My 60th Birthday - Fundraising for Ovacome

[Whippit]

Thanks to everyone who posted happy birthday wishes on my 60th birthday blog yesterday. Just to give you an update I had the most wonderful day being thoroughly spoilt by family, friends, neighbours and the builders who arrived with a card and a bottle of wine wrapped up in tissue paper.

My daughter, Hannah, works for a charity. I mentioned to her that I've always wanted to raise funds for Ovacome but was really a bit embarrassed at asking anyone for money. On Saturday evening I'm having a party bash for about 80 friends, family and neighbours. We're going to put an Ovacome Collection Box out along with an arrangement of photos to trace my 6 decades. Gwyn wrote a lovely birthday poem for my birthday so I've printed that out and it will be centre stage in my display. When I told Gwyn about the fundraising idea and how I would use her poem she wrote another to raise awareness of Ovarian Cancer and I'll put that on the table by the collection box.

Hannah suggested I create a JustGiving page. It wasn't difficult but I did need a bit of help to load some photos and post some text. Within a few hours some very generous donations had been made. I really only meant to create the page so people could donate the cost of a birthday card and postage and then the £1s would add up to a good sum. By this morning £130 has been donated to Ovacome via JustGiving and an Ovacome friend sent a cheque which will be added to that total. Some of my friends have even passed on to their Facebook friends the URL to my JustGiving page along with a link to the Ovacome site asking them to 'send a card' even though they don't know me! One FB friend posted a very generous donation. I haven't seen him since I was 15 years old but we linked up via Friends Reunited some years go. He said the donation was to make up for all the cards he hadn't sent me over the last 45 years!

I'm hoping the donations to Ovacome will continue through the weekend and particularly on Saturday night. I've been amazed how supportive people are and how they are happy to donate to a cause rather than buying a card, etc. Apparently with JustGiving pages it's good to post updates as this sends a new message to all your FB friends and new reminders to donate.

I've posted this blog because I thought it might be helpful to share my experiences. It does seem more worthy to suffer a bit to raise funds - like running a marathon or something. As you know I'm a couch potato but now I realise you don't have to do anything fantastic for people to take an interest in charitable giving and I thought it might inspire some other simple ideas to support Ovacome.

The photo, by the way, is a birthday breakfast with Hannah and Becky - crêpes with fresh fruit and naughty orange juice - it had some champagne in it! No wonder I was in a spin all day and posted that thread about horse dung - apologies PR Sue!

My JustGiving Page for Ovacome is justgiving.com/Annie-Mulhol...

I've made this blog 'Visible to Everyone'. I wouldn't usually do this because now my blog can be read by anyone in the world. So if anyone in the world is taking a first peek at the Ovacome site and you're reading this blog please 'send me a card' at Just Giving because it's a great cause.

Thanks for listening and love to you all. xxxx Annie

[doreenharwood]

Well done Annie I'm sure you will raise loads of money the weekend. My penny pot is almost full but we have cheated and put 5p and 10p pieces in in as we don't seem to get many pennies. Have a great party and loads of champagne.

Love Babs x x

[Whippit in reply to doreenharwood]

Thanks Babs. The gift card idea was really from your penny pot idea. It's such a good idea to save pennies and small change. It's amazing how it soon accrues.

A really sad day today to hear about Helen1. Joy tinged with sadness.

love Annie xxx

[Hidden]

Nice one Annie love x G x

[wendydee]

Dear Annie,

Hope you have a wonderful weekend and don't have too much work with sorting out your party.... And the aftermath! I am sure that Martin and the gang will help. Just wanted to let you know that I have donated to your celebrations, in a way. I have an Ovacome collecting box at home and whenever I hear of one of my friends having a Birthday, I put in a couple of pounds, also, if Clive wins any money at golf, he gives me a donation and whenever I hear of any of our group passing away, I put in a couple of pounds in lieu of a sympathy card. It all mounts up and that way, I can share it all around fairly. My little box fills up fairly quickly and I bank it and send off to Ovacome every so often. My Mum and Dad also have a bottle in their spare bedroom that is labelled 'Ovarian Cancer Fund' so that any guests can chuck in their spare change, as does my Mum. I also put in some bits when I am there.

