A big thank you:-)

The generosity of the businesses local to me has been amazing and so i would like to see a big shout out to them and let everyone know just who they are:-)

A big thank you to Sainsbury for their gift voucher, this will be raffled off shortly in a prize draw that everyone can take part in http://www.sainsburys.co.uk

A big thank you to Tesco for their donation, this will be raffled off in the national prize draw too
www.tesco.com

A big thank you to AMF bowling in Eastleigh for their donation of a bowling game for four people which has been auctioned off.
www.amfbowling.co.uk/

A big thank you to Everyman cinemas for their donation of two cinema tickets, which will be raffled off. http://www.everymancinema.com/

These companies have been fantastic in their donations and willingness to help out Clic Sargent

Event cancelled but........

Unfortunately we have had to cancel the charity music event due to poor ticket sales as lots of people were going away and not as many people as possible were able to make it. However, never one to be defeated and thanks to the wonderful generosity of local businesses who have been amazing, we have decided to make the most of that. I contacted seven businesses and four of those got back to me with prizes, which is great.

As we were planning on having a raffle at the charity music event we have decided to still do this in order to raise funds for Clic Sargent. We are holding three prize draws, two of these are local prize draws due to how local the prizes are and open to people within the Winchester and Southampton area. Lots of people have been approached and are kindly giving in order for the raffle to be a sucess.

So, although it is sad news that the charity event has had to be cancelled, it is great that we have been able to make the most of the situation and can still be holding the raffle.

Clic Sargent live music event - 21st April Winchester

CLIC SARGENT LIVE MUSIC EVENT

21st APRIL 7.30PM – 11PM

GET YOUR DANCING SHOES ON AND JOIN US FOR A FUN FILLED NIGHT OF ROCKING AWAY TO THE 60s, 70s, 80s.

£5 A TICKET, INCLUDES LIGHT BUFFET.

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/dannieadventure

ALL SAINTS CHURCH HALL, PETERSFIELD ROAD, WINCHESTER, SO23 0JD

GREAT RAFFLE TO BE HELD ON THE NIGHT.

SOFT DRINKS AVAILABLE TO BUY, PLEASE BRING OWN ALCOHOL

FUNDRAISING FOR CLIC SARGENT CHILDREN'S CANCER CHARITY. NO:1107328

A big thank you:-)

The total now for the 12 hour readathon currently stands at £223 so i want to say a big thank you to everyone who took part, everyone who enjoyed reading along and all those people who signed up and paid their £5 donation and those who even got sponsors. Thank you all for taking part in the readathon, it was a great success and the total will go along way to help a family who are experiencing cancer.

Yay!! A big round of applause to you all!

Well done, well done!! It's been a fantastic day and i hope you've all enjoyed your very long day of reading. I hope you've ploughed through plenty of books, eaten lots of treats, kept warm and kept awake!

Thank you to everyone who took part and i hope you all enjoyed it as much as i did. You can relax even more now, keep reading if you want to, or just put your feet up and watch some television!

The winner of the prize draw for the £20 of vouchers is Christine! Well done Christine, and well done everyone for having read for so long. Christine if you email me your address at dannie992@hotmail.com, i will get these sent out to you.

You can put the books away guys, but i hope you enjoyed the challenge and the added bonus of helping to raise money for charity.

The final countdown!

So with less than an hour and a half to go we are on the homeward stretch.

I have just done the prize draw for the Jonathon Ross book and the lucky winner is Lin! Well done on your win Lin. I hope you enjoy your signed copy of his autobiography!

Well done to everyone who has kept on going it sounds like you are keeping up better than me and together we have read some great books, from the Hypnotist, The Golden Door, Birdsong and White teeth. I haven't read that book Rikke but have heard about it and heard good things!

So as we can down the last 80mins i hope you have all had fun and had a relaxing day full of reading.

All i can do now is urge you to continue reading and keep on going and to say that collectively so far we have raised £160 for Clic Sargent just from this challenge, with sponsorship money to come in from anyone who chose to raise some. £160 is a great total from what has been a fun and chilled out day. Couldn't have done it without you all willing to participate. Thank you for supporting Clic Sargent.

