Raemers Foundation Reflections

Posted on November 22, 2024 2:55 pm

Susie Crome is one of the co-founders of The Ben Raemers Foundation, we spoke to her for some reflections about the busy year this important charity has had. The good work the foundation is doing continues to grow and evolve. This look at the year in review, in Susie’s own words, takes stock of their successes and points towards another productive year ahead. We encourage you to glance back at what has been achieved and to explore the valuable resources they have produced…

WWW.THEBENRAEMERSFOUNDATION.COM

Our first priority this year was to further develop our website. This was the initial thing we knew we needed to do in order to get the charity rolling this year, we wanted to make it more of a resource for people. We wanted it to be easily accessible, and somewhere we could showcase the work we are doing. Getting this right was a big project, our aim was to make it as easy as possible for anyone who needs help to be able to access it. There are links on there to an external website that keeps up to date about exactly where mental health support is available. We wanted to make it obvious for anyone needing help to find it. We also knew off the bat that we wanted to have a gallery of Ben, so there are loads of photos of him alongside all the skate videos he appeared in.

We also wanted it to encourage and support anyone who wanted to get involved. We want to assist anyone looking to get involved with activities in their local community because no-one knows their own community better than they do. All of the fundraising events that go on inspire and motivate others to do something themselves, something relevant to assist what’s happening locally. We wanted to make that simple so we have included a fundraising guide on the site. Lots of different people have done fundraising, runs, or events in the local community this year. Faruso [Faris Hassen] and Lucy Raemers ran the Hackney Half Marathon for instance. All of the films we have made are archived and appear prominntly on there as well. They are really helpful resources and that been so well received so it’s a good way for people to browse through those. That’s another great way of demonstrating our work.

We continued to offer counselling because we were able to carry over some of the funds from the previous year. That meant the counselling pilot project could carry on. We received funding from Vans to roll that out, it was an important one for us. We reviewed how that was run so we could learn from what had already been provided in order to improve how we offer access to counselling for people who need it. We now have four intakes of counselling every four months which allows ten people to have six free counselling sessions with a professional.

“All of the films we have made are archived…They are really helpful resources that have been so well received so it’s a good way for people to browse through those”

We received a new round of funding from Converse this year as well which was to support our Feeling Scene videos. The idea of those videos is to shine a light on local skate scenes in different places across the country. We have released one already and there’s another one in the editing stages. We hold events which in turn allow us to create a nice film exploring the scene surrounding them. There are plans in place for more of them to take place next year. We have been holding jams in the different places, and it really opens it up for younger people to get involved. We’ve received incredible support from different brands and the professionals who represent them. They have been super wholesome days that involve the whole community. When we held one in Cardiff we also ran training on the day too which worked out really well.

There is another Feeling Scene film which should come out before the end of this year which focuses on the scene in Leeds. We worked closely with Welcome Skate Shop on that one which really opened the doors for us and got everyone from the community engaged. We had a raffle supported by all of the brands, it even closed out with everyone playing a football match. We are big fans of those gatherings, we have had so much positive feedback about them being more inclusive than a competition format. People win prizes but it’s a real mix of all ages and abilities skating together. We’re grateful to everyone who has been a part of them so far and we’re looking forward to keeping them going. We also continued our Checking In film series with Korahn Gayle, another angle which will include the wider community.

Ben’s Coffee Corner, home base for the foundation at this year’s CPH Open in Athens

Events have been an integral part of our itinerary from the beginning. One huge one for us this year was CPH Open which took place in Athens, this was a really big moment for us because it’s such a prominent event in the calendar. We were heavily supported by Converse and Nike SB who wanted us to be front and centre of the whole event. We had our own programmed event which ran alongside it and took place in Ben’s Coffee Corner and it was encouraging to see that the brands, and organisers involved recognised the value of our work. It was amazing even though the event was a literal wash out because of the weather. Color Skate Shop played an essential role in that one too, they printed limited edition T-Shirts for us specifically for the event which everyone wanted and they looked amazing. It’s so nice to have that international community coming together for the greater good. That’s a big event as an example but other things that seem smaller, that aren’t these big international events, are vital too. We love to see local activities happening and it’s amazing to see some of them maintained like the Coping Festival in Manchester, it’s important to us that they want to continue doing it. Seeing the work showcased in all of these different environments means we are reaching a widening audience.

