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

Calling all CR-UK Supporters!

Hi all

This post is 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 :-)

After seeing the success of other twitter interest-based conversation hashtags, such as #thebreakfastclub (6:45am-8am weekdays) and #TTOT (Travel talk on twitter, Tuesdays 9pm), I thought it could be useful to set a day and time (prob Tues at 8:30pm) and try to get some conversation going around what people are doing to support CR-UK.

Probably the best way to run this is for me to tweet out a couple of questions (suggestions welcome!) each week eg:
Q1. What prompted you to support @CR_UK #hashtag
then people tweet a reply....
A1. blah blah blah #hashtag
this is how #TTOT operates and I think there's a different theme/host each week.

I can also look into using Storify so that the conversations aren't lost and we can refer back to them later.

So, firstly, what does everyone think of the idea - it's just half an hour and not everyone needs to take part every week!  And secondly, we need to decide on a suitable #hashtag that sounds informal and not official - @CR_UK are happy with this idea and may join in occasionally but it will be very much a supporter 'thing'!

The ideas for the # (suggested by the lovely and creative @chessycr_uk) are:
#CRUKchitchat
#CRUKtalk
#CRUKconfab
#CRUKbuzz
#CRUKfriends
#CRUKcircle
#CRUKcrew
#CRUKhangout
and some suggestions from @CR_UK
#CRUKchatter
#CRUKnatter
they have asked us not to use #CRUKchat as it sounds more formal and perhaps official!

So, please feel free to comment on this post....which I know can be painful....or tweet/DM me with your thoughts :-)

thanks for reading and I look forward to your feedback :-)
Nancy (@CRUKWalton)

A life changed in an instant.....

There are many people raising awareness and money for good causes, both on and offline.....usually the most passionate charity ambassadors are those who have been affected by a particular illness or experience, whether it be personally or a close family member.  I became involved in fundraising for Cancer Research UK, after the loss of my friend to cancer in 2008....but since joining twitter in 2009 I have had my eyes opened to the world of charity and the vast numbers of good causes out there, working hard to raise awareness and much needed funds.

Now as well as being a fundraiser for CRUK, I am a mum - thankfully to 3 very healthy children!  If twitter has taught me one thing, it's that me and my family are very lucky - I see tweets every day from charities, fundraisers and other mums about children living in poverty, disabled children, children living with life-threatening illnesses, and sadly children who have lost their battles too....I consider myself very fortunate that I haven't had to learn to cope with any of these issues, and my heart goes out to every parent who does.


In 2010, when I saw a tweet from The Children's Trust about their Sleepwalk event (a 10 mile walk at 10pm!) I decided immediately to sign up - I had followed their work closely on FB and twitter, and had read (and cried at!) their stories of brain-injured children who had been rehabilitated there.  I put a post on my facebook page asking if anyone wanted to take part with me - pleading with my friends, as mums, to put themselves in the shoes of a parent whose life is changed forever when their child suffers a brain injury.  I managed to persuade one other local mum, but was a little disappointed I couldn't round up more support for such a fabulous cause!  The event was great and despite the fact that I'm always fundraising for something or other, I did manage to raise around £150!

So, the whole point of the story comes to this.....

My husband's 16 year old cousin (yes, huge age gap, his mum had him 'later in life'!) was 2 days away from starting his first year in sixth form when he felt a bit odd.  He phoned his mum at work, but she was an hour away....when he started to feel numb on the left side of his body, thankfully he had the sense to call himself an ambulance - when he described his symptoms, 3 ambulances turned up!  Scans, tests and emergency brain surgery.....the lives of a whole family were turned upside down in a matter of hours - the doctors even recommended his father fly out from South Africa, things were that in the balance!  After 2 months in hospital, I'm now pleased to say he is undergoing rehabilitation and every therapy you can name...... at The Children's Trust :-)  He is making fantastic progress and after visiting him there am confident he is in the very best hands possible.

My point, I guess, is this....don't wait for something to affect you directly.  When you hear about a good cause, try to put yourself in the shoes of those they are helping...no one has the time or money to help every cause out there, but every £1 helps, and so does every FB share and twitter retweet.

Thanks for reading :-)
Nx

“Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he could only do a little” Edmund Burke

A shining star....