So as we enter the last part of our challenge, all i ask you to do is to tell me what has been your favourite part of the day, whether it's reading a book you haven't read before, just being able to relax at home, chilling out, getting ready....whatever you've enjoyed the most about today.

At 9.30pm at the end of our amazing challenge i will announce the prize draw winner, which will be someone who posts between now and 9.30pm. The winner will receive £20 of love to shop vouchers which can be used in a variety of stores.

Thanks for taking part and enjoy the last 80mins!

Congratulations Sarah!

Well done Sarah on your £10 amazon voucher win!! Congratulations and i hope you enjoy spending it.

So we have three and a half hours to go, for those still reading, keep going, your doing so well. WE are almost there now and even though your eyes may be getting a little tired and your feel a wee bit tired, just keep on going!!

We can do it and you have all been super for taking part and reading right through out the day.

With only three and a half hours to go those pages will fly by and the end is in sight.

The next prize draw is for a signed copy of Johnathon Ross's autobiography - Why do i say these things. It will take place at 8pm.

As people are no doubt getting a little tired i will make this prize draw nice and easy! Just tell me what book or books you have read today, what your currently reading and how long you have been reading for. Do this before 8pm when the next prize draw will take place.

If some people have only just joined us that is fine too and your welcome to join the prize draw.

The 6pm draw:-)

The next prize draw will be at 6pm and will be a £10 amazon gift voucher give away!!

All that is required is for you to tell me which famous author you would like to meet, either why you would like to meet them or what you would like to say to them.

I would love to meet Stephen King and ask him what makes him tick? What makes him write horrors which are sometimes pretty gruesome and then write beautifully moving stories like Shawshank redemption. I love the fact that he is able to do this and to me it shows his quality as a writer to be able to write such diverse stuff.

Well done for everyone who has kept up so far, the end is nearly in sight and we are over the half way mark!

Has anyone got any snow where they are? I think it's just starting here. Even more of an excuse now to just curl up! Am really getting in to my book now! Until 6pm guys!

Interesting stories....

Thanks for all the favourite character stories everyone, has been fun to read them and am glad i recognise one or two. Sounds like some people are reading some really interesting books. I haven't read Faulks but he keeps cropping up so i may have to give him a go at some point. It's nice to see people recommending books as well.

SFT, thank you for taking part in this so far. I will email you with regards to the sponsorship. Thank you for all the support along the way you really have been fantastic.

James, Poirot is one of my favourite television programmes and yes i think a get together between Holmes and Poirot would be great.

You may not have been with us all the way Katie, but it's still great to have you with us! At least you've reached half way of your book!

Alice, your a trooper for donating the prize, but at least we have provided you with an opportunity to enjoy your fave past time, reading!

Without further a do, the winner of the 'Snowdrops' book is Katie!! Well done Katie on your win! If you email me your address at some point, i know i prob have it somewhere but not sure where and i will then get the book sent out to you. Congratulations and hopefully you will enjoy your signed copy.

Wahay!! The half way mark!

Congratulations, congratulations to all those who have been taking part during the last six hours, can't believe were half way there. Are the words getting too much for you now, are you feeling sleepy and in need of a break or are you ready to keep on reading.

Some of you have already answered the prize draw give away for Snowdrops A.D Miller, but for the rest of you, you have an hour within which to tell me your answer.

I have decided on something a little inventive. I would like you all to take your favourite character from any book and tell me what adventure you would love to send them on. You can be as creative as you want, just use your imagination! Equally perhaps you could just make up a character and say what story you would like to create for them.

Well done to all for getting to the half way point and for interacting via the blog. I have just had some lovely lunch and enjoyed snuggling into my blanket on the sofa whilst jelly babies mysteriously keep popping in to my mouth!

