The Chairman of SHRADS, Nick Keeler, sadly lost his wife to cancer in 2004 and during the latter stages of her illness
she was cared for by St. Peters Hospice in Bristol. Since that time Nick has been raising money for them so that they
can continue the excellent work that they do in the community for the terminally ill. Several years ago he noticed that although
SHRADS members were finding a lot of lead whilst out on club digs most of this was being discarded. He then asked members
to collect any lead that they recovered and donate it to him so that it could be cashed in for its scrap value at a
local scrap metal dealer. Every meeting and club dig he provides a big orange bucket for any lead which varies from
small fragments from Roman sites to modern piping etc, it is then cleaned and sorted. So far to September 2023 he has collected over 1122
kilos (that is over 176 stone) which together with 159kg of Brass (25st) and 133kg of Copper (194s) plus items sold on Ebay, book sales and generous member donations (from Treasure finds) has been
turned into £ 5,000 for St Peters Hospice.
If all ARMD affiliated clubs were to do something similar then we believe that a lot of money could be raised for
good causes of your choosing. All that is required is a willing volunteer to collect lead from members and then deal
with your local scrap merchant.
Many thanks to those SHRADS members who have contributed to this good cause as well as those who have bid and donated via Ebay
over the past year and Nick looks forward to collecting more lead for the next donation.
