Updates

Okayy, so that calendar of events was purely for self-motivation. Sometimes it worked, mostly it didn't.

However, I do have over £1000 pounds now!!!


Wayheyyy


Firstly I received £100 from a charitable trust which I thought was the best thing on earth, then a week later through the post I received a cheque for £500! Wow.

It was also that day I had a fundraiser of a dessert evening.

It was pretty simple to organise and I recommend it to others, basically two weeks before I set a date and spread the word.

I left school at lunchtime to clean and to finish baking my Banoffee (tasted pretty good) then my friend came at 3pm and we made a beaut fruit salad consisting of kiwi, grapes and melon and some flapjacks. Once people started arriving though it got a bit nerve-wrecking, though fortunately most the the people who arrived first knew each other though it wasn't too bad and eventually we had a full house of about 30-35 people over in total.
What was also good was people kindly offered to bake stuff as well so thank-you to everyone who helped out in any capacity that day!

In school one Monday I also sold Malteaser buns pricing them at 50p. I was due to only make about £6 from it, but every little helps... I made £12 altogether!

Over the past few weeks in my house I have also been gathering the loose change we have lying about the house and today I took it all down to Tesco's to put it in the change machine and from 1p's and 2p's it came out with £18! Im raging because we also had loads of 5p's but I didn't think it took them so I left them all at home.
Oh well, they'll go in the next change collection =)

Overall total now £1,210.12

In school I also have a sweet sale coming up which will hopeful last either 4/5 days (stock depending). I went to Macro the other day with my mum and aunt and we spend just over £100 on sweets. Hmmmmm lets hope we make it all back!

Writing To Trusts

After many hours spend in Bangor library and pouring through the Directory of Grant Making Trusts I had approx. 100 names of trusts.
After further Internet research on each of these I have whittled it down to 35 who I am in with a chance of getting funding from. While PT recommended we sent at least 100, I think it is better to send a few good ones and save the stamps.
The letter has been written and now just comes addressing all 35 and posting them off.

Something that surprised me was the lack of funding in Northern Ireland. I found full lists of trusts for many different area's in England/Scotland/Wales but everywhere seemed to forget us! Seeing that most trusts are area specific this was quite a problem.

Strathearn's got Talent is still in the process of being agreed to by school (fingers crossed) and I really hope I am able to do it because a) it would be so much fun to organise and b) would help fundraising enormously.

I am also trying to organise bag packing but I can't do it in either Tesco's or Sainsburys, Iceland maybe? My friend going to Rwanda was at Iceland bag-packing on Christmas Eve and raised over £300, so if we got something like that it would be good!

2013!!!

Its this year I go to Africa! (Its a scary thought)

We had a Northern Ireland meet-up in Clements Coffee in the city centre and it was a wonderful opportunity to speak to the others that are going away, although none of us are for the same countries we could still share fundraising tips and ideas. The people who were one one of the first selection courses for 2013/14 are already near finished when i'm only starting and that's another very scary thought.

There's only about 7 of us going from here but apparently that's a lot in comparison to previous year!

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Fundraising Plans for the year;
1) Get Strathearn's got Talent sorted
2) Car boot Sale
3) Coffee morning/ bring and buy sale
4) Random school sweet sales
5) Charitable trusts?
6) Bag Packing?

Help need other ideas fast!

Virgin Money Giving

I should probably also mention that I have a virgin money giving page

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/AlisonRamsey

Fundraiser No 1 - Christmas Baubles

Christmas Baubles

In the fundraising booklet an idea suggested was letting people decorate Christmas baubles. I carried this out in school in the last week in the run up towards Christmas and it turned out well!

I would advise future volunteers to try this out, especially as a first fundraiser. 

Steps to carry this out;

1) Where to hold it - (school or a youth club is probably the best option) then get permission from an authority figure. For me this was the teacher in charge of charities.

2) Estimate how many baubles you will need - I sold 250-300 for 50p each.

3) When you are holding it - Christmas (obv) - I held it over 3 lunchtimes in school.

4) Who you are aiming for - The school - but I found junior pupils more enthusiastic than seniors.

5) Price - I guess it depends on the baubles and decorations. I thought 50p was best because it was cheap so more people were likely to buy than if they were a pound. 

6) Other stuff - asides from baubles, you need something to write on them with. I used Pilot gold/silver/white fine tip markers, but approx 1/2 of these were broken by the end and some silly children splodged the ink everywhere (including over tables/faces...)

I also supplied stickers that could be used for extra decoration purposes and ribbons to tie onto the baubles.

Your not going to raise a fortune from this, because of the costs of buying baubles/pens/stickers/ribbon. I bought the pens and stickers myself and didn't bother about taking the money back, and my mum did the same for the ribbon. Though we did reimburse the biggest cost of buying the baubles.

I have a few pictures I will upload (if I get round to it)

HAPPY NEW YEAR

I GOT SELECTED!!!

On the 9th November, after an anxious week of waiting, I got a letter from PT through the mail saying I'd been selected and my countries were;
1) Malawi
2) Swaziland
3)Sri Lanka
This was great because i'd told the staff again and again that I really wasn't fussy on the country but rather the project.

In my form I'd actually put Swaziland first - inspired by reading Kate's blog (http://heyswaziland.blogspot.co.uk ) so I am now in a pool for it along with others who they are considering it to be their project for (fingers crossed though Malawi also sounds amazing!)

Let the fundraising of £5400 now begin!

The Start

Selection

Before my place was confirmed I had to attend a selection weekend in the beautiful Isle of Coll in the Hebrides. 

Getting there was half the challenge, myself and another volunteer Rachael (who PT had put me in contact with) took a ferry and two buses before spending the night in Oban with others attending the same course. Everyone was pretty tired that night and so went to bed early for our ferry at 6:45.

Of course our dorm were the last to get up in the morning and after a 20 minute jog (carrying hiking backpacks, and after going to the wrong side of the harbour) managed to find the right terminal for the ferry heading to Coll where everyone else was already aboard. After exploring the boat (not v. big) we settled down to card games for the 3 hr journey passing 'Balamory' on the way. (I was excited!).

Once in Coll we were picked up by trucks and brought the short, but very bumpy, journey to the Hebridian centre where we were welcomed with tea and biscuits.

Pretty soon it was straight to work and everyone had their notebooks out scribbling down notes. I don't want to give to much away about selection incase any future volunteers stumble upon this but it is VERY fun and VERY hardwork. Expect to be up all at all hours doing your 'homework'!

us on a rock (me=girl in hat)

I was fortunate to be in Coll over Haloween, staying with a host family along with 3 other volunteers Anna, Beth and Matilda. On Haloween we took Flora and Lucy, the host daughter and the child they mind guising (trick or treating), or rather they took us. It was a lovely was to see round the island and see how closeknit the community are.

Selection was over all to quickly and soon we were back on the boat again heading to Oban for one last night before heading back to Belfast in the morning.