We even did the Chelsea Flower Show this year. thanks to our friends at Planet Good Earth. That is obviously a bit off-piste at first glance as far as its relevance. It wasn’t what people would expect but the idea was to show the wider world the power of the skateboarding community. It showed how people could be connected by the physical environment they coexist in.

It was really fun, and obviously great seeing [Danny] Brady with Deborah Meaden from Dragon’s Den on National Television. We were involved in the City Mill event at UCL. It was at a community skateboarding festival which also had an academic component. Lots of different academics involved in skateboarding got to discuss the work they were doing.

We teamed up with Vans for all of their Shop Riot events this year and we are going to be part of the finals too. Every shop who were mailed to take part in the contest also received an information pack about the foundation. This was to raise awareness of ourselves and the resources we offer, and to encourage them to take the Suicide First Aid training. Lots of them shared those resources and had them on display in their respective shops which is really nice. It’s great to have that there and we want to encourage as many people as possible to visit the website.

We held some Writing Towards Well-Being workshops the year before, the first ones were online. This year we rolled that out further and held them at Vladimir Film Festival and also at Leipzig. It was great to be able to offer those courses for people at the festival. Following those workshops we’ve made a zine with insights from different people who were involved. It’s nice to be able to make this ephemera to go alongside the work, it also exposes it to people who weren’t there. These will be going out to shops around the UK this week. They are another thing people can take something from which may be helpful to their own practice.

“Our Suicide Prevention training really cuts to the conversation, it informs you about exactly what you can do”

During the winter months we like to focus a lot more on the training side of things. More people are at home, it’s dark, and we want to make that training available to people because we can deliver that to them wherever they are. Our Suicide Prevention training really cuts to the conversation, it informs you about exactly what you can do. It’s three-and-a-half hours, not a whole day so people can take that time out from the comfort of their home and be equipped to help someone else afterwards. We also offer training in-person where we can. It’s reaching more people, we ran the training program with 35th and North out in Seattle for instance. We also ran some Suicide First Aid training out in Inverness for a Well-Being program the local university there instigated with the skateboarding community. The most recent company we have run training with is Passport out in Australia. Trent Evans who founded Passport back in 2009 had this to say about this valuable resource…

“Talking about suicide in any capacity can be challenging. Myself and the staff were beyond grateful to have Susie from The Ben Raemers Foundation run a suicide prevention training with us all. To openly and comfortably discuss all the various factors around this issue was incredibly powerful. Susie guided us all through the various techniques and tools to help assist anyone who may be in need. I personally look forward to working with The Ben Raemers Foundation further to help educate the greater community both in our hometowns and globally”

Susie Crome heading up a Suicide First Aid training course at the Grove DIY

Another thing we instigated around training was the 100 Learner Challenge. We wanted to get 100 people trained between World Suicide Prevention Day and World Mental Health Day. This wasn’t as successful as we would have liked. Over 150 people applied but people didn’t turn up and took up space that could have been filled by someone else. We’re going to have to reassess how we offer this next year as it’s not the most efficient way of delivering it. However, during that timespan we had one person get back to us who had received the training. On the same day as they were trained they used the skills they had learned, reached out to someone who was considering suicide, and ensured that there was safety in place for them. We managed to train 72 people in one month in the end so we may not have hit that 100 learner target on the first attempt, but that one piece of feedback proved just how valuable this training really is. If any skate shops, parks, crews, or teams want the training, wherever they may be in the world, we encourage them to contact us.

