Guitar Heroes, Geocachers, Fashion Shows & random Brightness

What a day so far. Arguably the most productive and pleasing of 2010, congratulations to Thursday 4th February, never knew you had it in you.

Lots of things have come together well today. Instead of hanging about waiting for answers to questions, they've jumped straight up and said "hello". Which equally means I've been able to get on with things.

#1 good vibe came when I met with Rachel @Varsity Harborne. I swear she probably cringes whenever she sees me, which has so far been twice. But no, she was lovely and helpful and even though she's returning to Southampton next week she's booked in our Guitar Hero night for the 25th Feb. I haven't been 100% sure about this event, but we've got the venue, now to get the xbox, playstation or wii and the Guitar Hero equipment! I enjoy working backwards.




#2 was requesting Outdoor Show tickets as prizes for the Geocaching event 'The Big Search' and getting a green light. They're in the post. Again, not sure on the event, but worth a shot. Again, now I have 20 odd GPS receivers to find.

#3 was the freebies and promotion that Kathy @ UK Geocachers offered without me really asking. Lovely people. Must go visit sometime.

#4 was the offer of help running a Fashion Show event. Just need to work on the timing of that one. I did want to fit it in with our Awareness event 'Wear Bright for Sight' but not to be, we can do it earlier though, so will look in to that one.

#5 was a lovely note left for me by one of our volunteers who I haven't met but eager to help out. The one thing I need more of here is more help, especially to run ideas past and generally keep me sane.

So, there you go, for me to find 5 good things happen before 4pm, well that's unheard of. And maybe because I chose to walk to work this morning. Normally I'd hop on the bike but this morning we'd got the kids ready early so I had plenty of time. I love listening to my ipod, so I thought it'd give me chance to listen to some music.

One of the first songs on shuffle was Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More. That song really hits a note with me at the moment, I thought a lot about mum, which made me a bit sad.

But I love the drum beat and the bass, and when that was followed by Foo Fighters Everlong, well, I was well in the mood for a good day at work and kicking some ass.

I love music, I can't play any instruments, despite having an awesome red saxophone! I'd love to play the drums or the guitar, especially bass. But I'm not that type of person really, I don't have the will power and commitment to learn, I also don't have the time and would rather spend the time cycling if I could. It's too wet tonight, so that's out the window.

So, Thursday has been a good day, who knew :-)

Ideas, Ideas, Ideas

I'd say I'm an ideas kind of guy. Great at thinking them up, not so great at always implementing them.

I'm faced with the problem that I need to raise about £8-10k for Focus Birmingham, before the end of March (eeeek!) It's a challenge.

I don't shy away from challenges, but I do have the problem that my 3-4 ideas that I have to raise the money are all slightly new and inventive (apart from 1) which means that I have to work harder to get people involved in them. I'll be honest with (but keep it quiet!) I'm not really a people person, it takes a lot of energy to crank up the smile and positivity each morning. I wasn't called Mr Grumpy for nowt.

So today, we will steam ahead with a few ideas and see where we go.

Oh, and may I introduce a good friend of mine www.sammisibley.com I have just seen her new blog website, it kind of puts mine to shame. But she's lovely, so go say hi and be nice.

Event #2 - The Aussie Barbie

My second event since starting at Focus Birmingham was the Aussie Barbie on saturday.

The concept of the event...an outdoor BBQ with indoor activities, in Birmingham as close to Australia Day (26th Jan) as poss. Well, I'm pleased with the actual running of the event, but we simply didn't have enough people there. Understandable I guess, a BBQ in winter in the UK, where as I thought it was quirky some people might thing crazy.

As pointed out, people tell me it's a learning curve. Well, that might be true, but I'm 30 this year and been doing fundraising for 5 years now. I know that's not that long, but seriously, you'd have thought I'd have learnt a bit more by now.

Perhaps I need to re-address the quirkyness of my event ideas. When I first started here at Focus I had a list of about 10 ideas, none of them were particular 'regular' events. Am I being too specialist? Creating events that I might like doesn't mean there are people like me out there.

I need to make my budget of about £8000 by the end of March. Yep, that's less than 2 months away now. Without being defeatist I can't see any way of me making that much money by doing regular events, and besides, I've learnt that a good event is promoted early on, not 4 weeks before it.

But it doesn't mean I can sit pretty for February, I have to bring in some money, so I'm looking at a Guitar Hero or Rock Band fundraiser, a dance night, either Strictly or Salsa esque, or even a Memphis Belle type theme night. With a bit of a man power I could maybe do all 3, but I don't know, it'll be a push.

I also wondered over the weekend whether I'm sending mixed messages via Twitter, and this blog to be honest. I started on Twitter purely for personal purposes, an opportunity to engage with people I don't know and perhaps will never meet, yet still have enthralling conversations with.

But as I learnt more of Twitter, I learnt that it's an excellent marketing tool. And as I tweet about me, how can I not tweet about my work. We do have a Twitter account for work, but I don't control it. And if I did it would be purely events based. Perhaps I feel that without marketing events personally myself I won't be able to get people along. But then on a daily basis that is me. For work I have to sell myself and the charity to get people on events. See, it's very confusing.

I'll publish more Aussie Barbie photos in the week I hope.

x

Happy (belated) Australia Day

I hope you all enjoyed Australia Day on the 26th January



I didn't quite spend it how I would have liked to. The perfect way to celebrate would have been with family and friends with a barbie, beer and the beach. But hopefully, there will be plenty of them to come in the future.

