Brotherhood of Beards raises £7,467 in aid of Blesma in first of two gaming streams

A group of gamers from all over the world have come together to raise funds for Blesma through lengthy live streams.

Brotherhood of Beards (BOBs), which includes British Army Veteran David Speer and Michael Wolstencoft, brother of Blesma Member Warren Wolstencroft who sadly died of cancer in 2013, fundraising efforts have so far raised seven times their targeted amount with still another event to come this weekend!

David said: “BOBs was brought together five years ago. It’s a home for us to play games together, but last Christmas we set out to give something back. We raised £46,000 for Save The Children through a big event in connection with some gaming companies.

“This year, we set out on our own, so wasn’t expecting to raise very much. We decided if we were able to give Blesma £1,000 before Christmas we would be happy, but we had audiences of up to 16,000 watching and raised over £7,000.”

The group, which has been joined by 1500 gamers on Discord and also interacts on Teams Speak as well as organising events in real life, has attracted Military Veterans from across the world and when Michael suggest raising funds for Blesma in memory of his brother, the charity seemed an obvious choice.

Warren served with the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment for 8 years. He contracted a rare form of cancer in his right hand which led to the amputation in 2000 of his right arm below the below. Warren took on multiple challenges from running the Great North run to trekking through the Nicaraguan jungle, totalling up an estimated £30k in aid of Blesma.

Michael said: “Warren did a lot of fundraising for Blesma after the charity helped him so much. With the pandemic, the annual charity football match that Warren started off for Blesma hasn’t gone ahead, so this is the best I could do myself to give back to Blesma. We have all worked very hard on the event and I’m proud of it.”

David added: “BOBs is more than just playing games together. Computer games are used for escapism. There is the stigma that men shouldn’t cry, and men shouldn’t talk or complain but BOBs sets a place out to say you should and you should reach out and we will help where we can and refer you where we can.”

BOBs will be live streaming this weekend from Saturday (18^th ) at 9pm to 1am on Sunday. They are hoping to raise their new target of £10,000. You can watch the start of the stream here - https://www.twitch.tv/GrumblesTheDwarf