30days30years

Name: Bart Koopman

Occupation: Engineering Student

Website:  http://mijnimp.fl79.nl 

How we met: Bart is the eldest son of Sjaak and Lia Koopman whose cheese farm I worked on in Holland as part of my 30 Days adventure.  I had a wonderful time with the Koopman’s talking, laughing and making loads of Edam cheese. While I was eating my weight in cheese, Bart had a project of his own going on. He was restoring a car from scratch and filming the whole thing on a time lapse so that his friends and family could track the car’s transformation.

Take a look how he did:

Eighteen months ago, while I was hanging in front of the television watching one of the many tv-series a Dutch student has to watch, I enthusiastically answered a phone call saying: “Of course, I would love to!” A new hobby had just been born.

It was my girlfriend’s father, Piet, who has posed the question: “Bart, you offered to help me with my Imp, why not make it your own project?”

From that day on, I’ve been restoring a Hillman Imp from the sixties.

Firstly I have to admit that I’m absolutely not a car fanatic; I’m barely able to recognize the cars passing by on the highway. But I love mechanical systems, ingenious apparatus and fancy mechanisms, which are the main reasons I ended up studying mechanical engineering.

This interest together with the magnitude of the task before me make me grasp the opportunity enthusiastically. It was going to be a challenge.

In the summer of 2011 I started to work on the project. My main goal was to get it on the road as fast as possible.  The plan of attack was simple: 1. Replace only those parts, which were broken or worn out too much, 2. Quickly threat the rusty pieces with a rust converter, And 3. Get the engine running.

As you would probably guess, this is not what happened. When you’re stripping a car like this, all the pieces passes through your hands and the body gets more and more naked every day. You start to convince yourself that every piece should be perfect when it’s mounted back on the car. But before you’re able to reach that point you’ll need a magnificent body as well. And since it’s stripped already you’re able to patch up the body until it’s as new.

Every morning I was working on the car together with a friend, Michiel, for a few weeks. We managed to clean everything, fix some of the bodywork, restore the suspension, revive the radiator and replace the brake system. Meanwhile I joined “The Imp Club” from the UK. Although I didn’t get the Imp on the road that summer it was a joy.

From September up to June I was back in Delft continuing my life as a student. In the beginning of 2012 I made my first miles in a real Hillman Imp (although technically it’s a Sunbeam Californian, most people wouldn’t see the differences by night). Together with Piet and his car we participated in a night rally, lasting from 6pm until 5am the next morning. That night I learned (and experienced) that the car, which originally was built for grocery shopping, is well suited for rallies like this: Lightweight, it has a rear engine and excellent handling. Although the Imp was the car for the job, we didn’t manage to win the challenge since it was impossible to decode the instructions. But next year…

In May this year the Imp Club decided to visit The Netherlands, resulting in a total of around 50 Imps from the UK and Holland coming together. It was great to meet other “Impers” and to chat, laugh and drink together.  The Scotch appeared to be useful; since most roads we took were very sinuous.

This summer I managed to pick up the workings, unfortunately without Michiel. Luckily Piet was willing to help me some days. The rust in some of the body parts had worn out the steel so much that it was required to replace big parts of the bodywork. This was a cumbersome job and still isn’t finished up to today. Nevertheless I’ve made some progress this year and I’m sure we’ll reach the finish within a few years.

In order to keep track of what I’ve done and to keep in contact with everybody interested, I’ve set up a blog containing videos and stories of every day I worked on the car. At the same time it forms a diary containing all of the progress. Interested in my project? Visit http://mijnimp.fl79.nl and do not forget to leave a message in the guestbook.

Name: Elizabeth Gowing

Occupation: NGO founder and teacher

Website: theideaspartnership.org

How we met: I met Elizabeth in Kosovo earlier this year when I volunteered for The Ideas Partnership (TIP), an NGO she and her partner Rob founded with their friend Ardian Arifaj. 

