Thank You!

Let’s start this week with some good news. We have received thank you messages from our 4 charities from the Radio One Mallorca Radiothon.

Nick From Yachting Gives Back said, “Huge thanks for your support. These funds will allow us to do a great deal to help people in need and will be put to very good use. That would be a brilliant result in any circumstance but in these times it really is outstanding so well done all round.

I know better than anyone how much effort it takes to raise such sums, and how many kind individual donations are involved, and I look forward to posting updates on FB to show where the money has been used.”

My sons and I have done two food collection Saturday’s at Eroski since the Radiothon. They’re always looking for volunteers to help so please contact them via their website or Facebook. It’s only for two hours and gives an enormous help to Asociación Tardor who do all the cooking of the meals.

Laura from Great Ormond Street said, “We at GOSH are absolutely ecstatic to receive the Radiothon’s incredible donation.

This gift will make an enormous difference at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital and help the hospital continue the world-class care it’s renowned for. The money you have collectively raised will go towards funding pioneering research, hospital redevelopment, life-saving equipment and family services.

 I wanted to share some examples of how the money raised makes an incredible difference at GOSH:

Please do pass on an enormous thank you to everyone who very generously donated to the Radiothon this year. With the Radiothon’s support Great Ormond Street Hospital can continue to provide a brighter future for seriously ill children.”

I am very proud that the money raised for Great Ormond Street has passed the 750,000€ barrier. Having been there from the start with the Pirates Premieres and visited the hospital on numerous occasions, we can’t thank you enough.

Krista and Rebecca from Cancer Support Group Mallorca said “CSG Mallorca would like to give a massive thanks to Radio One for the money donated to our charity,  we are so grateful that you made us beneficiaries of the money raised at your Radiothon this year. It is so selfless of you to devote so much time and energy to raising money for ourselves and the other worthy causes that you donated the money to. We will ensure to put the money received to good use, it will help us with the general running and expenses of the charity, as well as to provide cancer patients with the specific care they need. We are hoping that from September we will be able to open our drop in centres again in Son Espases and Son LLatzer, and we hope to finalise our agreement at Manacor hospital and negotiate one with Inca hospital, so will be looking for more volunteers to cover those areas, if anyone in the North or East is interested in helping please contact us.”

After interviewing both Krista and Rebecca, the message is to spread the word that they do exist and are always on hand to help people here on the Island.

Last week I went for a meeting to discuss the donation to Son Espases. I met with Maria Hernandez Coronado the Sub Director of Medical Services and Juan Carlos González, the Head of Communication. They are going to send me a list of projects in the UCI for children and the pediatric ward too. We will then make a decision on where we think the money should go.

Thanks again for an amazing effort in helping us, as you can see from above this is helping a lot of people in lots of different ways.

Last Saturday evening we were sat on the roof terrace of Can Pedro restaurant in Genova celebrating our Son Jude’s 11th birthday. When all of a sudden my phone lit up with messages. It couldn’t be Arsenal losing as that game was on Sunday, so what was it? The final nail in the coffin of this years tourist season here in Mallorca had been announced by the UK Government. All travellers who were in or going to Spain would have to quarantine for two weeks upon their return.

They weren’t even giving you a few days grace, it was happening at midnight. Utterly mad and I don’t know anybody who can understand the decision. Even their own transport secretary had just arrived in Spain. Surely the Cabinet were talking to each other?

These were the official numbers up to the 23rd of July, since the pandemic started. This was taken from the official Government website (GOIB)

Mallorca: Active cases: 86, recovered cases: 1812, deaths: 204.

Ibiza: Active cases: 9, recovered cases: 193, deaths: 13.

Menorca: Active cases: 9, recovered cases: 86, deaths: 12.

Formentera: Active cases: 8, recovered cases: 7, deaths: 1.

The current numbers in Mallorca taken on Thursday 30th of July from the Ultima Hora are, 52 in hospital, of which 6 are in intensive care and 234 are self isolating at home and being looked after by the Primary Care Centre.

With those current numbers, why the UK Government wouldn’t discuss air corridors for the Balearics is beyond me. The only thing I can think of is something has happened at the Brexit negotiations and Spain are playing hardball with a part of the agreement. I’m surmising of course, but how quickly it was rushed in I can’t see another reason.

One of the papers though this week was reporting that with Britons potentially avoiding a holiday abroad this summer, “staycations” could boost the national economy by £3.7bn. That could be another reason. In fact while I’m writing this I’ve heard a traffic report in the UK of a 20 mile queue on the M5 heading into the West Country. That’s basically from Palma to Inca!

According to the Metro this week, just one person has been fined for breaching quarantine rules after arriving from abroad, new figures from England and Wales show. The data from the National Police Chiefs’ Council comes after British holidaymakers in Spain were told they would have to self-isolate for 14 days after returning to the UK. Under the new foreign arrival rules, only one fine has been issued by Lincolnshire Police. It was one of only eight coronavirus related fixed penalty notices handed out in England in the two weeks to July 20th with none in Wales.

It’s a sad state of affairs and the fallout for the tourist industry on the island could be catastrophic. Lots of people have worked very hard to get their businesses open only for it to be cruelly taken away.

2020 has so far been a year to forget, hopefully we can look forward to better times ahead.

Take care everyone and enjoy your weekend!

Richie presents the Radio One Mallorca Breakfast show Monday to Friday07.30-11http://www.radioonemallorca.com.00am on 93.8fm in Mallorca and 102fm in Calvià, online at on mobile through their free App for IPhone & Android, The Tunein Radio App, iTunes, the Spanish TDT TV service and all smart speakers. If you can’t hear him on the radio then you’ll find him working at Pirates Adventure the islands number one night out and every now and again he may make an understudy appearance!

Follow him on Twitter @DadTaxi1 & Instagram @dad.taxi or feel free to email him at rprior@globobalear.com