Return of the Blogger
It’s been a while since the last post, at first because I was too busy to write one, and then because so much had happened that just composing the post became quite a daunting task. However, once again natural apathy was defeated, and the long-awaited round-up is here.
January kick started on a high with Hogmanay in Edinburgh with Louise, but an interview at Dundee University (who have still not got back to me…) and three A-level modules tried their best to stop the year becoming one long party. However, once they were over, the way was clear to finish preparations and start selling tickets for…
… the Night-Before-Valentine’s-Day Ball!
Of course, first I got the flu quite badly a couple of weeks before, and then Ross caught it off me.
However, the preparations all came together. The venue was Freud’s on Walton Street, Herbie got the tickets printed for us at a discount, ice cream was provided at a 75% discount by George & Davis (my work), the live jazz band, composed of Heff (trumpet), Hal (guitar), Fraser (double-bass), Yogi (keyboard), and Cam (drums), were bloody amazing and it’s just lucky it was their first gig together so they didn’t think to charge us; DJ Switchdoctor (Eddie) and the Milky Bar K.I.DJ (Gilly) provided us with some great tracks that kept everyone on the dance-floor till the end, and my mum and dad did sterling work selling tickets on the door and scooping ice cream. And of course, the brave staff at Freud’s valiantly held the fort.
In other words, it was a damn good night. Unfortunately, Ross and I had been a bit slow getting around to selling tickets, and when we did, did not have quite as clear lines of communication with the distributors at other schools as we should have; in the end, we made a loss of £20 each. Of course, given that the total cost of the ball was around £1500, this wasn’t a bad effort, and it was a small enough loss to plug it with our own money, so that no money fund-raised for Project Trust was lost. However, given that we collected in tickets as people came through the door, and thus estimated there to be over 100 people there, at £15 a ticket this means there is quite a discrepancy, and the reasonably large profit which we should have made never reached us. A lesson to be learned, clearly.
Nonetheless, the impact on fund-raising was minimal (it would have been nice to bump it up a bit more with a tidy profit, but not essential given success on other fronts), and based on the comments people have said to me, the ball – as a ball, rather than a fund-raising vehicle – was a unanimous success.
Three days before the ball it was my 18th, and in preparation for Guyana I was given a digital camera. This was well timed, as it now means I have many photos of the ball, and they will be posted on here shortly. However, since then I have bought three books on digital photography, as I quickly realised that a nice camera and a quality party do not necessarily mean good photos, so they may need a bit of touching up on the computer before put up for public viewing.
On other fronts, the Smarties tubes I handed out at work have been trickling in over the past week, and the final total for them was £86.20! This was far more than I had expected (helped in large part by Phil & Andrea filling their tube with £1 coins – legends), and deserves yet another MASSIVE THANK YOU (there are a lot of those flying around now). G&Ds has been very supportive throughout my fund-raising so far, and has been a great place to work, with a great group of people, for the past two and a half year; so it’s a little sad now to be climbing down to one shift a week as I wind down towards retirement. A special thank you to Tom and Sally who have been there throughout (and for their Smarties tubes, too).
Other donations from individuals and charities are also continuing to come in, but in particular the school Christmas Carol Service collection was another big success, with half going towards my Project Trust fund-raising, and the other half going to another worthy charity. Thanks to the generosity of many parents (and the festive spirit) this raised over £900, of which £453.05 went to Project Trust on my behalf.
On top of all that, I had another interview, this time at Bristol University (again, for Medicine), last Monday. Still no word from any of the universities, but that means no rejections so far as well as no offers. It’s always fun to string out the stress.
However, while fund-raising is not yet complete, and while I have not yet heard from universities and have to wait until Thursday next week to get my marks for my January modules, the finishing line for these various projects is, hopefully, within sight. The grand total for all my fund-raising so far, therefore, is £3157.6, or 79.94% of my total, with another £250 promised by one charity. That’s not bad going, given the deadline is July.
That does mean that time is rapidly passing, and now that I have the dates for my training course (back on Coll), departure for Guyana seems to be getting a lot closer. I’ve been buying books about South America, travelling, travel photography, travel writing, and pretty much everything else, and planning kit-lists (fortunately most of which I already have). Next up is immunisation jabs, of which there will be many. It’s amazing, and I can’t wait to get away (especially after reading Max’s blog), but sometimes it does catch you, the thought of being away for 12 months – that’s a long time not to see anyone back home.