TIP implements grass roots education, environmental and community support projects for the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities in Fushë Kosovë, 5km outside  Kosovo’s capital Prishtina.

British by decent, Elizabeth is one of those people that you could listen to for hours. Wise and disarming, I certainly get a sense every time I speak with her that I’m a little smarter for it.

Meet Elizabeth, one of the world’s best global citizens:

On September 1, 2011, 62 kids set off for school from their ramshackle homes in a Roma community on the outskirts of Kosovo’s capital. The stream of children with bright new backpacks felt like an enormous achievement – for each of them, and for our small Kosovo charity who had worked to get them registered. I saw that day as the endpoint of months of exhausting work. But in fact, it was just the beginning.

The charity which my partner and I set up with a friend in Kosovo had spent the previous six months working to change a government policy which was keeping kids out of school if they didn’t register in time. Our work started when we met one nine-year-old girl who said she wanted to go to school but had been told by the head teacher that she had missed her chance – forever – because she hadn’t registered before the age of nine.

When we discovered another 20 children like her among her immediate neighbours, we saw that this was a systemic problem, and within two weeks we’d started running classes for the children every weekday morning and spent our afternoons running a lobbying campaign to change the government policy. Soon we had more than fifty children attending our classes every day. (You can read the story of how the project developed at the blog Get Gjelane To School)

My blogging ended shortly after we won agreement from the ministry, municipality and school that the children could be registered and start with their peers in the new school year. None of us wanted to be naïve – we knew there would be challenges ahead – but it felt like the biggest battle had now been won. At least we knew we had a great team on our side – by September we had more than 60 volunteers working in our organisation, which was 10 times more than we’d had the previous year.

Even more importantly, as well as the foreigners like myself (and Christie) passing through Kosovo, we had volunteers who were Kosovar Albanians or from the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities who live together in the neighbourhood where we’d been working. We were a bit more secure financially too – from the initial fundraising evening which had raised enough money for six months rent of a flat above a mini-market, we had received more private donations and a few small grants from aid agencies.

On the day that I went into school and found Shefkije standing in the corridor, I knew we were going to need all these resources.

“What are you doing standing here?”

“The teacher’s sent me home.”

“What have you done?”

I’m ashamed to say that my immediate assumption was that this must be Shefkije’s fault.

“Nothing. She just told me ‘don’t come here any more’.”

Shefkie and I went to the head teacher. No, he didn’t know that she’d been sent home. No, Shefkije hadn’t misbehaved as far as he knew. We went to see the teacher. She gestured at her overcrowded class and confirmed that there was nothing in Shefkije’s behaviour that had prompted her to send her home. It was just that there were too many children there now.

We sent Shefkije to sit down (in the chair where she’d originally been placed by the teacher, at the back of the class, with the other Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian children).

In the first week of school, 11 of Shefkije’s neighbours were sent home like her. Some were told they were too small for the furniture, others were told they were too big. One was told to come back when an extension had been built to accommodate them. A brother and sister were told they had fleas (though we took them to a doctor to confirm that they did not).

In each case we – volunteers and our wonderful new employee, a Family Advocate from the community, who is a father of seven – took the children back to school and had a hard conversation with teachers and head teacher. We talked, too, to the children’s parents – many of whom had not been to school themselves, and who felt that if the teacher said their child was ‘too big’ or ‘too small’ the teacher must be right.

We started Saturday activities for Shefkije and all the children we’d registered, to give them a regular chance to talk to us, a bit of help with reading, writing, maths and English, and a sense of solidarity in the often hostile education system where they now found themselves. We got better at liaising with other agencies working with families in this neighbourhood.

When the school introduced compulsory uniforms at a few weeks’ notice (uniforms cost 6 euro each. If, like Shefkije’s father, you have four children at school that’s 24 euro. Social security is 75 euro per month) we used some of the donations we’d been given to buy each child the required badged overalls.

