Thursday 29 December 2011

website up and running!

Well - we have our new website up and running now.  It's still work in progress but it has the basic information (all of which you've already seen on here) and a DONATE NOW button into our Paypal account, which will forward into our special bank account.  Thanks Steve Dunton!!  It's www.findmyfeet.me.uk, and is still work in progress.

The plan is that it will develop so that individual fundraising groups and events can have their own blog on the site with updates, photos, and pledge calculators... I'm still not sure whether that's all possible yet though...

We just checked the payment facility and it seemed to work.  Mind you, Paypal takes an admin fee, so a cheque payable to "Immy Finds Her Feet Fund" in the post is better to maximise the donation.  We can't do Gift Aid as you can't set up a charity for a single individual.

Friday 23 December 2011

I paid the first cheques and cash into our new bank account this morning, and, on the high-tech end of things, I've managed to register myself for Internet banking this evening. At the lower-tech end is a notebook with names of all of our generous donors recorded. Including money we've been promised we're already up to £410, which is amazing given that we've not really started yet. 

Swati, Nesh and I (well, mainly Swati and Nesh!) are working on logos, colour scheme etc for posters and information leaflets. We've got a lovely hand-drawn picture of Imogen's foot (from the photo in my last post) to work with, and the one above, which I think is really eye-catching..  The website is not quite up and running yet, in case anyone's rushing to try it. Progress is, of course, being slowed down a little by that pesky festival...

Imogen is picking up on all the excitement around fundraising and going to America "up, up in the sky" and has been singing "Yee ha" from the We are Americans song in her Christmas Around the World school production a couple of weeks ago.

Immy and her little brother Owen are so excited about the imminent arrival of Father Christmas, as well as meeting up with family and friends (in that order).  It's been a rather magical week for her, with the tooth fairy visiting last night too! 

Sunday 18 December 2011

More preparations...


Well, here are the feet we're trying to "find".  We've made some progress with Swati and Nilesh and Steve on websites, logos etc. We're thinking of including a sketch of Imogen's foot in the logo somehow.. so I took a picture of it. Rather sweet little foot I think!

More volunteers and ideas for fundraising are flooding in. My sister's eldest three daughters were first up with a plan for a major cycle ride.  Two volunteers for half marathons, more runners, cyclists etc - an energetic lot of friends we have.  Bruce and I are considering doing a beginners triathlon.. not actually signed up yet.  Another thoughtful friend (with my mental health in mind I think) is sponsoring me a pound for every hour of telly I watch, not including the news and kids' programmes.  That'll be a cheap one.  A colleague (also probably with my mental health in mind) is trying to balance out my political views by sponsoring me £50 to read 5 articles/blog postings by some rabid right-wingers.  My choir is considering a sponsored hymn-sing... and there's more.

We've also got plans for raising a fair bit of the cash we need from our own income too, without mortgaging ourselves to the hilt - cutting back on some stuff and taking a mortgage payment holiday will get us started with a few thousand.

I've also, in usual Sue style, fitted in a kids party, wrapped almost all of the pressies, been to a christingle service, taken the children swimming, and sung in our Christmas Carol service. 

Friday 16 December 2011

Starting out...

Well... I've never blogged before!  I've never tried to raise £40k either.  This week I met up with Claire and Paula, two mums who have been to Missouri with their boys for the Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy surgery and have had amazing results.  I'm quite excited about it, but also really very daunted by the challenge over the next few months. 

Here she is, in Spain in the summer holidays.  We've started telling her a bit about the trip to America and what it's all about and she's quite excited.  Six months is a long time to wait though, and we've not even checked we can go in June yet...

... we really are just starting out!