These just in, hand delivered by the Westcoastmess. You gotta be in it to win it. Innit.
February 7, 2009
January 29, 2009
And so it would seem that there hasn’t been a Raleigh Kat for a while. News just in then that Valentine’s Day will witness the intriguingly titled Tour de Ville sponsored KAMASUTRACAT. Just what this entails, other than being a ‘no nonsense’, fast, point to point race, remains to be seen. Whatever it is, we’re mad fer it.
Apart from some quality prizes, Tour de Ville promise on the day that they’ll be serving oysters and champagne, although albeit predictably chilled on the cool, smooth thighs of virgins.
More news to follow soon on the 2009 Championship Points Series as we’ve heard that the infant workhouse robots over at House of Pistard will soon be finishing the leaders yellow jerseys. Pics to come. In the meantime here’s that flyer.
January 12, 2009
Happy New Year to everyone from us all at the LCEF! 2009 here we come..
In the past nine months since we began operating and with all of your help, involvement and generosity, we have managed to grow the fund from what initially began as a very modest start-up amount, to something that is now ’considerable’. It’s something that we at the LCEF hope will be sustainable and also something that will grow to help further establish us and take this fund into THE FUTURE.
Goes without saying that it’s such a simple measure to take in the face of a very real problem. How to provide support, both financial and moral, to our fellow messenger friends when they have had the misfortune to be involved in an accident on the road whilst working that keeps them from earning. The solution? Messengers and their friends come out to play and pop their hands into their pockets every now and then whilst they’re at it. Easy.
With that in mind, March 20th sees the welcome return of one of the most hotly contested and keenly anticipated courier showdown events in the courier calendar; Donkey Derby II.
The brilliant Horseshoe Pub in Clerkenwell is again the venue for all the action and with all proceeds going to the LCEF we hope this one will be a proper banger. Last year the men’s event was won by Go-Betweens’ very own super-moustachio’d Charlie Chop who if memory serves put in an awsome sub 20- second time. City Sprint Sarah won for the ladies but this year, as for the men’s, who knows what could happen? It’s wide open.
A selection of your favourite Courier DJ’s will be whipping it up on the sounds with HRH BB of London’s London on the mic.
December 15, 2008
There’s quite simply nothing we like more here at the LCEF than being approached with a canny fundraising idea. It’s no secret that the strength and longevity of the LCEF lies in being able to draw on the goodwill and charity of not only London’s couriers, but from the wider cycling community, too. And so it was with true yuletide gusto and enthusiasm that we took up the generous offer of being involved in the Treasurecat leg of Fixed-Magazine’s 2nd issue launch day.
A bitterly cold day saw a solid turnout rallied and organised by Fixed-Mag’s very own Ian ‘Sano’ Sansom and Manchester’s infamous Craig Nasty. Fittingly, the LCEF had the simple pleasure of re-claiming the legendary Duke of York as the venue for our checkpoint where riders had to stop by to collect an LCEF cap in return for points as part of their ‘Crap Xmas’ manifest. Fivers flew, beers downed, favours bought and a pile of LCEF caps disappeared in a blur of arrospoks, checked shirts and coiffeured moustaches.
Back at the finish, The Foundry, hot gluhwein simmered behind the bar and was greedily drank whilst points were calculated and rankings judged. Christmas came early for the LCEF as Ian sauntered over handing us a proper roll of cash collected from entry money (a wise guy always carries his money in a roll). When added to the money taken from donations and cap sales we counted over £300. Yes, £300!
Many, many thanks guys and especially to Ian who ran tings with a nicely measured cool and very little fuss. Good luck with the mag and Merry Xmas to you all!! Much appreciated.
btw, sweet after party!
December 1, 2008
At long last and after just a bit of a delay we are happy to announce that we have a brand new batch of lcef logo’d caps fresh in from the continent. We kept some of the most popular colours again but added a few funky combo’s this time round. We have black with championship stripe, red with championship stripe, black & grey, black & yellow, black & red, black & white, pink & purple and as before, plain black, blue, green and red. Here’s a sneak preview..
