Pat Nagle
- Self-Employed, Interim Project/Programme Manager
- 15+ years’ experience in Project/Programme Delivery in Healthcare and Defence
- 7 years Army Reservist
- Co-opted Board Member of St Peter’s Hospice
- Advisory Board Member of From Bristol with Love for Ukraine
Session | From Bristol with Love for Ukraine
Background
In late 2022, I organised a charity auction and gala dinner in Bristol, raising more than £8,000 for St Peter’s Hospice. I had invited the CEO of the Hospice, a retired Brigadier, as the guest speaker. Over dinner, he told me that he was preparing to drive a van load of aid across Europe as a volunteer on behalf of a grassroots charity, From Bristol with Love for Ukraine. Immediately inspired, I contact the charity the following week and signed myself up as a Transporter.
The charity operates on nothing but goodwill from a small network of volunteers. The husband and wife that run the charity take no salaries and they rely wholly on volunteers to collect donations and self-fund missions to hire vans and drive the aid from Bristol to the Romanian border with Ukraine. Needing a driving partner to accompany me, I began calling round friends and ended up persuading three other guys to join me, allowing us to take two vans and drive in pairs.
Project
The route from Bristol to Suceava, in the North East corner of Romania, covers around 1,700 miles each way. We calculated that we would need around £2,500 per van, to cover rental costs, fuel, channel crossings and toll roads. We agreed that we would self-fund our own food and accommodation for the 6-day trip.
I set up a Just Giving page and began promoting the mission to friends, family and colleagues at work and in my Army Reserve unit and in 3 months managed to raise £6,000 for the mission. This not only paid for the van rental, but also funded 4 pallets of food aid that we purchased from a Cash and Carry near the Ukraine border, that our Ukrainian counterparts were also able to collect and distribute to communities that had been cut off or displaced by the war.
Like any well-run project, this required a lot of careful planning in advance – well thought out kit lists, timings of channel crossings, route plans, compliance with various European countries’ toll roads, freight restrictions, accommodation, feeding, emergency response plans. It’s become almost second nature to me now, but, in hindsight, I realise I was compiling project schedules, risk plans, change procedures and RAID logs in my head!
The journey itself was relatively routine, but it was surprising just how exhausting it can be, driving for 14 hours a day for several days in a row. Apart from a small prang with a concrete bollard in Calais, the biggest drama was getting stopped for speeding across what I thought was a defunct border crossing between Slovakia and Hungary. My advanced negotiating skills came in handy and the border guard eventually allowed us through with a small “fine”.
On the morning of the 4th day, we rose early to meet a team from Ukraine in the car park of a Cash and Carry in Suceava. This team of volunteers receives no government support, but a junior minister ensures they are issued passes to cross the border and they share frequent videos on social media to show where each assignment of aid ends up. Unfortunately, it turned out they didn’t speak English, so I found myself acting as a patchy interpreter with my stilted GCSE-level Russian.
We transferred more than 3 tonnes of generators, medical aid, warm clothing, camping gear and hygiene products into their vans, plus 4 pallet loads of dried pasta and soup. It was all very light hearted and we were genuinely elated after 3 days on the road to have finally completed our part of the mission. But, as soon as we started to say our goodbyes, the mood became incredibly sombre. One of the Ukrainians, a fit and capable soldier, was moved to tears as he thanked us for our support and extended a personal invite to host us in Chernivtsy when the war was over. This really brought home the reality of the situation and it was tough for us all to stand there and wave them off back to their war.
Follow-up
In many ways, it was an enjoyable and rewarding experience, yet surprisingly tiring and emotionally draining. However, I realised that working with small charities like these is one of the most tangible ways to support the plight of the people of Ukraine, and it encouraged me to do more. I became a real advocate for the charity and was later taken on as an Advisory Member to the Board.
I have continued to promote the experience and have encouraged several other friends to undertake the same journey. In the last 18 months, I have coordinated 6 more Transporter missions, fundraising nearly £20,000 and overseeing the delivery of some 15 tonnes of aid.
The fact that the occupation and assault on Ukraine continues after more than 3 years is utterly devastating, but I feel lucky to be in a position to lend my time and skills to a charity that has made a small but significant difference to the lives of many Ukrainians. And, just as I was inspired by someone to get involved, I’m proud that others have, in turn, been inspired to carry it on.