When the school refused to register a boy because he didn’t have a birth certificate, we worked with the family and social services to get him his certificate. He finally started school in January and when his teacher then complained that she wasn’t willing to teach him because he didn’t know his alphabet and had missed the teaching that others in class had had, we put in place daily academic support out of school time.

We didn’t have success with all the children. The brother and sister who had been accused of having fleas refused to go back to school and it was hard to persuade them. Would you return to a situation like that where you had started on the back foot anyway and then been further humiliated in front of your classmates? In some cases, parents found that their children’s attendance at school was denting the family income because the kids weren’t out working in the rubbish bins, and the children were sent back to work.

Of our 62 children, 23 dropped out apparently irreversibly. Exactly 23 others attended regularly all year. Four girls wear headscarves which by law they are required to remove for school, and they have refused to do so and are therefore out of school. The 12 other children of our 62 are currently attending summer catch-up classes because their attendance during the year wasn’t good enough. If they complete these classes they’ll be able to return to join their peers in school.

We’ve now registered a further 27 children who will start new at school on Monday, September 3. We’ll be following them and their teachers closely – particularly in that crucial first week at school, hoping that not just Shefkije but the whole education system in Kosovo will have learned something since this time last year.

You can follow the children’s journey through the Kosovar education system by following TIP on Facebook at Theideaspartner Ship. Interested in helping? Find out more at theideaspartnership.org

You can also read about Elizabeth’s adventures in Kosovo in her book, Travels in Blood and Honey: Becoming a beekeeper in Kosovo.

 

 

 

Happy Father’s Day Al Baby!

 

 

Back in June I came across a project called A Photo A Day. My friend Monica, who lives in LA, began posting a photo each day on her Facebook based on a list created by @fatmumslim. The list contained a single idea for each day of the month which you then had to take a photograph of to reflect that idea. Ie morning, six o’clock, soft.

I thought it seemed like a fun little project to entertain me for five minutes each day so promptly printed off the list.

Monica was already about eight days into the project when I noticed her photos and I pledged, while walking the dog one morning, that I would go home and take my first photo and then back date the others. I’m useless and it never happened.

I then thought, ok, how bout I just start at the beginning of July and use the same list. But July has 31 days, one more than June, so that wouldn’t work. And besides, you’ve probably cottoned on to the fact, we’re kinda into 30 day things here at 30 Days for 30 Years. 😉

With August out for the same reason as July, I set a note in my diary that I would begin taking A Photo a Day in September. This morning after my run I sat down with a coffee to read the paper outside (it’s the first day of Spring today and the sun was out!) and took this shot to represent morning, the first idea on the June list.

Which brings me to now. For the purposes of this blog post I thought I best find out who fatmumslim actually is. I learned that she is Chantelle, a mummy blogger from Australia’s east coast, who, as it turns out, hasn’t limited this cool project just to June.

It seems I could have been taking pics in July and August too using other unique sets of prompts created by Chantelle.  It’s becoming quite the phenomenon by the looks with celebs like P!nk even getting in on the act. (She was a bit more motivated than me and gave it a crack in June!)

So with the new September list in hand, here is the first of 30 photos: You, now

 

 

Name: Frances Matteck

Occupation: Boudoir photographer

W: everywomanboudoir.com/

How we met: Frances is the girlfriend of Dallas’ premier social media guru Neil Lemons, whose couch I’ve stayed on a couple of times in Texas. We met over one of the most amazing barbecue meals I’ve ever had at Lockhart’s Smokehouse in Dallas.

Frances has won awards as a photojournalist and writer for The Collegian, Tarrant County College’s award-winning weekly publication and has been featured on the Fort Worth Star Telegram‘s editorial page.

She worked for a year in a corporate portrait studio where she photographed newborns, children, families, graduating seniors, and corporate headshots but has now branched out into the sexy world of boudoir photography.

Say hey y’all to Frances:

I am a boudoir photographer, which means I take pictures of half-naked women for a living.