Caps still cost only £5 each with of course 100% of proceeds going directly back into the LCEF. We currently keep the caps with us in town at Metro Despatch, 20 Northburgh Street, EC1 so please feel free to drop by to have a gander and pick a couple up. If you can’t make it into town drop us an e-mail or give us a call and we’ll arrange to get you sorted.
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Support for the LCEF continues unabated. We have had some generous financial contributions and help from some pretty far flung corners. Special mention must go to the guys over at Skin Grows Back who popped a tidy sum into the coffers from sales of their merchandise down under. Another heads up goes to spaghettihoops from over at the LFGSS site who very kindly donated profits from his very clever bespoke keyfob sales to help us out. Many thanks to all.
Proper chunks of cash have been flying in from the proceeds off some of them crazy street Raleigh Cats too. Well done and many thanks indeed to Johnny and also to Julia and Braily who between them have helped to host the action on this front recently.
We’ve also been in conflab with a good number of the community recently who have come forward with some brilliant fundraising ideas, some of which will no doubt come to light over the coming weeks. Please keep the ideas and support coming in. Half the challenge of the LCEF is awareness raising amongst those people who benefit from the end product, that being the help and support that the LCEF are able to offer when something goes wrong. Stay safe kids.
September 5, 2008
It has been said that London’s messengers hold something of a priviledged position in the city as they are granted unparalleled access not only to its streets and buildings but to the myriad of tiny happenings and scenes that make up everyday life in the city. Seeing the city up close from street level is the unique prize of the bicycle courier..
Photos courtesy of Simone ‘Shamone’ Koch. Taken from the London’s Calling Art Show.
September 3, 2008
London’s Calling II raises £1000 for the LCEF!!.. and other news..
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We’re pretty sure that enough noise was made in attracting peoples attention and support for this years London’s Calling, an event organised to follow-on from last years pre-event for the Dublin European Championships. The weekend was a great success, attracting well over 80 participants and loads of help from many of those across the courier community. The organisers always had a keen eye on raising as much money for the LCEF as possible from the proceeds of the event and are proud to report that at the last count more than £1000 in sterlings was raised to help plump up the fund.
A full list of thank-you’s can be found over at the London’s Calling site but the LCEF would like to pay special tribute at this time to the Rollapaluza who played a huge part in helping raise this money by offering their very in demand services free of charge to help secure that the event was profitable. Rollapaluza was born from the courier community so it would seem fitting that they are now instrumental in putting something back in, through helping to raise funds for the LCEF. Oh, and it was a brilliant night of Roller Racing in the Imbibe Bar by the way. Up there with the best of them..
Check here for a full report and results from the event.
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In other news the LCEF received a further application for assistance following a very regretable hit-and-run incident involving Niki Kovacs, a City Sprint rider. Niki was involved in a collision when she was pulled out onto by a moped rider on Old Bond Street on August 4th. Dispicably, the moped rider decided to make a run for it but thankfully the whole incident was witnessed by another cycle courier from Worlds End Couriers who chased the rider down and managed to get his number plate details. Niki sustained an injury to her shoulder and was lucky not to have recieved further injuries as she recalls how the force of the collision drove her under the backside of a lorry which very luckily was stationary at the time. Niki is currently going through the motions with the authorities to bring this prick of a moped rider to justice and having made a number of visits to a chiropractor is now back on the road having had to take time off work to recuperate. Niki received financial help from the LCEF to help her through this regretable ordeal.
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Ephraim, who along with Chewy, was one of two couriers to be involved in accidents involving HGV’s on the same day back in the spring and who received financial help from the then fledgling LCEF, has very kindly donated to us a complete set of track wheels for us to sell in order to raise money to direct back into the fund. Ephraim sustained a very serious injury to his legs on the day and had to take 3 months or so off work. He has since made a full recovery and can be seen tearing it up round town like it never happened at all. Many thanks indeed to Ephraim for this very noble gesture. As if being the LCEF mascot wasn’t enough!?