January kick started on a high with Hogmanay in Edinburgh with Louise, but an interview at Dundee University (who have still not got back to me…) and three A-level modules tried their best to stop the year becoming one long party. However, once they were over, the way was clear to finish preparations and start selling tickets for…
… the Night-Before-Valentine’s-Day Ball!
Of course, first I got the flu quite badly a couple of weeks before, and then Ross caught it off me.
However, the preparations all came together. The venue was Freud’s on Walton Street, Herbie got the tickets printed for us at a discount, ice cream was provided at a 75% discount by George & Davis (my work), the live jazz band, composed of Heff (trumpet), Hal (guitar), Fraser (double-bass), Yogi (keyboard), and Cam (drums), were bloody amazing and it’s just lucky it was their first gig together so they didn’t think to charge us; DJ Switchdoctor (Eddie) and the Milky Bar K.I.DJ (Gilly) provided us with some great tracks that kept everyone on the dance-floor till the end, and my mum and dad did sterling work selling tickets on the door and scooping ice cream. And of course, the brave staff at Freud’s valiantly held the fort.
In other words, it was a damn good night. Unfortunately, Ross and I had been a bit slow getting around to selling tickets, and when we did, did not have quite as clear lines of communication with the distributors at other schools as we should have; in the end, we made a loss of £20 each. Of course, given that the total cost of the ball was around £1500, this wasn’t a bad effort, and it was a small enough loss to plug it with our own money, so that no money fund-raised for Project Trust was lost. However, given that we collected in tickets as people came through the door, and thus estimated there to be over 100 people there, at £15 a ticket this means there is quite a discrepancy, and the reasonably large profit which we should have made never reached us. A lesson to be learned, clearly.
Nonetheless, the impact on fund-raising was minimal (it would have been nice to bump it up a bit more with a tidy profit, but not essential given success on other fronts), and based on the comments people have said to me, the ball – as a ball, rather than a fund-raising vehicle – was a unanimous success.
Three days before the ball it was my 18th, and in preparation for Guyana I was given a digital camera. This was well timed, as it now means I have many photos of the ball, and they will be posted on here shortly. However, since then I have bought three books on digital photography, as I quickly realised that a nice camera and a quality party do not necessarily mean good photos, so they may need a bit of touching up on the computer before put up for public viewing.
On other fronts, the Smarties tubes I handed out at work have been trickling in over the past week, and the final total for them was £86.20! This was far more than I had expected (helped in large part by Phil & Andrea filling their tube with £1 coins – legends), and deserves yet another MASSIVE THANK YOU (there are a lot of those flying around now). G&Ds has been very supportive throughout my fund-raising so far, and has been a great place to work, with a great group of people, for the past two and a half year; so it’s a little sad now to be climbing down to one shift a week as I wind down towards retirement. A special thank you to Tom and Sally who have been there throughout (and for their Smarties tubes, too).
Other donations from individuals and charities are also continuing to come in, but in particular the school Christmas Carol Service collection was another big success, with half going towards my Project Trust fund-raising, and the other half going to another worthy charity. Thanks to the generosity of many parents (and the festive spirit) this raised over £900, of which £453.05 went to Project Trust on my behalf.
On top of all that, I had another interview, this time at Bristol University (again, for Medicine), last Monday. Still no word from any of the universities, but that means no rejections so far as well as no offers. It’s always fun to string out the stress.
However, while fund-raising is not yet complete, and while I have not yet heard from universities and have to wait until Thursday next week to get my marks for my January modules, the finishing line for these various projects is, hopefully, within sight. The grand total for all my fund-raising so far, therefore, is £3157.6, or 79.94% of my total, with another £250 promised by one charity. That’s not bad going, given the deadline is July.
That does mean that time is rapidly passing, and now that I have the dates for my training course (back on Coll), departure for Guyana seems to be getting a lot closer. I’ve been buying books about South America, travelling, travel photography, travel writing, and pretty much everything else, and planning kit-lists (fortunately most of which I already have). Next up is immunisation jabs, of which there will be many. It’s amazing, and I can’t wait to get away (especially after reading Max’s blog), but sometimes it does catch you, the thought of being away for 12 months – that’s a long time not to see anyone back home.
Labels: Fund-raising
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