When I explain to people what I do, 90 per cent of the time I get “the look”. They say, “oh,” go quiet, and then the conversation gets extremely awkward. If they decide to take a chance and look at my website they are completely surprised (again) because the images are classy, tasteful, and above all beautiful.

Since Christie’s visit to Texas, I have created gorgeous images of some amazing women, been a part of a college student’s documentary project, and found a new home in a huge studio.

Why Boudoir?

Before I started my business, I invited all of my female Facebook friends to take a survey and only 1.9% responded that they felt sexy every day.

As women, we tend to have poor body images of ourselves. It’s because of this that I believe every woman should have a boudoir photo shoot. So that they can see how beautiful they truly are right now – not 10 pounds lighter, not a few inches slimmer.

My time as a boudoir photographer has been one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. Most of my clients come and see me because they want to give an extremely personal and very sexy gift to their significant other. What they realize after they’ve received their photos is that they’ve also given themselves three amazing gifts: self confidence, a sense of empowerment, and the knowledge that they are beautiful.

Now, I’d like to take you through the 30 day experience that every client goes through.

Days 1-14

When I receive an inquiry from a woman who wants to have a boudoir photo shoot, I know before I even open her email that she is nervous – nervous about her weight, the way she looks, her age, etc.

I help ease her through her insecurities and get her excited by diving into the fun stuff: planning out her dream photo shoot.

We discuss everything: hair and makeup, outfits and accessories, and what inspires her.

Every client gets a board on the Every Woman Boudoir Pinterest page where she pins inspiration images to her heart’s content. This allows her a chance to show both me and Lindi, the studio’s fabulous hair stylist and makeup artist, a visual representation of what she wants and an opportunity for us to see and discuss all of her ideas.

Day 15

The day of the client’s shoot, she will arrive at our 4,500 square foot studio and find her own VIP parking spot and a welcome sign. We’ve planned her shoot together for a couple of weeks now and I want this day to be all about her. My number one priority is for her to feel special and have some great images.

After arriving, she and I have a final consultation where we look at her final outfit selections and pick which sets we’ll be shooting on that day.

Then she goes straight into hair and makeup with Lindi where the music comes on, the yummy snacks are brought out, and the magic begins.

Once the client gets in front of the camera, I demonstrate every single pose before I ask her to try it, and I coach her through a variety of facial expressions. There are certain poses that make every woman look good. Throughout the entire shoot, I utilize a variety of flattering poses and lighting techniques to emphasize her favorite features.

After we’re done shooting the client’s pictures in the studio, I spend an hour or two doing some basic digital editing on her proofs while she goes and has lunch or does a little shopping in nearby downtown Fort Worth while looking amazing with her hair and makeup done.

When the client’s photos are ready, she joins me back at the studio for her Premiere. This is my favorite part. I love witnessing the amazed expressions and happiness my clients experience when they see their images for the first time. The best moment is when they blurt out, “Oh my God. Is that me?” That’s the moment I’ve been working so hard towards for the past two weeks.

During her Premiere, we discuss album design and make decisions about which images she wants to order.

Days 16-30

I spend a week completing the final editing of all the images and designing either a 5×5 “Little Black Book” or a 10×10 “Bombshell Book.”

After I receive the client’s final approval on her album design and any other fine art products she has ordered, I send her order off to a professional printing lab. Then we schedule an appointment for her to pick up her order in a few days.

I love pick up day. Every client receives a cute bag with their order with a surprise from me tucked inside.

After the Experience

A boudoir photo shoot takes about 30 days to plan, execute, and deliver the final product but it doesn’t end there.

Over the course of 30 days, the women who start out as clients become friends. We stay connected after their photo shoots through phone, Facebook, and Pinterest. Some of my clients have written wonderful, touching thank you notes. Several have shared their positive experience through glowing testimonials on EveryWomanBoudoir.com. And a few extremely brave ones have allowed me to share some of their final images on the website so that other normal, everyday women can see them and think, “Maybe I can do that too.”