STT takes part in the British 10k

On Sunday the 10th July a team of runners took part in the London 10k run. There were around 26,000 people taking part and included over 500 charities! The run takes in some of the most famous and best loved sights of London...Westminster, Big Ben, the River Thames and the Savoy :) It is a 10km route, mainly flat but with some useful downhill moments. I was lucky to have a partner in crime to complete the race with, otherwise I'm not sure I would've made it all the way around...(huge thanks Ann).
As last year in the Great South Run the STT team comprised of runners (and joggers) of mixed genders, ages and ethnicities...with our youngest runner this year being 21 and the oldest...well that would be telling wouldn't it (71 and proud!!). We were also delighted to have our local MP, David Lammy, striding out in front. After completing the race in one hour and four minutes David said:
"I am very pleased to be supporting Sunseed Tanzania today. I have been training hard and greatly enjoyed running with the team in the knowledge that the money we raise is going to such as good cause".
To name all of the motley crew would be a bit over the top (you know who you are - Ann, Kath, Nabil, Jamie, Ellie and David) but I send them a great big thank you for taking part and helping to raise some much needed funds for STT.
The fastest of the crew was Jamie with a time of only 56mins (run Forest run...) and the slowest, predictably was myself at a snails pace of 1hr 32min. I am seeing this as an opportunity for improvement next year...and if you think you could do better we would love to have you on the team to show us how :)
The total raised comes to just over £2000!! A huge big thank you our supporters and especially our families who sponsor us in these crazy endeavours :)
Preperation has already started for the British 10k 2012 - we need runners and sponsors. The race is some way off, but please contact me as soon as possible if you would like to take part  - admin@sunseedtanzania.org

Pete completes the Edinburgh marathon

On the 22nd May 2011 Pete Baillie, son of our treasurer (Kerr Baillie), took part in the Edinburgh marathon. This is the letter he sent to our Chair ...

I’m 38 and did this as a kind of mid-life crisis, ‘must do before 40’ sort of challenge. Or possibly ‘must do while I can’ challenge. I’ve been training since the middle of January, clocking up 67 training runs totalling 756km or roughly 18 Marathons in preparation. Training has been done on work time at lunch, at night on rainy winter days running the country lanes around my house with a head-torch on and at weekends taking an ever increasing chunk out of family time. Luckily, living near the coast and having had a few nice weather Sundays towards the end of training, the inevitable long Sunday runs have been from my house and down to a beautiful local beach to meet up with my wife Claire and 18 month old son Lachlan for a few picnics and playing on the beach.

I was determined to do it in under 4 hours (good enough to not ‘need’ to do it again any faster)! And I was determined to raise as much money as I could for the charity that my father has supported for so long. This has been a present from me to him and a tribute to all of his hard work and dedication over the years at least as much as it is an effort on behalf of a worthy charity in itself. Thanks go to my colleagues at work who have covered me while I dug into the working day for training and for their sponsorship, and to all the many friends and family who all generously contributed. Thanks also go to my wife Claire who supported me and pushed me out on training runs on days when I didn’t feel like it or had other things that seemed more pressing and to Lachlan who was always delighted to see me when I got home or to the beach.

The day itself was tough. I had flu a week before the race so that knocked the end off my training schedule and put a few doubts in my mind as to how strong I was going to be and the weather felt tough. A strong headwind for the last third of the race and some freezing squalls of rain really drenched me and slowed me down but looking on the bright side, the day after the race the weather was truly appalling! The country ground to a halt under cancelled trains and fallen trees in storm force winds and torrential rain so I was actually very lucky with both the conditions and the support of Claire, Lachlan and my family on route, plus great crowds along the way. All this got me over the finish line in just under 3 hours 52 so I’m delighted to have hit both objectives of raising money and getting in under the magical 4 hour mark.

Pete Baillie

The Institutional Energy Programme

In January 2011 STT launched, with the encouragement of the Regional Administrative Secretary (the most senior civil servant in the Dodoma Region), an additional programme; the Institutional Energy Programme (IEP).

The aim of the IEP is to provide:
      ~   an institutional sized Rocket stove to primary schools and orphanages in the Dodoma urban area

   ~   a tree seedling or plant seedling nursery and, where there is enough room, a trial plot where children can grow horticultural or field crops which are inoculated with mychorrhiza.
This work will be supported by training relevant staff and children in how to establish and maintain the nurseries and plots.
As the Dodoma urban area incorporates 91 state primary schools and 14 orphanages STT has set itself a considerable task. The initial planning for the pilot school and pilot orphanage is now underway. This will be followed by an audit of the schools and orphanages and the development of a strategic plan for completing the IEP.




Boil tests have been completed to examine the benefits of using these industrial stoves.




The Boil Test

To thoroughly cook most foods, the temperature of a cooking device has to be above 80 degrees centigrade.  The boil test utilised helps measure how long a stove can maintain heat. It also shows how quickly the stove is able to heat up and how quickly it cools down.

1) The stove testing times contains 2 phases: one hour to fully heat the stove and one hour when no fuel is added to the stove.

2) To start the boil test, a fire is made that can reach the boiling point quickly. Afterwards, fuel is evenly distributed for the remainder of the first hour.

3) The amount of water boiled should always be the same (2 litres for family stoves, 15 litres for community stoves).

4) The fuel is distributed into two separate piles and weighed before the boil test. For our boil test, we used 7.5kg of fuel per stove.

5) The evaporated water is measured in the event that a "Percentage of Heat Utilized" figure needs to be calculated.

However, the objective of the BTF is not to evaporate water, but to heat up water quickly and to keep it above 80°C over an extended period of time in relation to a fixed amount of water and a fixed amount of fuel. [i]



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