Instead I spent the day in the office. I wore my Aussie boardies (which, no I didn't take a photo of) my aussie footy shirt and my newly purchased Australia Hat



I then journeyed down Harborne High Street to hand out some flyers. How cold it was!

It's now 2 sleeps until the Aussie Barbie. I've been dissapointed with the take up of tickets in advance, although I'm not too surprised. But it does mean that I'm incredibly stressed that we'll have 100 burgers and 100 sausages but no one to devour them on Saturday. So if you're in Birmingham or Harborne on Saturday, please stop by and say hi.

All in all, I'm very tired lately. I haven't really had chance to digest everything that has happened over the last 2 weeks, and my way of dealing with these things in this situation is to put it to the side in a nice little box and open it when I have time. But as I haven't had time that box is starting to get bigger and bigger.

I managed an 11 mile bike ride on Monday night. My first proper night ride, it was quiet and cold and my fingers nearly froze off again. I enjoyed the peace and quiet, but knowing I had this week to deal with it was hard to truly let go.

The office has been quite a happy place lately. Various items have arrived for the barbie, including the 2 Kangaroo costumes, there's debates about how much they actually look like Kangaroos, but hey, beggars can't be chosers.

Next week will be a week to look forward, beyond the next month an hopefully start planning.



x

Decisions

The blog has been highly depressing since Christmas, for obvious reasons. I now have the decision to make; do I keep on blogging through the dark times and try and be light hearted and witty, should I empty my head and my heart of the aches and pains that I’ve suffered or should I lock all that away and keep it locked. After all, are people here to read my thoughts on all aspects of my life or my professional expertise (which I’m yet to figure what it is)

Personally, I find it hard to hide feelings. I come across as grumpy and overly sarcastic the majority of times anyway, some people I hit it off with, they understand that. Other people find it very off putting .But what I despise doing is being fake. It was hard to come in to work last week, even for that one day, because I knew everyone would be lovely and kind and say ‘sorry to hear about your news/mum’. I still have no idea how to respond to that. I didn’t and still don’t feel ok, I’ve barely had chance to think about it since it happened, yet I felt a pressure to put on a smile and ‘act’ ok with it.

Truth be told I want to hibernate for at least a month and try my best to think of the good times that I had with my mum. Yet, this fast paced life we have doesn’t allow for that. This morning I had an hour to myself. It was bliss. And I’m looking forward to tomorrow. I have a hospital appointment at 9.30, and I hope I’m not there all day and after that I want to just come home and be me.

I should apologise, I started this entry with the intention of being more positive and talking about the exciting things happening in life, instead I have droned on again. So, for that I say sorry.

The major event happening is work related. The Aussie Barbie (http://focusbirmingham.org.uk/events/australia_day_bbq) is getting ever closer and whilst everything is booked and ready, I desperately need to sell tickets. This kind of event is not my forte, yet it has been me driving it. I hoped it would capture the imagination of locals, but under 2 weeks out and I haven’t heard a peep out of anyone which is a little disappointing. Friends and family will support it, but that’s not enough.

I hope later in the week to write a more inspiring blog about why I set up the event, and that will be the re-start of this blog.

Update on Mum K

All I seem to blog about is mum lately, but I think you'll agree that's understandable.

Mum has a high temperature and low blood pressure. Physically she is very weak and feeling sick alot. There seems to be little we can do anymore. Her body will either accept the medication and it'll work or it won't. The plan yesterdy was to transfer her to St. Mary's Hospice where she would at least have some peace and the family could be with her.

Unfortunately due to us Brit's beign completely weak, there is not enough staff at the hospice to accept her today. Rather than wait until Monday we are now trying to get everything set up to have Mum at home so we can care for her. At least at home she will get some rest and hopefully have some dignity.

Thank you for all the love, support and prayers. It's been a good fight, we've fought our corner well, now let's rest.

2010 A new start? Or the remains of 2009?

I've never been a big fan of New Years resolutions or the "It's a new year, I need to radically change everything about me for a month and then give up". No, the start of a new year for mehas never been anything drastically special. I guess that's because I can be quite implusive, when I want to change something, I'll do it straight away, I'm also a bit rebelious, I like to do things before other people and if other people have got there first, then I'm not so interested.

I did however intend to be more positive this year. Over the past few years I've been very negative. Ok, at school I was called Mr Grumpy. But, that's part of me, my sarcastic nature sometimes goes on overdrive.

But so far 2010 is proving very tricky. I obviously knew it would be with mum in hospital and quite seriously ill, but I also wanted to be positive in that. Anyway, my new positive blogging nature has just proven useful...a text from my Dad, Mum is priority for admission to St Mary's Hospice tomorrow providing staff are in place and there's no more snow.

That is fantastic news. It will give Dad the opportunity to spend as much time with mum as he can and hopefully ease her panic attacks. Whether it's the beginning of the end I don't know, but there's nothing more difficult than seeing someone you love in such distress and not being able to grant their wishes. I had even started coming down on the side of Dad yesterday that even though having mum at home would be difficult it might be preferential than having her at the hospital.

I shall go visit this afternoon and see how the old dear is doing...positive thinking her we come.

x

P.S. Snow day yesterday was great, will load some photos later. Although, I do think it is quite ridiculous that we 'give in' to the snow...instead, just take it as a holiday and embrace! Well, for a day.