An early end....

Hello All,

It is with a sad and heavy heart that I am bringing my 3 for 30 challenge to a close 6 months early.
I had dreamt about and planned this year of fundraising for 18 months prior to turning 29 and set upon it fresh faced and excited.

Unfortunately due to personal reasons, I now realise I aimed too high and that, whilst I am dishearted to not even have hit 10% of my target, the only decision I can make at the moment is to wrap things up.

I am grateful to those of you who have supported me over the last 6 months and those that have donated money to these three fabulous charities. Where I can, I will continue to support the work that they do and would encourage you all to do the same.

I will no longer be running the Bupa 10,000 in May and to those of you who have signed up to join me I can only apologise. If you no longer wish to do it, please let me know. Mum has agreed to still run the race and will be grateful for any sponsorship you might have sent my way.

Thank you all.
Sarah

CWW does 3for30....

I am so pleased to be able to announce that the lovely Kerry Rockall of CWW has suggested that the next Choir Workshop Weekend should be held in support of 3for30!

I have been invovled with Choir Workshop Weekend since the first one in April 2013 but had to step back for personal reasons. I am super excited to be involved with them again and we have a corker of a weekend...

 

with a Musical Theatre theme (of course)

 

... being planned for a weekend in May.

Keep your eyes peeled for more information on the date and how you can get involved!!

Number Quiz Time

It's dark, cold and raining outside.

Parts of the country are at high risk of flooding and some are facing power outages.

Winter is well and truly here.

How about a quiz to keep your brain active and help your forget about the weather outside?

For a minimum £3 donation to the 3for30 charities you will get a numbers quiz.

You know the one that goes a bit like:

7DIAW = 7 days in a week

There are 50 questions to work out and the winner will take 10% of the money raised (with a minimum prize of £20)

INTERESTED?

Here's how it works....

From today the quiz is 'live' and the closing date is March 1st.

Donations can be made in person to me, via bank transfer or by 'old school' cheque in the post.

If you want to take part:

• Email me on 3for30challenge@gmail.com with how you want to donate (bank or cheque)
• I'll respond with the bank details or the address to send a cheque to
• Make sure to clearly reference your name on the payment and I will then email you the quiz
• Each quiz will be tracked so if you want to share with friends/family/colleagues then they will need to donate and I will assign them a number as well

Your completed quiz should be either emailed back to 3for30challenge@gmail.com or sent in the post and must reach me by midnight on March 1st.

In the result of a tie, I will enter the names of those with the highest points into random.org and a winner will be decided.

GET QUIZZING :)

Market Research & Inspiration

As we entered 2014 I realised I needed to get planning some events. The total so far of £305.11 is a long way from the goal so events need to be planned and fundraising organised.

Mum and I have something up our sleeves in the form of a Numbers Quiz and whilst hopefully it will be a success I ideally need to be doing something every month to bring the donations in.

So, here's where I need your help. I will of course be doing all the organising and arranging events but the question is... What will you support? If you have a spare few minutes I'd appreciate it if you could complete this quick survey:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GLCCR23

I'm running 10k.... Why not join me?

 

When I dreamt up this challenge I didn't want to rely heavily on sponsored events as I know how frustrating it can be having repeat requests for sponsorship in a short period of time. As such, I decided to do just one event but make it something that would be a real challenge for me so that people would be willing to dig deep and so that I could feel that I'd achieved something on top of the fundraising.

So a couple of months ago I signed up for the Bupa London 10k. I'm super unfit and have never entered a race longer than 5 miles before so saw this as a difficult but achievable challenge.

National Lottery run 2013 - 5 miles - Furthest I've ever run before!

 

Fast forward to just before Christmas when Mum asked if she could run with me and donate any money she raised into the 3for30 challenge total. Of course I'm more than happy to have someone to do the race with and to boost the fundraising closer to the total.

So that brings me onto my question to you, my blog readers and challenge followers:

 

Do you enjoy running?

 

Is your New Year's Resolution to lose weight or get fit?

 

Do you want to set yourself a challenge and support three fantastic charities whilst doing so?

The Bupa London 10,000 on May 25th and is still open for entry. It will cost £28 per person to enter.

http://www.london10000.co.uk/

It would be amazing if we could get a team of us together to raise as much money as possible for Make-a-Wish UK, The Make a Difference Trust and Nordoff Robbins.

Let me know if you sign up and want to raise money with me (I can help you link any fundraising page into the main page nearer the time).

