Is this man special or is this man special

There was no blog yesterday. I was in the car driving to Devon and back for most of he day and could not get to the laptop. That does not mean that The Wave Of Love was not surfing high as usual so I do have a lot to share.

Being in the car for as long as I was my mind had time to think over many things and to sort some order into a number of OurRebekah projects which I would like to chat about in a moment.

But to open Thursday's blog let me tell you about this picture.

We had a little smile on an earlier blog when I said let's time Sheffield Wednesday's Director Trevor to see how long it takes him takes to answer an e-mail.

It took him 1 hour and 7 minutes. Do you respond to your e-mails so promptly ?

I then said let's see how quickly Mayor David Hopkins takes to write and thank us for the Frog Challenge. 24 hours and that includes the post ! Says a lot about the man doesn't it ? I wrote to a McDonald Franchise holder on 22nd August and he still has not given us the basic courtesy of a reply. Says a lot about him as well doesn't it !?!

The Mayor has asked me to share the letter so there is the original above and here is the text. 

BTW 
he wrote from his home address and NOT the civic offices !

Dear David

Thank you for inviting Susan and myself to be a part of the FROG challenge event in a series of challenges in support of Ronald McDonald House Charities.

Avery enjoyable and enlightening morning and I must admit that would never have anticipated getting quite so up close and personal with a Python and with the charming Chloe, the rather cute skunk.

Do thank all those who helped to make the event such fun.

Good luck with all your endeavors and I do hope that we might meet again soon.

Yours sincerely

David Hopkins - Mayor of Milton Keynes

Is that man special or is that man special ?   I am proud he is our Mayor. I put that on Facebook late yesterday evening and within minutes nine people rushed to agree with me. I am sure many more will add their "like" today.

Yes, Mr Mayor we too look forward to seeing you again.

I was quite tired after my eight hours in the car yesterday, mentally tired as mile after mile after mile I was busy working through our project diary in my head.

You could well accuse me of dithering over the Fire A Rocket project. I have been to the Astro Physics Department at Bristol University and still have not set the event into the diary.

I had originally suggested November but then thought that would not be good as it was Firework Night. Then I said New Year but again it is a time of fireworks and our rockets would get easily lost.

I must be a bit stupid - No a LOT stupid. The date is obvious: TUESDAY 20th FEBRUARY 2018 - Rebekah's birthday. There is plenty of time to plan this so let's have 35 rockets, one for each year of Beck being with us.

You can now sign up and claim a rocket to fire with your family and friends. CLICK HERE and add yourself in.

Fire a Rocket For Beck will support Ronald McDonald House in Bristol.

Why Bristol ? That is where the radio telescope is that will be tracking your rockets !

We have the fun run on Sunday 15th October raising money for Ronald McDonald House Evelina in London and our Sheffield Wednesday project is happening every time the team plays so it is an on-going diary feature.

But by moving our rockets to February it clears the diary - DO CHECK THE DIARY - for us to concentrate in November and early December on Secret Santa.

Driving along yesterday, once I had the rockets sorted I put my mind to thinking about Secret Santa. CLICK HERE and get into the mood.

You can check our Secret Santa via its own direct link as well as via our home page. Just go to www.or-santa.co.uk 

Did you enjoy listening to Jingle Bells ? Well CLICK HERE for some more festive fun.

There are 17 rooms in Ronald McDonald House in Oxford. Rebekah's family will buy gifts for every family staying there.

There are 66 families in Ronald McDonald House Birmingham - aka The Mansion of Love.

The first target for the project is to find 66 lovely supporters who will send a gift.

Then when we have hit that figure we start finding gifts for Evelina House in London.

To send gifts to every UK house we would need to find more than five hundred supporters. I am not sure if we can do that so let's take it step at a time and house by house.

I should have had a meeting today at a youth centre which is looking to be involved but that will now happen next week.

I am not sure how many she will be able to make but a friend is busy knitting santa socks for the project. These are not big enough to hold a large gift but are way big enough to pack with love. I am going to suggest we use these to pop some sweets or a toy in and send them to San Francisco's houses in Mission Bay and Scott Street.

Does that sound like a good idea.

OK ONE MORE SANTA SONG BEFORE I MOVE ON.........CLICK HERE

I can not put off any longer speaking to the Operations Director of MK Dons Football Club.

Sue, I hope you are not reading today's blog. If you are I will be contacting your office today to set up a meeting.

Sheffield Wednesday has gone into orbit, Fantastic but I am a bit embarrassed and we have not respected as properly as perhaps we should have your kindness.

I do hope the suggestion I am going to run by you will be appealing.

If you go for it I am sure Trevor in Sheffield will like it.

Speaking yesterday via e-mail with Libby, House Manager of Birmingham, I asked if we could drop a project I had previously suggested. I am afraid I just can not cope with THREE football clubs on the go !

