you are sweating up that mountain or running that race, everything you raise goes to the blokes, none of it goes to pay for our costs, we look after that.

Further, we now own Bmycharity, the commission free on line donations service, so that if you raise £10, it all comes straight to the cause not to administration costs. You will have heard of other on line donations services and they make their living from the commission they charge; we don’t. So, if you want to ensure that all you raise goes to the charity, ‘Be a Hero; Go for Zero’ use Bmycharity and please spread the word.

So, we are using your money to fund facilities and to support individuals along the Road to Recovery. We do that with maximum speed, minimum fuss and very cost effectively. We are not political and have no bias or prejudice. Our support extends to all who serve and have been hurt or have fallen ill since 9/11 and their families.

The support for H4H has spread out across the country. Each event not only raises money, it is a pebble dropped into your pool of supporters with the ripples spreading out. People who sponsor or support your event tell their friends and they in turn are motivated to do their bit to help. The more events we have, the more people hear and join in, and the more we can spend on helping our blokes, our young men and women, along the Road to Recovery.

It’s really very simple, we want to help, we want to do that efficiently and to make a real difference to the lives of some very important people. We are doing that and we need to continue to do so. Keep going please, keep running, jumping, swimming, baking, brewing, climbing, cycling, keep volunteering, spreading the H4H word and most importantly, keep helping ‘our blokes’; they deserve it.

Thank you.

Bryn Parry