“On the same day as they were trained they used the skills they had learned, reached out to someone who was considering suicide, and ensured that there was safety in place for them”

We have continued to produce our own merch which has proven popular and helps to raise funds for the foundation. Nick [Sharratt] at Palomino has been helping with that. The more people wearing those T-Shirts the better, it keeps us in mind for anyone out there. We love seeing the stickers slapped up in as many places as possible, they have a QR code on the so hopefully that is another way to spark conversations.

Instagram has been such a helpful tool for us from the very beginning. We make sure we have a rotation of content on there: mental health advice, Suicide Prevention information, and legacy pictures and videos of Ben. We also like to highlight local support that’s available in different places. There are so many things available to people that they may not know about so it’s a good platform to spread that awareness.

The mental health advice on there aims to take the whole picture of a blanket term, it’s a holistic approach to it. We realise that certain things don’t work for everyone so having as much information on there addressing many factors that can have an adverse affect on our mental health is important. It’s about putting that stuff out there so it can become part of the conversation. That’s why we have featured some of our social media posts on the website because those infographics can be resources by themselves. That’s why we include things like sleep, and healthy eating. We try to take as much of an evidence-based approach as possible. We receive a lot of feedback saying that our resources or the information we have put out there has made a different to their lives so it’s really encouraging.

Having adverts in the magazines is such a gift. We now have access to these spaces that have historically been reserved for the latest products. Now we have a back page in the magazines with an advert on how to prevent suicide. That’s just fucking amazing isn’t it? It’s such a powerful thing. We have been offered pages by Vague, The Skateboarder’s Companion, Grey, and Free. Having access to their reach is incredible. We have a great relationship with Thrasher too. They have a yearly Death Match event and for the last two years all of the proceeds from their ticket sales go to the Foundation which is a heavy donation. They have been really supportive. Lots of brands have supported us with products for all of the events we run. Keen Distribution, Palace, Shiner Distribution, Slugger. Then there are all of the UK shops we continue to work with. We are grateful for all of the ongoing support we receive.

Another project that we are looking forward to seeing comes from the good people at Skate PTG over in Poland. They are creating this book called Hey, How Are You? it focuses on six Polish skaters and their struggles with mental health. They are crowdfunding the money to be able to print the book and then all of the proceeds from sales will go to the foundation. It’s such an amazing thing to do, and we are so happy to see the message reaching so much further afield in such a constructive way.

THE YEAR AHEAD

At the beginning of this year we onboarded some new trustees, and by doing that we were able to set a new strategic plan built around working collaboratively with a larger group of people beyond the original four of us. More people means more ideas, and people bringing in what they think might be needed from a different perspective. We have someone in place who is an accountant, someone who set up and runs a skateboarding charity already, Rob who used to work for Converse Cons and has experience of working in the corporate skateboarding world, Chris Jones, and someone who is a professional fundraiser. Having people with experience in all of those different areas has helped us, and will continue to help us tackle a three year plan we have in place

We are excited about next year already and there are a lot of things in the pipeline. We have two new SMiLe films which are currently being edited which we are hoping to launch in February. We would have liked to release some this year but they take a long time to bring to fruition in the best way. We have this real drive to get everything done but are conscious of the fact that we are working with other people’s timelines. Sometimes it takes a bit longer to get things together but we can’t wait for people to see the latest films, they will be a great way to start the year. We are also excited that it promises to be the first time one of our films is premiered outside of the UK. We’re grateful to everyone who has been a part of what we have organised so far and we’re looking forward to keeping everything rolling.

Please visit The Ben Raemers Foundation website for links to everything discussed and follow their Instagram for regular updates. You are also able to make donations and buy merchandise.. The photos of Ben that appear above were shot by Alex Irvine and Jaime Owens respectively.Thanks to Tom Critchley for the photo of Susie Crome training the local crew at the Grove DIY