Missing....

Most parents have had that feeling of panic when they lose sight of their child for a moment, and felt the huge relief that comes with spotting them....but what about families for whom that moment turns into minutes, hours, days and years?


Imagine saying goodbye to your partner as they leave for work, or waving off your child to school.....and never seeing them again, with no clue as to why or what happened to them....

When we lose a loved one to disease, or if they are tragically killed in an accident, this is traumatic enough, but when a person goes missing their family are subjected to unimaginable anguish, sometimes never finding out the truth about what happened.

Missing People offers a lifeline to families searching for a loved one, giving specialised support and advice around the clock.  They also help families with publicity appeals and use social media to highlight missing people cases.

Today I volunteered at Miles for Missing People in Regent's Park in London - the main event is a 10k run, but what made this event so special was that it was accessible to the whole family as there was a children's run, and a fun run, so not everyone needed to be able to manage 10k!

I was handing out water with a lady whose nephew disappeared when he was 21 - he's been missing for 19 years!  Madeleine McCann is of course a very high profile case, and both her parents were taking part in the event.  People can be as judgemental as they like about the circumstances surrounding Madeleine's disappearance, but the fact remains she was just 3 years old and no family deserves to go through what they have.

There are many ways to support the fantastic work of Missing People - if you can't donate or volunteer your time, please be sure to follow them on twitter and facebook and share their appeals.  Just one tweet or facebook post could reunite a missing person with their family.

Nx

Little Legs for Life

Little Legs for Life is a fantastic opportunity for children to take part in a fun event, and support Cancer Research UK!  Children of all ages can take part, and they can run or walk as far as they can manage.

Little Legs for Life events are organised by volunteers, but your local contact at Cancer Research UK will support you every step of the way. The beauty of the event is that you can make it completely unique - it can be as big or as small, as simple or as grand as you want to make it!

Here are 10 basic steps to a successful event:

1. Get a group of friends together to help you and make contact with your CR-UK Area Volunteer Manager
2. Find a venue - school or sports club ideal
3. Seek support from local schools and community groups
4. Promotion - go into schools and speak to children.  Leaflets & posters, local press, social media
5. Registration - as many options as possible: online, registration sessions at schools, by post
6. Contact your participants with event details and fundraising info (encourage just giving)
7. Apply to local businesses for support - sponsorship or raffle/auction prizes
8. Must Haves - first aid cover (speak to your local SJA) risk assessment (get form from your AVM)
9. Optional - t-shirts, stalls, raffle, medals, extra volunteers
10. On the day - set up the course, put your volunteers and participants in place and have fun!!

These photos are from the events held in Walton-On-Thames in Surrey - in 3 years, our LLFL events have raised over £50k!!

For more information email LLFL@hotmail.co.uk
follow @Littlelegs4life on twitter
join the LLFL Community facebook group

#CRUKchatter

Hi all


#CRUKchatter will debut on Tuesday 6th March at 8:30 pm and will be a weekly chat for anyone supporting @CR_UK on twitter - this can be anyone: community based committees; fundraising teams/individuals; campaigns ambassadors; staff or volunteers! Even if you're just considering supporting CR-UK, you're welcome to join in too :-)

The idea behind #CRUKchatter is to try to get some conversation going around what people are doing to support CR-UK.  This could be sharing ideas/experiences or what your next project is!

How it will work

From 8:30pm each tuesday, I'll start off the chat with a couple of questions - and hopefully get some responses!! 
So from 8:30pm, either look out for my tweets, or do a search on the #CRUKchatter hashtag - probably doing a search is the best as you'll see everyone's responses and hopefully make some new friends :-)

For example
@CRUKWalton
Q1. how do you currently support @CR_UK #crukchatter
then people tweet a reply....either directly to me, or just an open tweet, but don't forget to include #crukchatter!
@otheruser @crukwalton I'm a campaigns ambassador and meet with my MP to make sure they're aware of CR_UK's latest campaigns #crukchatter
@otheruser2
I have been part of a community fundraising group for 2 years and also take part in sponsored events like #raceforlife. #crukchatter

I hope all that makes sense!
Just to repeat from my previous post....it's just half an hour and not everyone needs to take part every week!  @CR_UK are happy with this idea and may join in occasionally but it will be very much a supporter 'thing'!

thanks
Nancy