The Pink Party 2012 - Auction!

The charity night of the year!!

If you're reading this, you no doubt know I do a lot of fundraising for Cancer Research UK....I became involved as a volunteer fundraiser after losing my dear friend Sarah to cancer in 2008.  It amazes me every day when I see people passionately raising funds and awareness for a cause close to them - one such person who I came across on twitter last year, through my connection to CRUK, was Harry Moseley.

Harry sadly lost his life, way too young, to brain cancer on 8th October 2011....but in his short life, he touched so many hearts with his love for life, and his passion for helping others.  I was honoured earlier this year, to take part in the Reading Half Marathon as part of team Running for Harry and have been so touched to see people from all around the country, and indeed the world, fundraising in his memory.

When Harry's Ball was announced on twitter, and I saw my lovely friend Michelle Porter announce she was organising a twitter table, I jumped at the chance to be a part of what was sure to be an unforgettable event....

A few months after booking my ticket, Cancer Research UK announced the UK Stand Up To Cancer event....on the same night as Harry's Ball.  I was disappointed to find I'd be missing such a huge event, for a charity I'm so passionate about, but at the end of the day it was a TV show....and also quite fitting that 2 such major events should be running concurrently.

I was absolutely wowed by Harry's Ball.....fantastic organisation - not by people in the events business who get paid to run slick, posh parties - but by two people, touched by Harry and his story, who threw their hearts into putting on an event enjoyed by over 1200 people!

If you're ever lucky enough to meet Harry's mum, and listen to her speak about Harry, and Help Harry Help Others, you will clearly see where Harry got his determination, spirit and kind heart.  Losing a child is every parent's worst nightmare, and yet the strength she has shown despite her pain, inspires me every day.

For anyone who doesn't have a charity particularly close to them, but would like to get involved with a fantastic cause, please consider supporting Help Harry Help Others - not only are they helping to fund vital research into brain cancer, but they are also helping families affected by cancer with financial and emotional support.

The above photo is now known as my 'I carried a watermelon' moment....when Oliver Phelps so patiently posed for 3 takes of this photo, and all I could think of to say was 'which twin are you?' :D (if you don't get that movie quote, shame on you!!).

Thanks to my lovely companions Amanda, Claire and Lisa and to Michelle for organising our tickets and hotel, if it hadn't been for Michelle's help, I would probably not have made it to the ball!

Thanks also to organisers Pete and Tim, to the gorgeous Jack Groom for my kiss and to Harry's mum, Georgie for being just amazing.

I'm thrilled to say that Harry's Ball raised an incredible £101k...amazing!  And while the ball was in full swing, the UK pulled together and raised an amazing £6.5million for Cancer Research UK's life-saving work!

Together, we will beat cancer
Nx

Shine 2012

My very first blog post, more than two years ago, was about 'Shine' for Cancer Research UK....my reasons for doing it last year, and again in 2012 remain the same - to help beat cancer.

I was really pleased that a whole group of us from twitter had signed up to take part - lots of banter on our 'Team Shine' facebook group in the lead up to the event helped to keep us all focussed and also to share our concerns and last minute panics!  #Teamshine was made up of @surzy, @theramblingduck, @tractorboy21, @thornykate1, @pottijo, @amandaattwoodh.

So, on Saturday 29th October, #Teamshine all met at the pub across from Battersea Park train station - joined by 2 of Kate's friends, my friend @Pennysophia25 and a friend of a friend Stuart - got ourselves all togged up in our red, white and blue themed outfits and we were ready to go!

It always takes a long time to get going at these mass participation events, but by 9:30pm we were finally over the start line and raring to go.  For about the first 4 miles, we managed to loosely stay together, but as Penny and I strolled through the first 'Pit Stop', not realising that the others had stopped until we had a text from Amanda, it became clear it was going to be tricky to stay together.  This is the main reason, I've decided not to do Shine again next year - having done Mt Snowdon with a group of friends just 3 weeks previously, I'd prefer to stick to events where we can stick together as a team.  Anyway.....

The next pit stop with toilets was at 10 miles, so we stayed in touch with the group behind by text and the plan was to meet up there - however, after standing in the queue for the loo, it suddenly became clear just how cold it had become.  We managed to meet up with Jo and after unsuccessfully trying to find out where the rest of the group were, we decided it was too cold to stand around and off we went.


