Congratulations to our President Mike Slade for receiving his OBE this week for services to LandAid!
We want to extend a huge wish of thanks to Mike for all of his contributions to LandAid and our mission of ending youth homelessness over the years.
Mike Slade, who passed away earlier this week was larger than life in so many ways, but few more so than in his exuberant and passionate support for LandAid and for tackling youth homelessness.
Paul Morrish, LandAid’s Chief Executive, shares a few words in tribute to Mike and the mark he left at LandAid.
He led the charity’s renaissance in the 1990s with a typical mix of steely determination and relentless badgering wrapped in twinkly-eyed charm and kindness. He fervently believed that those who did (and had done) well, should give back to those who had less, and LandAid became a vehicle to enable the industry he loved, to do so at scale, and with intent.
But it wasn’t just what he did, it was the way he did things that we will all remember. Riding around Mayfair with the ‘Helicalettes’ on a Pedibus collecting donations from friends in the industry, his booming voice clearing congestion half-a mile ahead; fresh from a busy day’s fundraising and arriving late at a formal dinner of The Worshipful Company of Chartered Surveyors, to which he had been invited as Guest of Honour, crawling under the tables to the lectern, dressed as Buzz Lightyear, where he promptly got everyone present to donate to LandAid – he brought a very unique but consistently flamboyant approach to his fundraising.
But there was a serious side to Mike too – moved by the experiences of young people facing homelessness just meters from the first building he developed, he worked for several years (and made a huge personal donation) to champion a new 146-bed housing project near Old Street now called, aptly enough, LandAid House. He was awarded an OBE for services to charity in 2019, particularly his work with LandAid and his £1 million gift towards the LandAid House.
A trustee of the charity for many years, and a kind, patient support to me as a new CEO, he became LandAid’s Lifetime President in later life. He was a genuine ‘character’, leaving an indelible mark on our industry and on all those with whom he worked.
But that mark is as nothing to the legacy he left for the hundreds of young people who benefited through LandAid from his passionate generosity, and will do for generations to come.
We will miss Mike hugely, and our thoughts and condolences are with Heather, and their children, Kate, Max and Hugo.
