Justgiving's blog

Justgiving on Channel 4

Justgiving featured on the Channel 4 news on Friday 29th Sept in a story about the growth of online fundraising. If you missed it, you can view the story here - then click on "watch the report" (note: you'll have to endure a short advert before you see John-boy Snow, but it's worth it...honest).

The report follows the success of the YAA fundraising page set up by a Top Gear fan after Richard Hammond's crash last Wednesday. The page is our best performing to date raising £190,000 (including Gift Aid) in just 7 days.

Andy's Marathon Blog - Part 4

Well, the day is almost upon me. Just two days to go now. In fact, in exactly 48 hours time, I should be struggling along with about 2 miles to go, all being well.

I have not done a lot of running this week, just a couple of 5 milers. My last run was Thursday evening, and now i am just resting up for the big day. This is the part of marathon running that i enjoy the most, the bit where you don't have to run and are encouraged to eat copious amounts of Pasta!

Apparently, there are 2,043 entrants in the Loch Ness Marathon on Sunday. That means, should I complete the course, I will improve on my highest ever placing in a marathon by some 25,000 places. I think that you'll all agree, that's some improvement. I reckon I'll be on for 'The Most Improved Sportsperson' award at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

Earlier on in the week, I heard a rumour that Lorraine Kelly would be running the Marathon.

This has concerned me somewhat. I think that she finished the London Marathon in a time of around 5 hours. That's a similar time to me. One of my nightmare scenarios for this marathon would be coming down the home straight, locked in a thrilling sprint finish with the queen of Breakfast TV and Great Uncle Bulgaria, with them both beating me on the line. My misery would be compounded by the fact that this would have all been filmed for a reality TV show called 'Celebrity Runner'.

I have checked the weather for Sunday, and the forecast says showers with a few sunny spells. Hopefully, the rain will hold off for the most part, I am heavy enough without being soaked as well.

I have just passed my target of £1,000 on my fundraising page . Many thanks to everyone who has contributed.

I shall report next week, and let you know how it went.

Have a good Weekend

Andy

Bill Bailey's on the phone

The Justgiving helpdesk team normally don't bat an eyelash at anything. These guys are calm, cool, collected professionals - It takes a lot to get them excited.

So we were all surprised recently when we saw Jonno jumping around excitedly as he took a call. Whatever could it be?  Turns out that comedian Bill Bailey's agent was on the phone!

Bill had heard through the grapevine that our August fundraiser of the month, Emily Thackray, is a big fan, and he wanted to get in touch with her. As Emily is currently in hospital awaiting a lung transplant we all thought that this was a great idea.

And so, after some emailing back and forth it turns out that Emily and Bill manged to hook up for a nice long call - and that Bill is interested in building awareness about transplants. You can read all about it on Emily's blog here.

Warm fuzzies all round here at JG! Especially coz we're all huge Bill Bailey fans - and now we know for sure that not only is he funny, he's also a really nice guy. Awwwwww...

P.S. What's your favourite Bill Bailey song or comedy moment? I like The Hokey Cokey in the style of Kraftwerk, personally.

Tea and Coffee making facilities

As my musings on Bill Bailey would stretch too far in a comment field, I have to post about my favourite BB comedy moment(s).

The first time I heard of BB was when I saw him performing the greatest Cockney album in the world  (how good on the piano is he!). Have been a massive fan ever since, and in my opinion, the best joke has to be the Chaucer Pubbe Gagge.

Big thanks to my brother (Nick) for getting me the DVDs for xmas! A highlight of which was, of course, the inspection of England's many hotel rooms with respect to their tea and coffee making facilities and the ubiquitous Corby Trouser Press

Whilst at the CASE conference last month (see blog) I took the liberty of documenting the aforementioned facilities (although there was no trouser press, and my trousers were creased)

Not bad eh! Jammy Dodgers! I think Bill would approve...

Why the Hammond fundraising total dropped

If like us, you've been following the progress of the Richard Hammond fundraising page, you would have seen the fundraising total drop last night.

A £50,000 donation made on Saturday evening has unfortunately been rejected. Donations appear on a fundraising page as they are made, however, the authorisation of donations takes place later. It was at this authorisation stage when the donation was flagged as "declined".

Last night we removed this donation from the page, which is a great shame. The total now stands at £148,990.90 - still an excellent achievement in just over a week. And we've just heard that The Yorkshire Air Ambulance have received two new offers for sponsorship - which is great news.

Donate to the YAA / Hammond page here or search for other rescue charities you can support.

Photo © YAA

We don't just report the news...

We make it!

Hamster's page passes £150,000

The Richard Hammond fundraising page has now reached £162,289 in online donations. This has been an amazing effort, with mass media coverage helping drive awareness of the page.