Didn't mean to write an essay ....brevity was never one of my strong points

Have a wonderful weekend

Love Wendy xx

[Whippit in reply to wendydee]

Dear Wendy

Thanks so much for my 'birthday card' in your collection box. That's such a lovely idea. It doesn't matter who collects what does it - it's just good that funds are being raised for such a great charity.

I've had a change bank here for a while and have just filled it up then cashed it in. I shan't do that again. I don't notice the small change going in and yet as you say it soo accumulates. From now on the change bank will for Ovacome.

I did have a really lovely birthday and party - starting Thursday and finishing this afternoon when the last guest left. I was a bit worried I wouldn't be able to keep up but the party last night with friends descending from all over the UK was awesome. Close friends and family stayed for the weekend and worked so hard to help with the shopping and food, make the party go with a swing, and clear up afterwards. The last party guest left at 2:30 this morning. Given we'd started at 6 in the evening it was quite a long stint.

We had so many laughs as people from different eras or aspects of my life met up and joined the pieces together. The photos were a source of amusement and loads of people read Gwyn's poem and wanted to know more about the Ovacome site so it was a good way to raise awareness.

I am very happy to be sitting in bed in the quiet catching up with you all on Ovacome.

xxx love Annie

[Cinderella]

Dear Annie

Belated birthday greetings. I am so glad that you had a lovely celebration especially the party last night. What a splendid idea of yours to do some fundraising for Ovacome.

May you continue to enjoy the rest of your sixtieth year and have lots more parties to celebrate future birthdays. Wishing you a very happy, healthy & fun filled year.

Lots of love & a big birthday hug, Samixa X X

[Whippit in reply to Cinderella]

Thanks Samixa. It's been a really lovely birthday. I don't often celebrate my birthday coming hard on the heels of Christmas and New Year's Eve. I'm a wintery Capricorn and not much one for parties though recent blogs give the opposite impression. Most people are by my birthday month on diets, broke, given up parties/alcohol for the month, and generally dragging themselves back to work in the middle of winter after a long hectic holiday. I thought I'd go to town on this one - not only because it's a big-0 event - but because I've had a honeymoon with Ovarian Cancer for the last 2 years. I wanted to celebrate that too whilst I could.

Thanks for the lovely birthday wishes.

Love Annie xxx

[LindaB]

Belated Birthday wishes from me. Sorry to have missed it earlier... hope you had a wonderful time. Lindab xxxx

[Whippit in reply to LindaB]

Dear Linda

Thanks for the birthday wishes. They're not late at all. Whilst my 60th birthday started on 3 January it seems to have extended for weeks. A party on 5th Jan, a fish cookery course this evening as a present from my husband, and a Truffle Festival in France as a treat from my daughter. I've been and am being thoroughly spoilt!

Love Annie xxx

[LindaB]

You deserve to be spoilt! It all sounds very exciting.

Can you instruct me on how to change my photo?

Love Linda xxxx

[Whippit]

Dear Linda

If you go to the top of the screen you'll see a green bar and on the RHS your screen name. Click on the down arrow to the side of your name. Select 'profile' and your existing photo will appear with a dialogue box saying 'Change Photo'. Click on this and it will take you to the directory on your own PC where photos are likely to be stored. You can change the root directory if the photo you want isn't in the default directory.

Find the photo, select and click on 'Open' and it will upload it into your profile. You do have to ensure the pic is less than 2MBs I think you can do this with a PC with Photo Editor, and crop or change the size of the pic until it's the right size. If you have difficulty doing this I can let you have my email address so you could send it to me and I could resize on my Apple Mac and return the smaller image to you.

Hope this all makes sense. We're all looking forward to seeing the new Photo.

love Annie xxx