Guest Post: The Loz Project

I've done pretty well with guest posts recently, a stonker from Luke on the Zimmerman trial, and a great new worship song from Josh. Now and then, though, I like to use my blog to share stories of what friends are doing, and so today I'd love to introduce a friend, Loz, and his cause, which is providing water to people who need it, but in a rather more interesting way than you might expect...

The Loz Project and Trek

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears. This is neither a book review nor a post concerning some contemporary theological conundrum. No this post concerns me. It doesn’t concern me in the sense that I’m worried about something but rather it concerns me in the sense that it is about me. Although right now it is about semantics but I digress.

The Author's Normal Visage

Earlier this (academic) year, whilst on the course of duty as a member of staff in a Students’ Union, I was approached by some students who persuaded me to join them on an adventure. That adventure was to raise funds through sponsorship for a trek along an ancient Inca trail to the ruins of Machu Picchu. These were not your average students and this was not your average trek. These students were from the International Development Society and this trek was in aid of a small and little known (but brilliant) charity called Dig Deep Africa who you can also find on Facebook. I have chosen this particular charity for my fundraising efforts as they are small but effective and distinctive. They are particularly distinctive in the way that they place a particular emphasis on seeking to empower the communities that they work with. Additionally as they are so small, you can see the handful of projects which they have running and therefore you can have a greater idea of exactly what donations will go towards.

Generally I have a bit of a reputation for eccentricity. During the Christmas period it's not unheard of for me to go to work dressed as Father Christmas. On nights out with the university rugby team, I skipped the alcohol but picked up a banana/shark/penguin costume and threw down some serious shapes on the dance floor.

As you might expect from someone who has these sorts of characteristics, I take quite a relaxed view on personal appearance (and at one stage on personal hygiene too...). Consequently I stopped shaving regularly several years ago and haven't paid for a haircut in over a decade (Gillette Mach 3 does the job for free!) I was therefore faced with a conundrum... Shaving my head and wearing fancy dress would not hold any water for friends who knew me well. I needed another option... that option was the Loz Project.

I decided that instead of trying to do something daft and weird for normal people, I'd do something daft and weird for abnormal me. I'd go conventional, in fact not just conventional but positively formal! The more money that was raised the better dressed I'd become (I even started washing my hair with shampoo and conditioner regularly). I developed a system of progressive targets which each had a conventional forfeit attached to them, for example a total of £200 of donations prompted a week of suit wearing and later on £1000 resulted in me buying some black shoes to wear with the suit (as opposed to the flip-flops which had been worn with the suit up until that point).

 The grim results of charity...

As a result of 'The Loz Project' I have met the goal of £1500 with more money still coming in as I write! Now I should also add that I couldn't have done it without some generous family donations and a supportive church family. However both family and friends were very keen to see the transformation as evidenced by the donations and the explosion of comments and 'Likes' that have appeared after I posted up a photo of myself transformed into wearing a suit, new black shoes, umbrella, briefcase, clean shaven and with a haircut. So far I have raised £1,518 and over 130 people have ‘Liked’ my most recent photo of the new transformed me. However if I raise £2,000 I have pledged to wear the suit, bowler hat, umbrella and briefcase on the trek itself. 

A rather neater, smarter, trek-ready Loz...

If you’d like to see that happen, then please join the madness and donate online where you can also find out more about the charity and also about my nutty fundraising efforts –http://www.justgiving.com/TheLozProjectandTrek.

Loz Oliphant

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So there you have it! If you wonder why it matters that Loz do this, that people need water, and generally why anyone cares about anyone, you may like to read a post from this week, about the Image of God in every person.