Alex Goss, the page creator is now hoping to raise £500,000 to purchase a second helicopter for the Yorshire Air Ambulance, which will be named after the popular Top Gear presenter.

The Yorkshire Air Ambulance is just one of many air ambulance / rescue charities providing an essential service across the UK. People can support their local air ambulance charity by searching for them here.

Thanks again to everyone who has donated to this page and has emailed their comments into Justgiving.

Andy's Marathon Blog - Part 3

Well, we are another week closer to the 'big day', and the nerves are beginning to build. By this time on Sunday week, I should have finished the Marathon. I say should, as training hasn't been going too well this week. Have had a bit of a twinge in my knee that has restricted my running. It's not feeling too bad now, so i should be able to get a 10-12 miler in tomorrow.

I keep revising my target finishing time. When i first entered, I was looking for 4hrs - 4hrs 15mins. After a few weeks out, I revised this to 4hrs 30mins - 5hrs. Now, after this weeks dodgy knee, I'll be happy if i manage to finish by the time the local police re-open the roads to public traffic!

Apparently, there is a hurricane heading towards Scotland - I'm just hoping that it's going to be blowing in the right direction!!

I have clearly inspired my colleague, Ben. He went for his first run on Wednesday, and is still going on about how sore his legs are. Still, he's got the difficult 'first run' out of the way now. I didn't manage to get a picture of him running, but i did manage to get one of him warming up

Who knows, sometime in the future, we could be reading about his marathon training on here...mind, you, judging by the photo, he could do with some new kit!

My fundraising has now surpassed 50% of it's target. If you haven't sponsored me yet, you can do so by clicking here

Have a good weekend

£30,000 raised in 24 hours

Alex Goss' fundraising page in aid of Yorkshire Air Ambulance - the charity who rescued BBC Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond - has now raised over £30,000 in less than 24 hours.

We've been monitoring the donations - which have been flying in, every minute. The response to this appeal has been truly amazing.

You can keep up to date with Richard's recovery via the Sky and BBC news websites. The two broadcasters have done a great job in helping to promote the fundraising page to drive donations.

Thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Our thoughts remain with Richard, his family and friends.

Wishing a Speedy Recovery

As many of you may be aware, the popular presenter of Top Gear, Richard Hammond (left) was involved in a serious accident yesterday whilst filming for the show. We're big fans of the show here at JG towers and our thoughts are with his family and friends as they support his recovery.

A fundraising page has already been set up in his honour to raise money for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance charity: this is because Richard was taken to hospital by helicopter after the accident. You can make a donation to the page by going to http://www.justgiving.com/phrichardhammond

The page creator, Alex Goss, explains that his initial target was £340, as this is the average cost per mission for the charity. The affection many people feel for Richard can be seen by the fact that this target has already been passed.

You can see the latest BBC News story on the accident here and find out more about the charity by going to their website here

Photo © BBC

Eats! Shoots! Leaves! Email!

I just received a great email from George at Oxfordshire Historic Churches:

I responded to an offer by TextTrust of a free trial spell check on a website by sending my JustGiving.com page, forgetting it was just a page. I think the offer was featured in the Institution of Scientific and Technical Communicators Newsletter. Below is the report. It seems TextTrust has gone way beyond my page to check all 15000 pages of your site!

What is amazing is that there were only nine spelling mistakes, six of them, naturally, in the comments left by sponsors and only three in descriptive page text. This seems to indicate that JustGiving.com already has excellent spell checking facilities.

As Tom rightly points out it 'just shows JG users are erudite, highly literate people'. We're guessing it was limited to 15000 pages since there's more on the system; maybe they aren't as well written as those in the top sample. We'll keep the spelling police on the case.

We're relieved it didn't stretch to Molly's emails, which oftenn featurre nine speling misstakes perr sentense.

Thanks George! Here are our top three favourites from the list he sent:

1. "lovely bottle of Champage "

2. " Congratualtions - you should be"

3. "Actuaries 150 Year Anniversay celebrations I intend"  whuh?

 

BBC presenter prepares for Great North Run

We love it when famous people off the telly come and use our site. And Justgiving has now managed to infiltrate the mighty British Broadcasting Corporation.

BBC's one o'clock news presenter Sophie Raworth (left) has entered this year's Great North Run - and has set up a Justgiving fundraising page to raise money for Breast Cancer Haven.

By her own admission, Sophie struggled to run round her local park up until recently. Now she is hard at work, training to negotiate the 13 miles of the Great North Run on the 1st October.

Sponsor Sophie online by visiting her fundraising page.