Or if you're not a runner, why not just come and cheer us on.
 

A very Nordoff Robbins December

Without necessarily intending to, December became a Nordoff Robbins month.

As mentioned in my previous post I'd been working for a few weeks to finalise the plans for carol singing at St Pancras but when Claire at Nordoff Robbins asked if I was available to help them with some other events I thought it would be a great chance to get to know more about the charity and meet some of it's supporters.

 

Heal's Christmas Wishes Party

Thursday 5th December

 

There were about 6 of us there on the evening of the Heal's Christmas Wishes Party and the department store had an evening of  shopping and live music from the National Deaf Children's Society choir and cellist Corinne Morris. There were demonstrations around the store and mulled wine for the shoppers.

Although I don't think we made much in our collection buckets, I'm sure the profile of Nordoff Robbins was raised and, once most of the shoppers had gone we sat with a glass of (complimentary) champagne and I learnt more about the charity from Claire and Susie.

 

Carol Singing

St Pancras Station

Sunday 8th December

 

On the 8th December the planning for the carol singing finally came together. I had 18 lovely members of the Gamesmaker Choir who agreed to help me out and at 10am we all met at a venue close to the station to have a quick rehearsal. I was overwhelmed by the support of these people and was impressed that between them they knew multiple carols with harmonies and descants!

We headed over to the station early enough to scope out our spot and to have a spot of lunch.

 

I'd chosen about 10 carols and a few Christmas songs to make up our repertoire which we sang through almost twice in it's entirety. I'd expected that any money donated would come from people with loose change in their pockets as they dashed through the station to catch trains but was very surprised people were stopping to listen and to talk with our collectors. A request for 'In the Bleak Midwinter' led to a donation of £10 being put in one of the buckets and we handed out plenty of leaflets and educated people about the charity.

 

Everyone was in high spirits, fun was had by all and the total made from the 90 minutes of singing was a fabulous £211.41

 

In case you want to hear or see what we got up check out the following:

 

 

Thanks to Sarah Wilks for this video!

 

 

We were very fortunate to have photos taken as memories of the day. Many Thanks to Sam Lane Photography for taking them and letting me share them with you.

 

 

More can be found on Sam's website:

http://samlanephotography.smugmug.com/St-Pancras/Sarah-Barron-Collective

 

Classic FM Christmas Appeal

Thursday 19th December

 

Nordoff Robbins were one of the three charities supported by the Classic FM Christmas Appeal in 2013. I jumped at the chance to volunteer for them on one of the auction shifts. Getting up at 5am on a day off was not ideal but an easy sacrifice for one of my three charities. We arrived at the Capital Radio building in Leicester Square at 7am and were shown to our 'call centre'. Breakfast was put out and we got to know each other. The prize that we would be taking calls for was a holiday to Turks & Caicos and a pre-bid was made for £3000 which meant that the phones were quiet up until the end of the auction. I only took one call from a lady who thought it was a competition and not an auction but it was another great experience and chance to offer support to Nordoff Robbins.

 

 

Getting started.....

A good start.....

3 for 30 was officially launched on November 25th and I encouraged people to donate to the cause rather than sending birthday presents or cards. With £64 donated in total the fundraising is off to a good start. Now comes the hard work of coming up with ideas and schemes to raise the remaining £8,936!

As we are now 'LIVE' so to speak with the challenge I have been trying to get involved with all three charities as much as I can and it's going well so far.

MAD Trust

Last Sunday I attended the MAD Trust annual event "A West End Christmas" and it was fantastic. West End stars of the present day and the future getting together to put their own take on a variety of Christmas songs with a chance for a couple of audience singalong. Highlights for me were the cast of 'Once' doing Fairytale of New York (sidenote: If you haven't seen Once yet... make sure to go in the new year) and Clive Rowe singing with students from Central School of Speech and Drama.

It was a lovely evening and a chance to experience the hospitality of the MAD Trust family.

I had also been signed up to do a spot of carol singing this week but unfortunately the event was cancelled due to low numbers and a double booking at Stratford station.

Nordoff Robbins

Plans are now in the final stages for the carol singing this weekend. There's been a few hurdles along the way with the organisers reducing the number of attendees we can have and then people dropping out but no matter what, we will be singing our hearts out at St Pancras on December 8th so come along to support us if you are in the area.

I shall also be helping out at a collection at Heals on Tottenham Court Road this week where I'm hoping to meet some other lovely volunteers as well as raise some money for Nordoff Robbins!