Who makes it happen - with a dog?
Janet Johnston 2015 Quiz Profile
President John F Kennedy never met Janet. It showed.
Addressing the Canadian Parliament on May 17th 1961, he quoted Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Burke!
Of course things are different now. And Janet isn’t the kind of person who can do nothing anyway.
In 2002 Janet and Anthony visited their youngest son working in Uganda. While they were there, Janet and Anthony decided to visit Kagando Hospital, Kagando Primary School and “Dorothy’s Orphanage” situated close by. St Paul’s Leamington Spa had raised money for these organizations at a Missionary Gift Day a few years earlier. They were shocked by what they found at the orphanage. Dorothy was looking after lots of children but really struggling to provide even basic care for them.
On their return to Leamington, they showed video footage of their visit in a church service. Aterwards, two friends approached Janet and suggested setting up something to help Dorothy with the costs of looking after all those children With help and advice from others, Janet set up the Child Sponsorship Scheme — and NOTDEC UK was born.
But here's the thing. Janet didn't stop there.
She got other people to muck in too — including a few "good men" with nothing better to do, who were doing just that — nothing! To top it all, the local gourmet butchers, Aubrey Allen, offered to help with a fundraising event and, together they agreed on a BBQ in Janet's garden — all in aid of NOTDEC Uganda.
And, especially for Shakespeare in Love fans, there's even "a bit with a dog"...
Orphaned tots need to be fed. And Janet used to have a dog called "Sasha" who needed to be walked, even on cold winter days. Could the two somehow be brought together? Could walking Sasha in the wind and wet become a source of succour and support for starving babies? Then the answer struck her — a golf ball! Sasha had found a golf ball ... there must be countless golfers who'd be happy to pay hard cash to "recycle" it. And so Janet found a way to bring together the one born every minute on a UK golf course and the one born every minute in Uganda. Since that first brainwave, she's refined the idea, with higher prices for pristine balls and prized brands. Remember that the price of golf balls can fall as well as rise, but you're pretty safe with Titleist Pro V1, at the time of writing topping the Jon Song at anything up to £1.00 a ball. To date, the sale of Golf Futures has netted NOTDEC UK over £6,000.
And that's just the dog!
But don't imagine that Janet is very busy finding sponsors in the UK, so she deserves a well-earned rest each January in Uganda. Janet's January trip is no jolly. It is solid hard work.
Giving Christmas presents to one or two children can be a joy. Giving presents to 100 is not just exhausting; with so many under five, it's an organisational nightmare — the pressure of anticipation from the children while you're getting everything ready, and the stress of needing to check before the kick-off that no child has been left out. Then there's X whose sandals turned out to be too small, Y who got a present but broke it, and Z who really needed a bra. And when all that's out of the way, there are toddlers to give the once-over, children with health or educational problems, and teenagers with adult personal issues to discuss. Janet is there for them all. In years gone by, she used to take a day off to visit the game park and relax. Now, she's seen enough elephants to last a lifetime, and she'd far rather be with the children.
Of course there's also NOTDEC Uganda's management team to fit in somewhere — to talk about school fees, someone with severe sores, someone else who was settled back with the family but then ran away, and the need to destroy the very oldest clothes so that house-mother can't keep recycling them! If this was a documentary, even the fly on the wall would throw in the towel.
No surprise then that Janet returns to the UK needing a holiday.
But in the UK there are things to do, meetings to address. Janet is responsible for the overall management of the sponsorship scheme, and for the day-to-day handling of the sponsors for 110 children. (Kay communicates with the sponsors of NOTDEC Uganda's latest 20 children.) She also works closely with Milly and her team at NOTDEC Uganda, and speaks to Milly by telephone virtually every week.
And when she has a moment, it's good to relax on the golf course, going for "a bit with a dog".
It's more profitable than a round of golf.
And it certainly beats doing nothing.