Wishing you the best of luck for your run Sophie.

Andy's Marathon Blog - No 2

Well, I managed my seventeen mile run. It went much better than i was expecting, and i completed it in under 3 hours - which means i'm on course of a marathon finishing time of 4hrs 30 - 5hrs.

Now, long distance running can be quite a lonely, boring hobby. So I would like to thank some of the local kids for making my run much more interesting. Yes, whilst i was out running last Saturday, some of Dartford's finest thought that it would be amusing to throw the fruits of the nearest tree at me whilst i was running past. Crab Apples were raining down on me from all angles, and i felt like an extra from the film, Platoon, as I trying to get past them! Fortunately for me, their aim was not the greatest, and i only got caught by one glancing blow to the side.

I recovered well from the run, and felt no ill effects the next day. Just been taking it easy with my running this week - three five milers during the lunch hour.

My fundraising page is coming along nicely, and i am now almost half way to my fundraising target. If you haven't been on to my page, check it out on the link above.

Cheers

Simply the Best factoid

Can you guess the connection between these two?

and

I thought not.

Keenly aware of the dearth of Friday Factoids in recent weeks, I resolve to make amends. To that end, it is of the utmost importance for you all to know that birds are terrified of Tina Turner.

So much so, in fact, that sleepy Gloucestershire Airport has been blasting her tunes out over its runway to keep it clear of potentially dangerous avian intruders. According to airport Chief Fire Officer Ron Johnson, "We used to broadcast tapes with birds' distress sounds, but we found they  don't work very well -- and what the birds really hate is Tina Turner."

Apparently the birds are particularly quick to vacate the premises when her 1971 duet with then husband Ike "Shake a Tailfeather", is performed.

I made that last bit up.

Have a good weekend.

T

p.s. Since it's Friday, I thought I'd call Tina & get her views on this - a transcript of the conversation follows:

Tom: I’d love to talk to you about your music being used to scare birds on this runway in Gloucestershire.

Tina: What’s love got to do with it?

Tom: Fair point, I guess. Uh, do you think this use of your music denigrates it in any way?

Tina: Typical Male. Show some respect.

Tom.: Sorry Tina – I didn’t mean to be cheeky.

Tina: Ask me how I feel: You better be good to me.

Tom: Ummm ok – how do you feel?

Tina: Not enough Romance

Tom: Oh. (coughs) Well, er, enough about your private life, Tina: why haven’t you toured the UK in such a long time?

Tina: I can’t stand the rain.

Tom: OK thanks Tina. Nice talking to you. Until next time.

Tina: Until the right man comes along.

Tom: What?

Tina: Nothing. Bye.

Bucking Trends with Google

Just spotted this article called 'Google's unusual approach to Philosophy', which is well worth a read. Here's the score:

"The ambitious founders of Google, the popular search engine company, have set up a philanthropy, giving it seed money of about $1 billion and a mandate to tackle poverty, disease and global warming.

But unlike most charities, this one will be for-profit, allowing it to fund start-up companies, form partnerships with venture capitalists and even lobby Congress. It will also pay taxes."

Crikey.

Looking after their philanthropic arm is the aptly named Dr. Larry Brilliant, so they can't possibly go wrong.

Go. Read.

Living legend inspires us to fundraise

What inspires us to climb mountains, run marathons and trek across unknown lands to raise funds for our charities? Is it utter madness or is it the physical and mental challenge that generates our ambitions?

Well I’ve come up with one theory at least! It’s our heroes and explorers who will go to any length to discover new places or break new records. One of these heroes, and a personal favourite, is Sir Ranulph Fiennes who has spent most of his life either crossing the Antarctic, climbing mountains or running around the world. This man is with out doubt a living legend!                                                                                  

Amongst his achievements he has run 7 marathons in 7 days across 7 continents;
he and Dr. Mike Stroud became the first people to cross the Antarctic continent unassisted. He found the Lost City of Ubar in Oman, he was the first to complete a surface journey around the world's polar axis, which lasted three years! He also gained the Furthest North Unsupported record in 1986 and again in 1990.

He has attempted to reach the North Pole solo and unsupported, unfortunately his sledge fell into freezing waters and when trying to rescue it, his hand came in contact with the water and gave him frost bite. When Sir Fiennes came back to England his fingers had not quite recovered and presuming his finger tips had all died he decided to cut them off! Unfortunately the nerves where still alive so the process was slightly more painful than he expected!

Now Sir Fiennes has taken to climbing and is setting off to the North Face of the Eiger to raise £1 million for the Marie Curie Delivering Choice Programme. The Eiger is not the easiest mountain to climb; its north face is 6,000ft, is covered in ice and snow and is notoriously dangerous. And if that isn’t enough to put everyone off it’s also made up of very loose rock which is partial to the odd avalanche! Sir Fiennes has only been climbing for 3 years and… Oh yes…and he’s missing a few fingers and the odd toe!