As for my answer to the above, having thought about it, i would love for Dean Koontz, who is my fave author to create a story where he is writing about himself, so for example within the story he is sat at his computer writing a new book, when he begins to see some mysterious lights outside and hears this piercing noise like no unearthly noise he's heard before. As he runs to the door, the door gives away to complete blackness and the blackness encompasses him. An hour later he wakes up back at his computer writing his book. Then it continues with his perhaps being teleported to different places all whilst writing his book and what he was writing in his book happens to him!

Reading our way to the half way mark!

With only an hour and a half to go till the half way mark, it's good to see people nestling down with their books and some people even having finished their books. I'm going to leave you all now to enjoy your reads and will check back with you at the half way mark for the next prize give away.

Between the hours of 3.30pm and 4.30pm, i would love it if you leave a comment, so that i know who has made it to the half way mark with us.

I have decided on something a little inventive. I would like you all to take your favourite character from any book and tell me what adventure you would love to send them on. You can be as creative as you, just use your imagination!

The winner drawn out of the hat will win a signed copy of 'Snow Drops' by A.D Miller. This was kindly donated by Alice from her day at Cheltenham book festival. Thank you Alice.

£10 amazon gift voucher winner is.....

The winner of the first £10 amazon gift voucher is.....Drum roll please.......Hannah:-) Congratulations Hannah (clap clap!)

Well done on winning the £10 amazon gift voucher. I already have your email address, so what i will do is email you the voucher code and details to your email address within the next few hours.

Don't despair everyone though, you will still get a chance, we still have two signed books to give away, another £10 amazon voucher and £20 for someone who has taken part for the whole 12 hours.

How long are you all planning on reading for?

Has anyone finished a book yet? I'm falling behind on my reading, mainly because i keep coming on here to update and to post!!

Wakey wakey!

Now you might be starting to feel tired or even hungry at this stage, so don't forget to stretch, get those muscles going, hey, you can always read whilst walking around the house!! Get the stomach filled again as we enjoy the afternoon of reading!

If you've finished a book or want to update on what your reading, would love to hear about it.

With the second hour upon us! - PRIZE GIVE AWAY!

Hopefully people have enjoyed the first hour and had fun reading their chosen books and made good progress without too many distractions! My book is slowly getting read and the more i read the more i get into it.

So, in order to keep you all going and to keep the nice community spirit going, i thought we would begin the first prize draw. This prize draw will run from now until 1pm. All you have to do to take part is post a comment between now and 1pm saying what your favourite book is and what you like about it.

All those who take part will be entered into a hat and the first name out will win a £10 amazon voucher. Nice and and simple. So if you are interested in winning a voucher then post your comment saying what your favourite book is and why.

Good luck with reading for the next few hours.

Equally if you want to post a comment about the book your reading or anything about the books, please feel free, it's as much your space as it is mine!

So, what are you reading?....

As we begin our first hour into the readathon, i thought it would be great to find out what everyone is reading. Either all the books you're planning to read today or what you are currently reading. Perhaps even a few notes about it, you never know, someone else might be interested in that book!

At the moment i am starting with 'On the run'. It's not exactly a heart warming book as it's about a difficult childhood. However the book was bought for me several years ago and it would be great to get it completed and off the bookshelf!

So, what are you reading?...

On your marks, get set, ready and go!

On your marks, get set, ready and go! We are off! Welcome to Dannie's 12 hour Clic Sargent readathon:-) A big thank you to all those people who have signed up so far. If you haven't already done so, you are welcome to sign up at any point during the day and join us. You can register here http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/dannieadventure It seems we have picked a great day what with the snow and cold about to appear!

I hope you've all got yourselves organised for a nice leisurely day enjoying a good book or two, or perhaps trying a genre you haven't tried before.

Through out the day i will be putting up posts on here to encourage you all to keep reading! There will be five prize draws through out the twelve hour period, so don't forget to keep tuned in. I will be asking people to post a comment every two hours if they are reading for the whole twelve hours, just so i know who has been reading for the twelve hours, ready for the super prize draw at the end:-)

It leaves me with nothing more to say, other than enjoy the day full of reading and lets all get off to a flying start with our books.

Happy reading everyone

It's here, the readathon begins tomorrow!

