Rick Williams, Organiser, Crusade for Mental Health
Rick Willliams is a well-known figure in the New Zealand miniature painting community. Inspired by his father’s a life-long love of scale modelling, Rick was building and painting models as a child, and like many of us took a long break and returned to painting in the form of Warhammer 40k about six years ago. While Rick has not yet played a game of 40k, he enjoys painting models as a creative outlet, and finds it is a great way to ‘get out of your head’. Some will know him from his activity in the Warhammer 40k NZ Facebook Group, his history in commission painting, but especially for organising the Crusade for Mental Health in 2021; a community funded, built, and painted Black Templars army which was auctioned off for the ‘I Am Hope’ charity. He and the community are back at it again this year, this time with a Blood Angels army, for which the auction has just gone live on eBay. Rick has kindly agreed to be talk to us about this initiative, enjoy the interview!
Blood Angels Chief Librarian, Mephiston
Parker Hobbies: Could you tell me what the crusade mental health is all about?
Rick: So the crusade for mental health originally, in my head, started as us reaching out to each other within our hobby. I knew a few people within the New Zealand Warhammer community struggle with mental health, whether that's depression, from injury, or even high stress which can be a big cause for mental health problems. I personally use the as a hobby as an outlet, so I thought why don't we take it a step further?
A few years ago a member of the community James Edward brown had a friend that had cancer, and he did a very similar thing. The community worked on and sold an army to raise funds for his friend to help pay some bills while he couldn't work because of the cancer. Unfortunately he passed away, but it was good to see the community do something like that. I took his idea and then married it up with mental health. The crusade for mental health was built from there.
I figured that a lot of us older people have kids coming through, that's why I thought the charity, ‘I Am Hope’, would be the best option, because unfortunately, the teenage suicide rate in New Zealand is one of the highest in the world. In a previous role, where I was working in the health sector, unfortunately, I had to deal with a lot of the awful side of suicide and put a lot of people away into the morgue – so this is something that I hold kind of close to me. We should be doing something about mental health, for ourselves, and for our younger generation coming through, they need that support.
Blood Angel Commander Dante with his Sanguinary Guard
Parker Hobbies: Could you tell us more about the charity, ‘I Am Hope’?
Rick: They do quite a lot. They go around high schools speaking to the kids, and offering these services to the schools in order to connect with at-risk teens through free counselling sessions. They talk to the students about mental health as well and how they need to talk about how they're feeling rather than just kind of bottling and all up until it's too late. I would recommend watching some of Mike King’s recent interviews to get a better idea of what they are doing.
It's been rough, they're pushing the boundaries on trying to get funding out there for mental health care, where it's just so hard and shocking to actually get by unless you can afford to pay for a counsellor or a psychologist. A lot of people are waiting six months to get an appointment just to see a counsellor, and then you only get maybe five appointments, that's often not enough.
Even after receiving treatment for an emergency situation where you visit the hospital, you will probably still be getting sent away. There's not a lot of support out there. ‘I am hope’ does a lot of its work for teenagers and people in their early 20s, and the service they provide is free, which we don't have a lot of in New Zealand. As far as I'm concerned, if we can raise 100 bucks or 1,000 bucks, it's about $100 an hour for a counsellor. If we can fund 10 sessions for at-risk teenagers, we could potentially save a life, and that person could potentially save more.
Parker Hobbies: How have you found the community support this year?
Rick: It has been absolutely fantastic. Everyone that's been involved in it has been hugely supportive. Whether it's donating models, time, even just coming into the group and saying, “hey, you know, you guys doing fantastic.” This year we have a GiveaLittle page which has already received $260 of donations. This is a good start, but I am hoping that in future years, we can double, triple the size of the donations we are making.
The community seems to be right behind it, and I think that's mainly because there are so many of us that either suffer from mental health issues, or know someone that does. I haven't seen a bad comment from anyone about it, to be honest. I think people are going to want to buy into it now because they know that it's going towards something good, and it's helping each other as well.
Blood Angel Impulsor tank, ready to deliver marines to the front line
Parker Hobbies: Are you pleased with the army the community has amassed this time around?
Rick: Absolutely. It is not quite as big as last year’s Black Templar army, but I think this year the quality of painting went right up. It has been a pleasure to watch the army come together this year, and there have been a couple of codices donated too.
Blood Angel Sanguinary Priest
Parker Hobbies: Could you tell me about the relationship between mental health and the hobbies of miniature painting and wargaming?
Rick: People who suffer from mental health struggles need a timeout, somewhere where they're not stuck in their head thinking about what's going on in their life. I have found people find that modelling of any sort, whether it's scale models, Warhammer any of the other various types, gives them a way to kind of switch off - this is an outlet that's constructive.
If they're playing a war game, then go hang out with some like-minded people and it takes the mind off the woes for half an hour, however long it is. If you have a good little hobby going on, it's actually really good for people. I know that there is people like this in the Warhammer community, and I can guarantee you the scale modelling communities are the same. We all need to look out for each other within our communities.
Blood Angel Biker Squad
Parker Hobbies: What are the plans going forward for the crusade?
Rick: At this stage all I can say is that there will be a big change in terms of what army we're doing. There will be a lot more choice for people, and I'm hoping that that brings in a lot more interest from others within the community. If we keep doing the same space marines over and over it could get kind of boring. Next year there will be a big change, I will be getting a website organised, doing another Facebook page, we've got an Instagram page now. We may even go international! Let’s see how we go.
Parker Hobbies: If people are interested in bidding on this auction, or in joining in the next one, where should they go?
Rick: So the auction has just gone live on eBay. Hosting the auction here enables a larger audience than TradeMe which was limited to New Zealand and other Kiwis living internationally. eBay will hopefully ramp up our access to the wider Warhammer community and get our story out there. If anyone would like to join the group we have a Facebook page which is crusade for mental health.
Parker Hobbies: Thank you for your time Rick and all you are doing for the community, all the best for the auction!
Crusade for Mental Health Givealittle page: https://givealittle.co.nz/fundraiser/crusade-for-mental-health
Crusade for Mental Health eBay auction listing: https://www.ebay.com/itm/134326621418?hash=item1f467d94ea:g:df8AAOSwiepjcRkl&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAsGzVH71sR%2BsM7%2F6n6WVu5h23%2FcXW6c5wHz2thZwk6G1YwNPQ9aEIJHhuD%2Fm%2Ff%2BqvIU3vOlhClsgy2mH1jXG1OTImmdPYwVDnwF3wtvgSKb7S9HixvkrnEcKj9CANwDIhh4j6ZaYrVLqXloCV3gam2JF2f14cvhQi%2F3bl1oM24LcdgiN8St3NY%2B7xTdmZdN45w7yqh2dXZNITaZYqWXJys359sdONVH5qRys2p2TqBYdg%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR_6t86uPYQ
Crusade for Mental Health Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1033122413895965