The writings of Max Robinson: This is the most important blog page I have written this year

Pinch - Punch - First of the month......

FIRST OF THE MONTH

Monday 1st October 2018

85 days to Christmas....

However, can I inspire you to start Christmas in one month's time ?

Thursday 1st November ?

The picture at the top of today's page shows Yours Truly delivering SECRET SANTA gifts to Ronald McDonald House in Birmingham, gifts of LOVE for families who have a child sick in hospital.

I don't mind telling you organising Secret Santa 2017 was

damn hard work and my home was packed with parcels and gifts in every room. Gifts were coming in faster than I could process them.

Within every gift there was love from the person who gave it.

I am sure that families in Ronald McDonald House had many,

many gifts last Christmas, our Secret Santa parcels were just one of many.

It was not the gift that was important in Secret Santa 2017, it was the LOVE behind the gift.

To have a child seriously ill in hospital is hard for a family any time of the year. To have this happen at Christmas is one hundred times harder.

Seriously ill children with cancer, organ failure and many other ailments need specialist treatment, often in

hospitals faraway from home. Ronald McDonald House keeps families together at these hard times.

Secret Santa 2017 sent our gifts of love to Ronald McDonald House serving Birmingham Childrens Hospital. Children from all over the country come to Birmingham for treatment.

Secret Santa 2018 will open on Thursday 1st November. I

have one month from today to get everything ready for the launch. One month to find the friends I need to work with me.

I have one month from today to put into place the system needed to invite people to put gifts onto Santa's Sleigh,

to process them and to deliver them to the families.

I want to again take gifts of love to Ronald McDonald House and Birmingham Childrens Hospital but my ambitions go beyond that. Can I inspire you to catch the vision ?

I would so much like this year, Secret Santa 2018, to also take love to Sheffield Childrens' Hospital and Ward Five, the childrens' ward, in Milton Keynes Hospital. BUT without help I have no chance at all of being able to that.

Most of the gifts last year came from groups using West Bletchley Community Centre. There were also many lovely kind individuals who helped fill the sacks on Santa's Sleigh.

I know that my dear friends Josh and Jelena Morgan will support Santa but the old man with the white beard needs many more elves in his workshop.

SANTA NEEDS people to spread the word and invite people to give.

SANTA NEEDS more places like West Bletchley Community Centre to become collection points.

SANTA NEEDS people to help wrap the gifts and to store some in their homes.

SANTA NEEDS help delivering the gifts.

SANTA NEEDS YOU

SANTA NEEDS LOVE

I have one month from today to find the love Santa needs.

Secret Santa 2017 for me was a lovely time, a hard time but a time of LOVE. Please come and share in the love of Secret Santa 2018.

In my home there are two carrier bags which I need to take to The Food Bank, gifts of love collected from some beautiful friends. Could I be ambitious and add in the Food Bank, to collect more gifts for families who will not have at Christmas all that you and I will have.

Secret Santa 2017 collected a little short of one hundred gifts

of love, to achieve Santa's ambition for Secret Santa 2018 we will need three times this number.

Does your heart have enough love for you to get involved ?

Last year from 1st December to Christmas Day, as part of Secret Santa, we ran an on-line music advent calendar, that was great fun and will again be part of Secret Santa this year.

So would you like to make Christmas 2018 special for you and your family ? Would you help Santa ? PLEASE.....

PLEASE TODAY - Monday 1st October - do two things.

1. DROP ME AN E-MAIL dashford566@gmail.com or hit me on FACEBOOK and tell me you would like to be a part of Secret Santa 2018

2. SHARE this page so as many people as possible read it.

Yesterday the total blog readership, the number of friends who have checked my daily scribble since I started writing in January 2017, reached 76,200. I have been hoping it would hit one hundred thousand by Christmas. If I link this page and Secret Santa to each blog across this new month of October wouldn't it be great if that 100,000 were reached by 1st November and the launch of Secret Santa 2018.