Fundraising Diary

Here we are then on Friday 2nd November 2001, just two days before departure for the trek. Like, wow. I'm at work, with my rucksack behind my chair, my passport in my pocket, and butterflies in my stomach. :-) Tonight I'll catch a train to Haslemere, where I'll stay with Julie and Heather until Sunday, when Julie takes me to Heathrow to get the plane to Beijing. I'm going to put a full itinerary up on this site later today.

Now, this should be one of the last entries I'll make in this diary, since it's actually the Fundraising Diary rather than the Trek Diary proper, and there's not much more to say on the subject of fundraising. I do still have some sponsorship money left to send to the National Star Centre, and I've also still got some people here at work to hit for sponsorship, so I don't have a final total yet, but it looks like it'll be about £2700 - £2800. Mum & Dad raised at least £381, and in fact I think the figure's actually more than that, around £500 - but I can't be sure because I've mislaid my copies of sheets twelve to fourteen. :-) They'll turn up, and when they do, I'll set the record straight.

Time to get retrospective... Raising this money has been the hardest and most stressful thing I've ever done in my life. I'm a pretty disorganised person, I procrastinate heavily, I work from nine until six five days a week, my girlfriend has been in the throes of changing her career path, and I foolishly chose this year to take up horseriding, aikido, and Alexander Technique. All of this added up to not having much spare time, and not making the most of it when I had it - so it's pretty miraculous that I actually made it.

No, actually it's not miraculous, it's just as simple as this: there is absolutely no way I could have done this on my own - I simply wouldn't have got very far, and then I would have given up. It's sad to say but true - I am as rubbish as that. Fortunately, I didn't have to do it on my own: my parents raised a good chunk of the money, cajoled relations, and spurred me on to make them proud; my friends and colleagues were exceedingly generous, incredibly helpful and just "there" when we did the banquet; and most of all, more than anyone or anything else, there was Julie.

I wish she was coming on the trek, because she deserves to as much as me - maybe more so. She's been just incredible, a true friend and partner. She encouraged me, drove me forward, cajoled me, berated me, nagged me, beat me with wooden sticks, made me get up at 6AM on Saturdays and Sundays to do boot sales (and got up with me!), completely refused to entertain the notion of giving up, and ultimately defeated both my procrastination and my paralysis at the idea that there was no way we were ever going to do this. All of this was done in the face of my enduring inability to just get on with it, and my incredible talent for finding "vital" but unlrelated tasks to perform. Furthermore, all of this was done at a time when she had a lot on her own plate, namely applying for a course which two thousand people apply for, and twenty people get on (she got on it, by the way). Julie, I love you dearly and I can't wait to marry you next August - although I suppose I'm going to have to.

So, there we have it. Fundraising achieved. Thank you everyone - friends, relations, colleagues, and strangers - who's helped me or sponsored me for this trip - you've been part of something stressful but cool, and I really do appreciate it. It's made me see that I can get things done if I'll just get off my arse, and it's also been pretty pleasant to see how generous and helpful people can be. Best of all, its all for a good cause. :-)

As for the trek itself, I've got a camera and a million rolls of film, and I've got a "little red book" to keep notes in. When I get back, I'll write it up into a Booker-prize-winning travelogue the likes of which has never been seen before, and retire on the profits. Bet you can't wait.
posted by gimbo 10:43 AM

It's shameful really, the way I've neglected this diary. It seemed like a good idea at the time... I think the problem has been that this whole fundraising effort has been such a big thing for me this year, occupying so much of my spare time and, in general, stressing me out so much, that I haven't wanted to think about it any more than was necessary. :-) And then once I'd hit my target, it was such a relief (weight lifted from shoulders, breath of fresh air, colours so much more vibrant, birdsong all around me, etc.) that it's been nice to not think about it at all for a few weeks. :-)
posted by gimbo 10:23 AM

Blimey.

On two counts.

Blimey the first: we did the banquet. Suffice to say that it went off really well and everyone had a great time. I didn't raise as much money with it as I'd have liked, but it was definitely worthwhile nonetheless. Not least because I asked Julie to marry me, and she said yes! (Which I suppose constitues a blimey of its own).