So i hope your all organised, you've all got your snacks in and are ready to snuggle up. I hope you've picked out the books you want to read and set aside either an hour or the whole 12 hours to taking it easy and losing yourself in a great story.

Thank you to everyone for registering and taking part, myself and Clic Sargent really appreciate it. The money will go towards helping families and children with cancer, so you can take it easy tomorrow, knowing you are doing something for a good cause.

Don't forget to set your alarms for 9.30am when the reading commences. Also to keep an eye on this blog for the give away and hopefully some motivating posts to help see you through the long hours!

Clic Sargent readathon challenge

DANNIE'S 12 HOUR CLIC SARGENT READATHON!

SATURDAY 4TH FEB 2012

Starting at 9.30am

Get yourself cosy, a pile of books organised, snacks sorted and sit back and relax ready to read for anything up to 12 hours in the Great 12 hour readathon!

£5 registration fee – Register online

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/dannieadventure or email Dannie for further details. dannie992@hotmail.com

you can get friends and family to sponsor you too, for however long you choose to read! Payments to be made via http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/dannieadventure

Prizes to be won along the way, from books to book tokens and signed books.

You can keep up to date on all the goings on on the day at the blog, including further details about the challenge.

http://thailandforclicsargent.blogspot.com

Part of Dannie's fundraising plans for Clic Sargent Thailand trek

CLIC Sargent registered charity number England 1107328

Get the date booked in your diary guys and if you want to, you can get fundraising and get people to sponsor you. Just contact me for a sponsor form.

Still going ahead!

Unfortunately the publicity drive for the readathon hasn't gone as well as i would have hoped, mainly due to the fact i have been out of action for a week and a half due to a nasty car accident which left me with injuries and unable to do very much whilst i was beginning to recover. I am now on the mend but would like to say a big thank you to all those people who have been telling friends and family about it so that the word continues to spread. This is especially important at the moment as i heard from Clic Sargent on Thursday that the lead from their roof had been stolen, costing them £15000 which is devastating and upsetting. It's unbelievable how low people can sink.

With now only two weeks to go i am keen to get as many people signed up to this as possible, purely to make it a more fun and enjoyable day for everyone. On Monday i will contact the local paper to see if they can run the story for me and hopefully we may get more people interested. Either way, no matter how many people take part, it should be a fun event. Really though, i just wanted to let everyone know the event was still taking place despite me not being 100% yet.

If people could keep spreading the word that would be great and don't forget you can sign up here. http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/dannieadventure

And the prizes are.....

Today i have been donated the last of the prizes for the readathon with some great prizes to be awarded. I'm really pleased about this as the readathon appears to be really coming together. I can't thank enough the support and generosity of friends from in person friends to blogging friends. Friends have rallied around and informed others of the readathon and numbers of participants continues to increase. Today i went into my local town and put up a poster in the local library and on the community board in Waterstones. On Friday i will put up a poster in the library in Basingstoke and in their Waterstones. Next week i plan to contact the local paper and see if they will put it in there. I still have some book groups to contact and see if they would be interested in joining in, although to be honest they have been rather unwilling to get involved, but that could all change:-)

Don't forget though, that to take part you need to register and pay your £5 on the virgin page:-)

Now with just over three weeks to go, the readathon is in full swing and we all will have to start thinking about what book or books to set aside to read. I have so many books still to read that it shouldn't be a problem! There will be a prize give away every two hours so please follow the blog on the day! I will also be posting motivational posts to encourage all those who are participating for the whole twelve hours!

Prizes to give away
1) £10 amazon voucher
2) £10 amazon voucher
3) Signed book for the 6 hour half way mark
4) Johnathon Ross signed book
5) £20 love 2 shop voucher for someone who has participated for the whole 12hours.

So lots of lovely prizes and a fun day of catching up and chilling out.