So if this man doesn’t inspire us who can?

To sponsor him visit: www.justgiving.com/EigerChallenge. To find out more click here

Snowboarding is so easy. Right?

Imagine trying to snowboard blind? Now imagine being taken to the top of a snow covered mountain in a helicopter, dropped on to the peak of said mountain and snowboarding, blind, to the bottom. Feeling slightly scared? I am.

Adil Latif has been losing his eyesight since the age of 14. Now 24, Adil is near blind. In January 2007 he is attempting a "heliboard" on behalf of the charity ActionAid to raise funds for the children who survived the Asian earthquake in 2005. The money Adil raises will go towards providing schools for these amazing children.

A truly remarkable challenge I'm sure you'll agree. What's more astonishing is the fact that Adil is learning how to snowboard as we speak.

You can sponsor Adil by visiting his fundraising page. You can also keep up to date with how Adil's snowboarding training is progressing by visiting his "Feel the edge" blog.

Wishing you the best of luck Adil - you are braver man than I!

Andy's Marathon Blog - No 1

Just three weeks to go now, before i attempt the Loch Ness Marathon. Getting a bit nervous now, as i am not sure that i have done enough training. I have a seventeen mile run at the weekend, so that should tell me how well I'm doing. I am taking it very seriously, I have given up alcohol, and i have cut my curry intake down to one a week (tonight, yesss).

Got some exciting news regarding the Marathon. Apparently, it's going to incorporate the Scottish National Marathon Championships. Which means I could qualify for the Scottish Commonwealth Games Marathon Team. Unfortunately, I am neither Scottish, nor likely to finish in the top 1,000 - so i think qualification is beyond me!

Everyone is being very supportive - Ben keeps on reminding me how many days I have left on a daily basis. Cheers for that mate. Talking of Ben - I think that i may have inspired him. He was muttering something about taking up running earlier today. Now that is something I'd pay to see!

Please feel free to check out my fundraising page

Cheers

Andy

And he's off...

Just sending out a huge JG-style 'GOOD LUCK' to cancer survivor Findlay Young who begins his epic 'Great World Run' this morning with a a half marathon through Newcastle. From then, Findlay hops on a plane to Reykjavik, Iceland, where he does it again.

And then he gets on a plane to Brasil..and then to the USA...and then to New Zealand and Australia and then Singapore, India, Dubai, Ethiopia, Greece and Holland...before finishing in the Great North Run, back in Newcastle.

Each stop involves a half-marathon and he's planning to do this all within 24 days, in order to raise money for Cancer Research UK. You can follow Findlay's progress on his website, www.greatworldrun.com and get live updates from his blog. Oh, and you can sponsor him on his fundraising page here: www.justgiving.com/GreatWorldRun. Go for it Findlay!

CASE Study: Hard at Work

We put silly pictures and quotes up in the kitchen from time to time.

One of those is the classic photo 'Hard at Work', entitled and taken by Tom, of myself and old James (not to be confused with James 2.0) at the Institute of Fundraising's Annual Convention Bash back in mid-2005.

Here it is:

I'm the wide one on the left.

At the moment we're in Nottingham at the annual CASE conference which is a big event for the higher education sector. This morning, Jonno captured the sequel, again while I was unaware, which we have consequently titled 'Hard at Work II: Work Harder':

Of course we can assure you all we are very hard at work, we've even learnt what an annual fund is and everything.

She did it!

Just a quick shout-out to send massive congratulations to August's Fundraiser of the Month, Emily Thackray, who undertook the Hydro-Active Challenge on Sunday, by wheelchair, foot, and angel wings. Emily, who has end stage Cystic Fibrosis, and is waiting for a lung transplant, was able to walk the last 500 metres of the race despite spending most of the last month in hospital.

Justgiving HQ recieved some great photos of Emily and her 70 friendly 'angels' completing the walk and just thought I'd share this one of Emily crossing the finish line. What an accomplishment!

Click here to read Emily's account of the day.

 

Fundraiser of the month, September 2006

Our fundraiser of the month for September 2006 is the Centrepoint Derwentside team.

Claire, James and Carl have all been homeless. Carl is also totally blind. None of them have run before but they will be competing in the Great North Run to raise money for Centrepoint, which has helped turn all their lives around.

Read their story here. Visit their page and sponsor them here.

If you want to nominate someone as a future Fundraiser of the Month, please drop us an email at community@justgiving.com or post details in our forum.