The halfway point is always uplifting.....for about a minute.... until you realise it's cold, it's the middle of the night and you still have 13 miles to go!! The sign at the halfway point told us it was 5 miles til the next pitstop so we decided not to stop but march on the the 18 mile point.

At about 17 miles, Penny started to complain that her ankle was hurting.....the alleged 18 mile pitstop, turned out to be at 19 miles and by the time we got there poor Penny was really struggling - as were many other people!  This pitstop was quite a sight - massive queues for the loos, and the medical tent was over capacity, people sitting/lying all over the place with foil blankets.  Sadly, Penny had to make the choice to stop and to take the bus back to Battersea Park to have her ankle properly seen to.  Jo and I headed off, as the others were still a couple of miles behind.

The rest of the walk was uneventful (aside from a lovely sunrise as we approached Battersea Park) - Jo and I crossed the finish line about 9.5 hours after we started and I then stayed to wait for the rest of the team to finish.  Sarah and Amanda crossed the line after over 11 hours of walking and still managed this with a smile on their faces, despite lots of aches and pains - they were even on the telly!!


For me, it was a good night, I didn't really struggle physically apart from freezing whenever I stopped walking, but my biggest disappointment was the fact that we couldn't finish as a team.  We are planning on a #teamshine reunion soon.....in the pub!!


I did shed some tears at the end when I went to meet Amanda with a hug....we all had our reasons for taking part in Shine this year, but it's particularly raw for her right now - seeing her face brought back all those memories of helplessness while watching loved ones fight this awful disease.  One day we will #kickcancer.

Nx

Snowdon!

This was the perfect weekend away.....no traffic hold ups, great company, beautiful weather, a fantastic walk with amazing views!

Some time back, a few of our fundraising group decided it would be nice to take on a personal challenge, a step away from our community fundraising, and something different to Race for Life which we'd all done a few times.  So, we settled on Mount Snowdon, and after months of planning and training walks we set off for Wales on Friday 7th September.

After a little deliberation on the friday night, a look at the weather forecast and some advice from a friendly local, we decided to take the Pyg track up the mountain - "the most rugged and challenging of the 6 paths up Snowdon" - quote from Snowdonia park website, I'm not making it up ;-)

I still can't quite believe how lucky we were with the weather.....there's not much I can say about this hike so I'll let the photos speak for themselves.....

I would like to thank my lovely friends for making it a weekend I'll never forget, and also all the fantastic people who sponsored us - in particular the many people who sponsored me some of whom I've never even met and only know through twitter, I really appreciate the support.  Altogether the team raised over £1300, which is more than double our target!!

Nx

Scafell Pike....almost

This post is way overdue, and I was actually about to write about my latest adventure when I realised I hadn't written about my Scafell Pike trip....or as it turned out, my non-Scafell Pike trip!

So, having hiked up Ben Nevis last year, my aim this year was to try to do Scafell Pike and Snowdon - I would then have done all 3 of Britain's highest peaks, and would consider doing the 3 Peaks Challenge in the future.

My friend Helen convinced me to sign up to the Scafell Pike challenge for Marie Curie Cancer Care and after I convinced my friend Amanda to come along (in turn she convinced her friend, Donna) we were raring to go.  Now, you may remember June was a pretty wet month.....well, after being on the road up to the Lake District for about 6 hours, we got the message that the event had to be cancelled due to flooding at what was meant to be the start of the walk.

Disappointed, was not the word.  Amanda, Donna and I had meticulously planned time off work and childcare to take this trip - it's not something busy mums can just do at the drop of a hat, we weren't going to get the chance again any time soon.  We decided to make the best of the weekend and pressed on to our hostel.

After much discussion with the very friendly and helpful staff at the hostel, we decided against trying to do Scafell Pike without a guide - the weather was set to be extremely wet and windy and 3 birds on a mountain with no map-reading skills wouldn't have been wise!!  So we settled on Skiddaw instead.

Wet and windy doesn't really describe our day - on our way up, nearly everyone we met coming down said we wouldn't make it to the top, it was just too windy.  And they were right...visibility was poor, and when you have to crouch down on the ground for fear of being blown over, you know it's time to head back!  We weren't far from the top, another 100m or so and we'd have been there... very frustrating, but we were happy we'd made the decision to do something, even if it wasn't our intended challenge.

 We were delighted to receive our medals from Marie Curie even though we didn't do the planned event - we felt we'd deserved them :)

I would dearly love to return to the Lake District to explore more of its beauty - but in better weather!!Nx

Klout Pout....

