When Krakatoa exploded in 1833 the dust cloud encircled the earth three times. It was the biggest explosion this planet has ever known, explosions of nuclear weapons do not come anywhere close to it. The dust fall out from the explosion took years to finally settle.
Yesterday we experienced the fall out from Saturday's frog challenge. Let me share that with you in a moment but first of all I'll give you the result of a bit of fun we had on Monday's blog.
Sheffield Wednesday Club Director Trevor sent me an e-mail on Friday in which he said.... Moving on let me know what more we can do to help.....
I replied.... You can start by stuffing Leeds United in Sunday's game.
The Sheffield Owls did indeed stuff The Leeds Frogs, thrashing them 3 - 0. The moment the final whistle blew I sent Trevor an e-mail of congratulations from OurRebekah. He would pick that e-mail up as soon as he was in his office on Monday morning.
How long would it be before he replied ? I asked on the blog smiling. I know this man and knew we would not have to wait long.
His reply came in at 10.07am. Have we got friends in Sheffield or have we got special friends ?
Sending THANK YOU cards to the two players who scored the goals on Saturday I enclosed this picture. I hope it made them smile.
6am yesterday I drove to The Civic Offices and popped a CD with the 177 pictures taken on Saturday for the Mayor's Office to use as he and they wish. David Hopkins and his wife Susan are extra special people, it won't be long before they write to say thanks.
I printed off the Just Giving receipt for Saturday's money and drove up to Wrigglies Exotic pets to give it to Ro. He was up in the clouds and still excited about all that had happened.
As I entered the shop he had a lady with two preschool children chatting about the challenge. Ro had borrowed the frog from his boss who owns the Wrigglies chain and had not yet returned it. Out it came again for the children to
When I planned the event I had thought I would buy a Kermit toy then take Ro with the toy to McDonalds, spin some coins and take a pic for our gallery. Ro is vegan and would not go within a million miles of McDonalds so that is just not going to happen.
I have an idea.
Remember NO NAME the blue frog ?
I will take the family of the little lad who won the game to give the frog a name to McDonalds and let them spin the coins for the camera.
Here he is in blue. Sheffield Wednesday colours. The frog and the winner !
Standing next to him is Tyler who ran the Adopt A Dinosaur table on Saturday. Yesterday Tyler's Mum and Dad added him to the Fun Run Team. That's our next event happening on Sunday 15th October.Maureen and I are proud to be sponsoring Tyler for Evelina House in London.
Sounds like fun to me. What do you think ?
We have 177 photographs from Saturday in a special gallery on the website. You can view them all by clicking the link on the home page. There is also a report on the day. At the moment the formatting of this p[age is a bit of a mess, I simply pasted it from the blog. Give me an hour or so and I will sort it.
Our relationship with Sheffield Wednesday has rather gone into orbit. Please remember you can sponsor every goal the club scores by visiting the team's pages within our website - www.or-sheffieldwednesday.com
I do not want to invade the Sheffield Wednesday fan base with this project, that would not be right and would be exploiting our friendship. It would be marketing and not communicating lol Marketing - HORRIBLE word he he.
I am a bit embarrassed that we are ignoring MK Dons FC who were so kind to us with their gifts to the e-bay project. I am now in the process of sending out our latest newsletter and have been nervous of the way their Director of Operations would react when the club saw all that is happening at Sheffield.
Mark, who runs the e-bay project, has a brilliant idea which I am about to work on and share with MK Dons - a pre-season friendly game between MK Dons and Sheffield Wednesday. NOT a game involving the players but the fans - MK Dons Fans v Sheffield Wednesday Fans, perhaps played at the training ground rather than in the stadium. How about two games ? One in Milton Keynes and one in Sheffield ?
Let's call it The Big Smile Cup and have the fans taking part collect sponsorship for Ronald McDonald Houses.
A good idea ? A great idea ? NAH an utterly brilliant idea. Thanks Mark.
Let's make this happen. Let's get the players to find sponsors: Sheffield Wednesday for Ronald McDonald House Birmingham and MK Dons for Ronald McDonald House Oxford.
Christmas is coming and with it our Secret Santa project.
Maggie is busy making stockings like these which friends can fill with little gifts for families in Ronald McDonald Houses at Christmas.
On Thursday I am meeting Rachel who is a trustee of a local youth centre to chat about ways it can be involved.
A local community centre is also supporting the project.
The question is going to be: How many gifts can we gather together for families in the various Ronald McDonald Houses. Hey - CLICK HERE and get into the mood. Visit our SECRET SANTA PAGE.
My family will buy the gifts for Oxford, our local house. We will then start to gather gifts for Birmingham and move on to Evelina in London. We will need to find more than five hundred to send something to every family in every house. How many towards this can we achieve ?