I'm certain that most people on twitter have by now heard about the sad loss of young Harry Moseley on Saturday night.... I woke to the news on Sunday morning, Harry's mum tweeted

"My brave inspirational boy fell asleep in my arms at 11:10pm.  Suddenly our world is a very dark and cruel place"

I'm a mum, to three kids who most days drive me crazy.... but you ask any parent their worst fear and it would be to lose a child.  It's unimaginable to me, and yesterday I felt very lucky indeed to have my children close to me.

Harry's tweets always made me smile, he was such a positive and happy boy, despite his illness.  His tweets were always full of smiles :-) and crazy hashtags like #wowzerwednesday and never did I see a negative word or a hint of feeling sorry for himself - in fact, many adults could learn a lot from Harry's attitude!

As someone who spends a lot of time fundraising, I sometimes suffer a "what's the point" moment, when someone special loses their battle with cancer....but it doesn't take me long to remember all the people around me who have benefited from treatment, and who wouldn't be with us today if it weren't for the research funded by charities like Cancer Research UK.

Harry was determined to raise as much awareness of brain cancer as possible, and his campaign 'Help Harry Help Others' was, and will remain, truly remarkable.  If you do one thing today, please follow the link to his website and read his amazing story, watch his video blogs, and learn a bit about what a special boy he really was.

My heart goes out to Harry's family at what must be such a difficult time.... but they must know he was one of the very best, and will live in many hearts for a long time to come.

Sleep well Harry
N xx

London Shine - Hints, tips and a tweetup!

Shine in London is now less than 2 weeks away!!  A huge thanks to all those tweeters whose arms I managed to twist to join me at this event ;-)

As I took part in Shine in Manchester last year, I decided to put some thoughts down about the event, what I perhaps did wrong and what I might do differently.... and also some general advice for those who have never taken part in a mass participation charity event before!

Firstly, I have a twitter list of people taking part in the London event, so if you're reading this and taking part why not follow the list so you can get to know the others!!  If you're not on the list, please tweet me and I'll add you :-)

For me, the most important thing to remember is that when you're asking your body to carry you 26.2 miles, particularly through the night, you need to provide it with plenty of fuel!!  Don't underestimate how much your energy will drop as the night wears on - 16 miles in when it's getting cold and you're supposed to be sleeping, you'll need some food to keep you going!  Now, I stupidly thought that I could survive on Tutti Fruttis - this is not the case....sweets are great for an instant pick-me-up, but the thing that saved me, just when I thought I was going to curl up on the side of the road, was banana bread (generously handed to me by a friend who was volunteering on the night!).  So, make sure you pack a sandwich or cake or cereal bars, or anything to keep you going.  Water is provided at the pit-stops but you should carry something with you for in between stops.

Now, this may be too much information for some, but after having 3 children I do have this fear of not being near a toilet when I need one!  So, again stupidly, I stopped at the first pit-stop which was only 4 miles in - I didn't really need to go, but hey, I was there....and was still there about 20 minutes later waiting in a queue.  Remember that every time you stop, you cool down and it can be difficult to get your momentum back - my advice, stop only when you absolutely have to!

Last year, I had hoped to meet up with a few tweeters before the event, but having not pre-arranged a tweetup place it was impossible - there were over 5000 people, it just wasn't going to happen ;-) So, this year, I have planned in advance!  Firstly, we are going to meet up in Frankie and Benny's in the O2 sometime between 5:30 and 6pm - absolutely anyone wishing to join us will be very welcome.  If you miss that, I've been advised by CR-UK that a good meeting point would be at the Donation Station which will be situated just outside the main participant collection area.   The general hashtag for the event is #shine2011 and I'll be tweeting on the night using #twittershineteam, so follow that tag if you want to find out where we are :-)

If you've never taken part in a big event like this, be prepared for the sheer numbers of people at the start and that you may find the first couple of miles quite frustrating in terms of walking speed!  If your aim is to put your head down and finish as quickly as possible, definitely head to the front of the crowd before the start.  For those who I persuaded/coerced into this, we're in this as a team and I'd love for us all to be able to walk together - hopefully we can all manage to not lose each other!

So, see you on the night!  Any questions, please tweet me @crukwalton - if I don't know the answer, I can try to find out :-)

Nancy xx