READY TO READ - GREAT READING CHALLENGE:-)

Things are getting quite busy here what with organising the great reading challenge, with the 12 hour readathon planned for Saturday 4th Feb. Currently there are 13 people signed up and i have been informed that there are about another 10 still to sign up. Some people feel unable to take part in the challenge but have said that they would happily sponsor me for the Thailand trek and the idea was to raise awareness and increase funds for Clic Sargent, so by whatever means that comes, it's all great:-)

I'm getting quite excited about the readathon now and the opportunity to read for up to 12 hours and talk to friends along the way. Remember that on the day you are welcome to post comments(you can post on here any day in fact!) and chat to others to create a wonderful community atmosphere where we are all doing it for a good cause. However many people choose to sign up is great and shows people's ability that even in tough times we can think of others and support good causes. Without people giving and supporting charities like Clic Sargent they wouldn't be able to continue and i would hate to think that parents would go without the support of the charity, the support of someone being there for their child and for them whilst they are working with the tough diagnosis of cancer and leukemia and for those families who suffer from the diagnosis of their child's cancer being terminal. Having had the privilege to meet people who have had first hand experience of the charity through their children or friend's having cancer, they have said they would have been at a loss without the strength and support of the charity.

So, knowing we are doing it for a great cause makes me smile and to be doing something like the readathon which is great fun! On the day, around every two hours, there will be a little quiz and the best answer or just the name picked out the hat will be the winner of a great prize. There is a top prize for someone who manages to read for twelve hours, which includes a signed book and a £10 gift token, so it's really worth taking part. In order to know how long each person has been reading for, people will need to post a comment every few hours to ensure they are taking part fairly.:-)

It's really nice to see some familiar faces and not so familiar faces signing up for the challenge and all wanting to take part. It doesn't matter who you are or how long you want to read for, your welcome to take part. On the day this blog will be alive and full of posts, so you won't be alone:-)

The 12 hour readathon update

With almost a month left to go and now that Christmas and New Year are out the way, its time to begin focusing upon the readathon that is planned for February 4th. So far there are 7 people signed up with at least a further 4 who have signed up to the facebook group but just not paid their registration fee yet. I have had some enquiries also. I have not been pushing it or promoting it that much, due to the fact that i felt everyone would be too busy with Christmas, but now that has come to an end, its time to get promoting this great challenge.

Over the next few days i will be contacting book groups on facebook and asking to put it on their pages, sending letters to local libraries and dropping them in at locations. Asking friends to hand out at their book groups and to put in their schools. Putting it on my personal blog, my business website and on my business face book, all in the hope of encouraging more people to get signing up. My target is £600 and so i have some way to go to meet that! I have already sourced a variety of prizes from book tokens to signed books, so there are lots of wonderful prizes to give away. I will also be handing out leaflets to my clients in case they are interested in taking part.

All in all the 12 hour readathon on February 4th is sure to be a great event.

Don't forget to get yourself signed up for it.:-)

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and a wonderful New Year's eve. Today is the first day of 2012 and a day to focus once again upon charity plans. The Christmas period brought some opportunities to do some fundraising. The tombola at the Clic Sargent charity shop, somewhat disappointingly did not do well. There was rather a lack of interest from people and it seems people were needing their money for other things, which is a shame as i'd hoped it was a time to think of those experiencing difficult times too. However we still managed to raise £25 for the charity, which is a nice small addition to the total.

The week before Christmas, i held a guess the name of the penguin at All Saints pre school in Winchester. Thanks to the lovely generosity of parents and staff, the naming of the penguin helped to raise £33 for the fundraising total. The little penguin found itself a new home and Clic Sargent earned some money that will help to support the children. It Takes the total to £918, which is a nice total to be finishing the year with.

Whilst at the All Saints Christmas fete, i won a big bottle of Whisky on the raffle, which from the 10th Jan onwards i will be raffling off. I will be encouraging my massage clients to be entered into the prize draw, each go is £1 and their name will be place in a hat by 10th Feb. The more go's they have the more the chance of winning. I hope it will make around £40 for the charity but we will have to see. I feel like it will be a good idea and another way of looking at working with different people in order to get them to donate money to the charity. It may even encourage people to sponsor me instead. I will update nearer the time to say how things went.