Blimey the second: I've hit my target. Yes indeed, I needed to reach £2,425 by the end of August, and I've done it. Or rather, I will have done it when the National Star Centre receives the installment of cheques which I'll be sending them tomorrow. Whoopee! This means I will (barring unforeseens) be going to China on the trek in November!

77 days to go! :-)

So at this point, I'll just say thanks again to everyone who's sponsored me (yes, the "list of sponsors" page is in dire need of an update), and "watch out" to everyone who hasn't yet, because this doesn't mean I'm about to stop collecting. ;-)
posted by gimbo 9:23 PM

Another Splott boot sale this morning: 36 quid. Thought it was 46 when we counted it at the market, but when we got home, no, we'd miscounted. :-) Still, not a bad morning's work.

Banquet ticket sales are going pretty well, and my predicted non-banquet funds stand at about 1400 quid. At this rate I'm actually on target for the first time. Yikes-a-roony!

Oh yeah - and probably won't be doing the "walking up and down steps outside a shopping centre" thing after all as applying for the licence from the council takes at least a month. Nuts - should have got my arse in gear earlier. Sitll, that's a truism of my life, not just these fundraising efforts. :-)
posted by gimbo 3:36 PM

Lots of interest in the banquet, looks like it might actually happen. :-)

Also got permission to do the "walking up and down steps outside a shopping centre all day on a Saturday" thing from the shopping centre in question. But need insurance & permission to collect money in public first - is there time to sort this out and the banquet?

Maybe...
posted by gimbo 1:01 PM

Did another boot sale this morning at the excellent Splott Market, and made 50 quid for the cause. Nice! Then toured a few second-hand bookshops and made an extra tenner. Not big bucks but hey, it all adds up. :-)
posted by gimbo 5:14 PM

Oh. My. God.

I can't believe it's been nearly two months since I last updated this diary. How very lax.

Things are progressing, anyway... Let's see...

The Big News is that we are doing a banquet. We're holding it on Saturday August 11th at Cathays Community Centre, a local, er, community centre. :-) Not quite as atmospheric as Caerphilly Castle but verrrry economic. 8 courses of medieval food, free-flowing beer, wenches & menches, dancing, snogging... Ah, the good old days.

What else has been going on? Mum & Dad have raised 200 quid from the shop - fantastic!; more pledges from friends and relations; banquet tickets are printed; Dom (our mad biker chef) did his testing/tasting this weekend (though sadly I couldn't make it); we've done two more boot sales (75 quid between them); have lots of books & CDs to sell; have about a million old issues of 2000 AD (with Judge Dredd - yeah!) to sell; er, that's about it. :-)

See you in two months...
posted by gimbo 10:11 PM

Still neglecting this diary, but suffice to say I've raised about 600 pounds so far, which isn't exactly 2500 pounds but it's certainly moving in the right direction...

Most fun so far was the car boot sale last week - we raised 50 quid, got rid of lots of junk (it's amazing what people buy), and it was a beautiful day. Still plenty of junk left to sell though, so we'll be doing some more. :-)
posted by gimbo 7:02 PM

OK, so I've been neglecting this diary... Sorry. But that doesn't mean I haven't been doing stuff.

My parents run a fish & chip shop in Callington, Cornwall, and they're collecting sponsporship from me from the home town, which is great of them! It's time I rang my Mum and found out what's going on, but they got 22 quid on the first day, so that's promising. ;-)

Might be putting on a murder mystery, or maybe just a gig/party, at Cathays Community Centre, but it's early days yet. Looking very promising though, 'cos it's a great place.

Unfortunately we've pretty much abandoned the banquet idea, because Caerphilly Castle's great hall is booked up every weekend until December. We thought about doing it in the week or doing it somewhere else, but decided against it: The idea for the banquet came from my previous stint as president of the Cardiff Arthurian Society, back in my student days, and I know from that that I wouldn't want to do a mid-week banquet (in fact, I wouldn't want to go to a mid-week banquet), and as for doing it somewhere else, well, half the appeal is that the hall is so atmospheric. We did a couple of banquets elsewhere after Caerphilly raised their rates for students (thank you, Medics!), and it really wasn't the same. Given that our target audience mainly consisted of people from that era, we decided to leave it.

