Happy New Year - A little crystal ball gazing

In Spain there is a New Year tradition of eating 12 grapes as the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day.  At each stroke of the clock, you eat a grape.  I’ve always been told that for each grape that you manage to eat, you get a month of good luck.  Of course, it is impossible to eat all the grapes at once (12 grapes in 12 seconds) and what normally happens is that everyone manages to eat what they can and then burst out laughing at the sight of everyone else trying to do the same thing.  (Nowadays it is easier with seedless grapes but when I was a child we used to spend time deseeding the grapes - that’s if we could get grapes in the middle of winter in England).  I like this tradition because it reminds me of the reality of life - that in one given year there will be moments of good luck when things go well, and moments of bad luck, when things don’t go well at all.

For many of us, it might have felt as if 2011 did not go well at all.  Eurozone crisis, the prospect of another recession, riots…  I don’t of anyone who hasn’t been affected in some way or another by the current economic crisis and I am sure that many of you are the same. 

At RAFT, I didn’t need to have a crystal ball to see that we would have to tighten our belts even further and that as a charity we were going to be affected by everyone feeling the effects of living in austerity Britain.

I’m a positive, ‘glass half full’ type but even I started the year concerned at how the economic crisis was going to affect RAFT. 

Well, it has been hard but my faith in human nature has been renewed daily by the amazing generosity of our loyal friends and supporters.  We have had people jumping out of planes (with parachutes, of course), running marathons, cycling across the country, nominating RAFT as their company’s chosen charity, providing pro bono support, giving personal donations by text…the list is endless.  Without this support, who knows where RAFT would be?

However, we haven’t just been sitting around waiting for things to to happen.  We have been busy with some forward planning that will bring some exciting changes to RAFT.  Watch out for an announcement soon!

So what will 2012 bring?  Clearly times will continue to be tough for everyone; the crisis in the Eurozone is yet to be resolved and we may see even worse times ahead.  We will continue to need your support to carry out our much needed research. 

2012 will also be a year to celebrate and commemorate the ability of humans to achieve great things, overcome adversity and challenge themselves.  The Olympics in London and The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee will remind us of that. 

Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of the start of the war in former Yugoslavia and the 30th anniversary of the war in the Falklands.  Events that will remind us that the sacrifices made by young men and women are not new and that we owe it, not just to our service personnel coming back wounded now, but also to those wounded veterans of those wars, to continue to research better ways of treating those who have been severely injured.

I have no doubt that we will say ‘goodbye’ to some of our lovely staff and ‘hello’ to new people joining the RAFT team.  As a CEO, I know that people come and go as they grow and develop and that is an inevitable part of the growth of an organisation. 

What I don’t need a crystal ball for is to tell you is that we will remain as committed as ever to working hard, being innovative and building working partnerships with others to ensure that our research gets to patients.

So thank you for all your support in 2011 and I want to wish you all a very happy 2012.

(And by the way, I didn’t manage to eat the whole 12 grapes this year!)