August 11, 2008
With the LCEF now firmly established and word steadily seeping out into the community that London now has it’s own emergency fund managed and administered from the capital itself, we received our first claim for assistance.
Scarlet Hughes has been a courier in London for 3 years, most of that time spent with City Sprint. Towards the end of June, on the Kings Road, Fulham, Scarlet fell foul to that most avoidable of accidents, that of being crashed into by someone turning left at a junction without indicating. Obviously the driver didn’t have the courtesy to check their mirror to see that all was clear before turning and Scarlet went down suffering a serious strain to her wrist and a nasty cut to her chin. Scarlet’s been in physiotherapy since her accident and it’s not likely that she will be back to work for another few weeks still. On the positive side of things the driver of the vehicle took full responsibility for the accident (although having an ambulance behind that witnessed the whole thing kinda helped she says) and so Scarlet’s been having to endure the whole strung out act with her appointed solicitor who thankfully assures her that the drivers insurance company will be held accountable not only for the cost of her completely written off bike, but for her loss of earnings, physiotherapy costs and also financial recompense for damage done to her lifestyle through having to be inactive for what is likely to be a full 2 months.
Scarlet received an emergency payment from the LCEF to tide her over in the short-term during the period where she was unsure where money was going to come from to pay for lifes necessities. Although she is now receiving support from her family she is able to report with confidence that she is likely to receive full financial recompense from her insurance claim and that she will also take steps towards repaying the LCEF when her claim comes good. Others are less fortunate. We wish Scarlet a most speedy recovery and look forward to seeing her back on the road soon..
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July 9, 2008
Jesus, what a weekend. Its not impossible youre still recovering from the aftermath of Faster Pussycat Kill Kill, the first female-only alleycat, organised by the wonder that is Chandra and her charming assistant, the LCEF’s very own Pikemeister. For those of you that missed it, Moving Target has a report here, featuring the winner of best pussycat costume award and Nhatt’s in-depth account of bra-burning and phallus-grabbing. Chandra’s own race report is here, and congratulations are due to, well, everyone. Possibly the finest alleycat this year. Special mention to the Fund’s own Stef, and of course Nhatt, for joint first place.
Naturally, all profits from the race are going to the Emergency Fund.
For those not racing, or revealing their inner transvestite, the hottest costume of the weekend was the new LCEF logo shirts, fresh from the hackney sweatshop of the House of Pistard. Tenners were flying as the new batch was revealed, fought over, desleeved by Ryan and then drunkenly posed in. Check out Londons Finest in these pictures, then hit the link above to get your own piece of fashion history with free LCEF good karma points.
June 8, 2008
Wow. Go Team. Thanks to everyone who braved the online ordering system. Those sales, and a brisk bit of trade at the Smithfield Nocturne, mean we’ve sold most of our first batch already. Happily, we’ve got the House of Pistard sweatshop working overtime to stock up again.
At the moment we’ve still got all sorts of black left. I think theres a small and a medium green, a small brown and a small khaki left in the mens pile, and a womens medium in pink, light blue or grey. If any of these sound like your thing, grab it while you can..
Incidentally, apologies to those of you who haven’t recieved them yet. I realise some of you might expect a bunch of professional couriers to be able to deliver a few shirts on time. Quickly and safely, even. Not a chance. Its safety third over here at the LCEF, and we were so excited to be selling shirts we just got a little behind on the actual delivery aspect. Anyway, theyre all packaged now and hopefully I’ll be posting the last batch tomorrow.
Also, thanks again to everyone who donated money. You know who you are, and the injured messengers of the future thank you.
UPDATED UPDATE…
We have no mens colours left 
We sold the last green one (thanks Tom) and the other remaining three are being escorted by Moving Target to CMWC Toronto. We still have mens black in all sorts of sizes. And more colours are on their way, so if youve got a request for a preorder, let us know…