And that's the news from Andy's Trek tonight.
posted by gimbo 9:34 PM

I should change my bio to note that I finished my degree as well. ;-)
posted by gimbo 8:52 PM

Oh, hang on... Can't remove "under construction" image yet as this PC doesn't have an FTP client installed. Also, the link to the Word format sponsorship letter is broken - quelle horreur! :-)
posted by gimbo 8:43 PM

Well, another week has passed without much fundraising happening. I am, however, starting to get some planning done and having a few more ideas. Soon my friends, soon.

Received a newsletter from the National Star Centre, very encouraging. :-) Apparently they had such a response after the "BBC Lifeline" TV show that there are now two walks: One from the 4th to the 13th of November, and one from the 11th to the 20th! I'd noticed that I'm walker number 76, when they'd said there was space for 75, and wondered what was up. But as far as I know I'm still on the first trek - I haven't heard otherwise, anyway... :-)

Julie's Mum spotted a story in their local newspaper about someone else doing this. I haven't received a copy yet but when I do, I think I'll drop 'em a line...

Also, I'm removing the "under constrution" image from the sidebar, as the site's basically complete in its structure - just developing in an ongoing and groovy fashion from now on. I hope.
posted by gimbo 8:38 PM

OK, starting to panic about not having any sponsorship yet...

Must... get... off... arse...

:-)
posted by gimbo 11:13 AM

I've now done the template "sponsor andy" letters (.html and .doc) - though the .doc isn't uploaded yet for, ahem, technical reasons. :-)

Nearly have everything in place - then there'll be no excuse not to get out there and beg for some money!
posted by gimbo 8:08 PM

I spent a good part of yesterday working on the site, it's now almost ready for me to remove the "under construction" image. :-)

Alas, Blogger wasn't working properly yesterday, so I wasn't able to write this until now...

I must see about getting a hit counter or some webstats sorted out for this site. It'd be very interesting to see if anyone's looking at it yet...
posted by gimbo 11:17 AM

OK, back now.

So, why the trek? Well, back on the 28th January (yikes, that's a month ago now!) I saw the trek mentioned on a charity programme on British Televsion ("Lifeline", I believe). It immediately sparked interest in both myself and my partner, Julie, so I took note of the website details and checked it out... About a week later I received an information pack, inviting me to register and donate 150 UKP to get my fundraising started. In the meantime, Julie had decided she'd be unable to do the trek, as she's applying for a post in the RSPCA Inspector... Their training course begins in October so if (fingers crossed) she gets the post it'd be completely untenable. But she's encouraging me to do the trek (for which I thank her every day!), and has been very supportive.

Another week passed, and I received my pack. I'm registered as walker GWST76, and the fundraising race is on! Since that point I've been working on this website, and collecting ideas for fundraising. I've received pledges of donations from a number of people (most notably my Mum, who's pledged much more than I expected - thanks Mum! - and my employer, Frontier, who have pledged to meet any sponsorship I raise from their own ranks, if that makes sense).

So now the website is nearing completion - almost everything's in place, I just have gaps to fill in. I need to alter this diary so its template matches the look of the rest of the site, but that won't be too hard.

OK, I think that's basically up to date, so now I'll get on with some work, and write about it here when I've done it! :-)
posted by gimbo 5:24 PM

I'd originally thought this would just be a fundraising diary, but I think it needs to be a bit more general than that - a general diary of my experiences with this whole adventure... So I've renamed it from "Fundraising Diary" to "Trek Diary". Exciting stuff, eh?

So my next task (in this diary) is to write some stuff about how I got involved with the trek, and what's happened so far, I suppose. That'll bring us up to date to the present, and then I can maintain as time passes.

However, I have to go to the library now, so I'll do that later, or perhaps tomorrow. See ya!
posted by gimbo 3:40 PM

So, here's my trek diary. It's maintained with the excellent Blogger, which means I can update it from anywhere with a web browser! Woo hoo!

The design of the page is just one of Blogger's templates, but I can change it to match the layout of the rest of the site with a little effort. Great stuff...

Oh, and Hello Julie! :-)
posted by gimbo 1:50 PM