When I go to the youth centre on Thursday I am going to tell them how at Saturday's event I engineered Mayor David Hopkins meeting Secklow 105.5's presenter Tony. David has memories of Bletchley Youth Centre when it was known as the nursery for pop groups, many names which are now internationally famous played there early in their careers. I asked him to share these memories. Tony now wants David on his show to share them with his listeners.
On Friday I am taking Tony and his wife to lunch. I want to run by him lots of ideas. Until last Saturday Tony and I were Facebook friends, now we are real friends. To hear us speak and to check out the music we both love we could be twins !
I have managed to obtain an original single of the anthem Sheffield Wednesday has adopted as its end of game song. They play this as fans leave the ground.
Guy Mitchell - Singing The Blues.
Yesterday I also managed to obtain a copy of Jeff Beck and Hi Ho Silver Lining. WHAT LUCK.
Later today I am going to see a professional framing company to ask about having these mounted in the same way as golden discs are. I will then take Tony to Sheffield's game against Bristol on 18th November to make a formal presentation to the club.
I have used Singing The Blues to put this on our Sheffield Wednesday web pages.
I have nicked Hi Ho Silver Lining from Sheffield Wednesday, mind you they nicked it from Jeff Beck in the first place, to make this for Birmingham.
I have lots of ideas to run by Tony on Friday, I had better call the carvery and ask them to serve a six course lunch.
When I have finally finished today's blog - long way to go yet - I am heading to the post office to send The Buckingham School the presentation I have prepared for students to be involved in a community service project.
We have moved The Doggie Treasure Hunt, BBQ and Retro Disco to the Spring. Logistics were spiraling out of control and could have meant the event was a failure. Now with more time, and hopefully the involvement of The Buckingham School we are going to be able to offer a most amazing event. We will work to have 150 dogs walking, that means 300 walkers I guess and between 300 and 400 at the disco.
It is probably between 300 and 400 times I have already said this but look at the building the disco is to be held in.
I do not really approve of charity gala dinners. Obscenely priced they exclude the real people involved in a charity and pander to the corporate ego tripping community. We are never going to organise such an event BUT we will have a GALA DISCO PARTY to which we will invite every single person who has worked with us.
OK we could squeeze five hundred into the location and could spill out into the 350 acres of Stowe gardens if we have to !
The dust from the Frog Challenge is still circling like the dust from Krakatoa and I do not want immediately to launch a new challenge but in the New Year I plan to conquer my fear of high buildings. I have discussed this with Birmingham and will soon set down a plan. That plan involves two TESTS, one to climb up the gantry of Bristol University's Radio Telescope and one to ascend The Northampton Lighthouse, the tallest building outside London. Those responsible for both are OurRebekah friends.
Following my visit to Bristol University last month, they want me to go back for another visit. You may think I am dithering over the OurRebekah Fire A Rocket project. Perhaps I am.
The first thought was to hold this over the week-end of my birthday but our rockets could get lost in firework night. Then I thought it could happen at the end of the year but exactly the same would happen with rockets being lost in tge New Year celebration. Perhaps Diwali, no that's too soon and no time to organise things. I am racking my brain for the right date. As soon as I have it I will update the website.
Jumping about a bit now. Back to the challenges. So we have had The Frog Challenge. In January we will have the Acrophobic Challenge. On Saturday I shared with Tony what I would love to do for the third challenge. This is probably a year away. Next time Sheffield Wednesday hosts Sheffield United at Hillsborough for the Steel City Derby I want to DJ a disco for the 30 minutes running up to the kick off. I will have fans round the touch line leading the crowd singing and doing the actions.
Actions to songs like this:
Well Trevor you did say ANYTHING we can do to help !
While I was in Ro's shop yesterday my phone rang. It was the Managing Director of John Lewis's secretary calling. She wanted to speak to me about a letter I had sent TWO MONTHS ago asking if a member of staff could be involved in our Three Peaks Challenge.
Took Trevor at Sheffield one hour and seven minutes to respond to my e-mail, it took Mr John Lewis eight weeks. Obviously the retail giant works within a different time zone to the rest of us.
It was a polite enough and a friendly call but bottom line is NO John Lewis will not be involved. Why ? Because Christmas is our busiest time of the year.
DOH ! Since when has Christmas been in June ? As empty an excuse as the company's cash cow marketing, you know I hate marketing, slogan, something about never being undersold.
I ended the call and said to Ro there was more substance in his little shop than there is within every branch of this retailing giant.
So what else is happening ?
There is The Candle Party next month. In February we have Tea At The Ritz. Our e-bay project is. of course running.
The books The Wild Adventures of Di Central Eating and The Bridge House are progressing. The plan is to publish The Bridge House on 19th May, the anniversary of Beck's passing.
Anything else ?
Possibly. Probably. It's 9.40am and I have not yet published the blog so I'll leave it there for today.
Oh yeh, almost forgot. We have our fun run on The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco in April.
SHUT UP DAVID !
Get your surfboard out and hop up on to the wave of love. Speak again tomorrow.
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