There are a few things which I find irritating on twitter....hundreds of meaningless #ff lists, twitlonger, people who don't reply....but one thing which beats them all is Klout.

For those not familiar with Klout, it's a measure of online influence, calculated daily based on some algorithm no one seems to understand.  So things like follower count, retweets and engagement contribute - but funnily enough interactions with people who have a low or 0 Klout score actually count against you!

Don't get me wrong, if you choose to sign up to Klout and play that game (which is essentially what it is), that's up to you - but what irritates me is the spam in my twitter timeline:

I gave X a +K in Y.....or I received a +K in Y from X....or thank you X for giving me a +K in Y.....or my pet hate: please give me a +K in Y!!!!  The odd one or two are fine, but some seem inclined to reel off 10-20 tweets at a time!

I likened this the other day to playing Words with Friends, which is something I enjoy doing....but I don't feel is necessary to tweet out every time I win a game, or get a particularly good score - that stays in the game, and people interested in playing see that.  Surely people can see who has given/received what from within Klout? So why clutter up twitter with it, unless it's purely to gain attention of other Klouters...which is pretty sad....

Now, someone has tried to explain to me that often a person's Klout score is used by potential employers to decide whether that person even gets an interview - personally, I'd rather be able to explain to a potential employer, my reasons for not using Klout and hope they value the fact that I don't follow the crowd.  If someone wants to employ people based on a dubiously calculated online score, rather than my ability to do the job, do I want to work for them anyway?

I don't have many twitter followers compared to a lot of the people who play Klout....I like to follow and interact with people I have something in common with.  People who have a genuine interest in what I do on twitter, which is raising awareness of the cancer charity I volunteer for.  Of course, I have other interests too,  kids, travel and anything community related, so I tweet about that too.  My aim isn't to 'influence' people as such, but if I can encourage someone to sign up to volunteer for something, or tweet something which raises awareness of an issue, I consider my time here well spent.

Anyway, those are my feelings on Klout....please don't try to tell me I don't understand it, quite frankly, I don't want to :-)

#rantover ;-)

Nx

Running for Harry.....

I'm no runner....in fact until yesterday I'd have said I hate running... but yesterday I completed my first half marathon and can honestly say I loved every minute!!

So, what makes a non-runner sign up to a half marathon?

In October last year, I attended the funeral of someone I'd never even met...some may think that strange, but he was someone who had captured my heart via twitter, Harry Moseley was one special boy.  To see the numbers of people who came to pay their respects to Harry, showed me just how many lives he had touched, and I felt then that what he had started would continue for a long time to come.

When I discovered @runningforHarry on twitter I was only too keen to help spread the word about the event - but firmly sitting on my hands for some time, as I'm usually very eager to put my hand up for anything for charity!!  I hated running, I did not want to run a half marathon - but then I thought that lots of people do things they don't want to do every day, including carrying on with life without their loved ones, like Harry's family.

And so, here I am the day after the event with very mixed emotions - I won't bore you with a mile-by-mile account, but here are my highs and lows of the day.....

Highs
Spotting team mate @nataliepeperell at the 3 mile relay point :-)
Running past a school band playing 'We are the champions' half way up a hill :-)
The fabulous Reading community cheering all the way along the route :-)
Kids giving high-fives and jelly babies :-)
Seeing Harry's mum and sister at the 9 mile relay point, and being spurred on remembering why I was there!
Running into the Madejski Stadium and feeling very very pleased with myself :-)
Meeting up with team Running for Harry in the bar :D

Lows
Getting to the top of a hill just past 7 miles and feeling like I had nothing left - stopped to walk and felt like my legs were going to collapse underneath me!
Getting to the 11 mile marker and being gutted I had a whole 2 miles left....
A phone call from my son saying they couldn't find parking, and realising my family wouldn't be there to see me at the finish :-(

Overall, it was a fantastic experience, I was very proud to be a part of Running for Harry - thanks to my lovely friend Claire for our training sessions and for letting me gently persuade her into taking part ;-)

Sadly, after all the elation of the day and much happy tweeting in the early evening, the day ended on a massive low point.  I read a tweet that someone had died after collapsing at the finish line, and later found out that it was @12pmclub who I had met just a few weeks before.  Absolutely tragic, and my heart goes out to his family and our good friend @theramblingduck - RIP @12pmclub xxx

thanks for reading... if you would like to support team Running for Harry by making a donation, you can do so here: http://www.justgiving.com/runningforharrymoseley

Nx