About one hundred and fifty of those miles along the M4 and M5 yesterday were devoted to considering the Sheffield Wednesday project. You can check this project out at a direct link: www.or-sheffieldwednesday.com

Sheffield Wednesday is known as The Owls.  The project supports Ronald McDonald House in Birmingham so - THE BRUMMIE OWLS.

Every goal the club scores is sponsored by OurRebekah for Ronald McDonald House Birmingham. I feel it is important we do not invade the club's fan base with this project, that would be impertinent. We MUST, however, find a minimum of 50 people who will sponsor the goals for £2 each meaning the house benefits by £100 a goal.

After every match I have been sending THANK YOU cards to the goal scorers. From the next match on Saturday 21st October, away to Derby County the house will send the cards rather than myself.

Each game I attend I will buy a programme and a scarf which I will send to the house to give as a gift to a family.

Just before kick off at every game the crowd sings this song. Then as they leave the club plays Singing The Blues.

I have managed to obtain original 7" vinyl singles of both songs. On Tuesday I went to see a professional framing company who will take these and turn them into a presentation gift for the club.

Tomorrow I am taking Tony from Radio Secklow 105.5 and his wife, see here at Saturday's Frog Challenge, to lunch to discuss this gift. I want Tony to come with me to Sheffield and make the presentation on Saturday 18th November when the club plays at Hillsborough against Bristol.

There are players who will never get a card thanking them for scoring goals. Our friend Barry crosses the ball for others to score and Keiren Westwood who plays in goal is not going to score is he ? So when we go up to the game I will buy some bottles of champagne and leave them in the dressing room for the players.

It had been the original thought to have friends from OurRebekah, from Ronald McDonald House Birmingham and Tony sign the presentation. I have just ordered a BRUMMIE OWL card to go with the presentation. This is something we can ALL sign.

So my drive to Birmingham and back yesterday was profitable.  But I have not told you about the BIG thought - not yet.

Atomic fallout - a bit of a round up

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

see.

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.

When I was chatting with Ro yesterday he was so excited about the challenge, he was up for anything new we could suggest. Wriggiles is having a birthday party at their shop in December and Ro wants us to be a part of it.

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.

Moving slowly' slowly I want to build up a network of fifty friends who will each sponsor every goal for £2. Not difficult but something to be achieved over time. So every goal the club scores sends £100 to Ronald McDonald House in Birmingham.

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.

So called MARKETING EXPERTS are nothing but FOOLS !

Many times yesterday I received e-mails from Facebook telling me that the number of people visiting my page, liking posts and leaving comments put me in the top 1% of activity across the entuire network.

Very nice - THANK YOU.

The messages then went on to invite me to hand over money in order to boost those numbers.

DOH ! 

Why would I want to do

that ?  Surely such marketing should be directed to the bottom 1% not the top 1%. 

DOH.

The Wave of Love - this blog, achieved a readership of 217 people yesterday.

Just look at the reader numbers we have achieved since starting this blog.

The OurRebekah website has during the short time we have been online had visitors from 156 different towns and countries in 22 different countries of the world.

Can you tell me why we need some sad, pathetic marketing expert to work with us ?

Yesterday we had FIVE people support our JustGiving page - FIVE. The money from Saturday still has to be banked then credited.

I don't think we need a marketing  expert, do you ?

I received a spam telephone call a couple of weeks ago offering to help MARKET the website. When I told the caller I do not accept spam calls he replied he was not a spammer but a marketing consultant.

Obscenity laws forbid me from typing here what I said to him. I do not think he will call me again.

If you need to market what you are doing it means you need a cowman to round up the cash cows for you. Once you have milked them for all you can get you send them off to the abattoir. 

That's right isn't it ?

Facebook went crazy yesterday, the bog set a new daily record all because Saturday's Frog Challenge was such a brilliant success.

Why  was  it  a success ?  

I have now put on line the pictures that were taken on Saturday, there are 177 of them. CLICK HERE and check them out.

I defy you to find a single person in any of those pictures who is not having a good time.  I defy you to find a cash cow anywhere.

We do not need any marketing cowman as we do not want cash cows.

Yesterday our adopted football team THE OWLS of Sheffield Wednesday beat THE FROGS of Leeds United 3 - 0.

The moment the final whistle blew I sent an e-mail of congratulations to club director Trevor. I can GUARANTEE as soon as he picks that up this morning he will reply.

Trevor does not call himself the club's marketing director but Communications Director.

When it comes to communicating Trevor is a world expert.

The last thing we need within what we are doing is a cash cow marketing herdsman but what we do need is to emulate Sheffield Wednesday's Communications Director.

On Saturday we communicated with so many people, from young Tyler running the Adopt A Dinosaur table to Ro enthusing people with his love for animals we COMMUNICATED.

Why did so many people support our Just Giving page ?  Why did the blog set a new daily record ?  Why was Facebook going into orbit ?

Because we were talking to people. Because we were sharing love.

I am not sure how old Tyler is but on Saturday he showed greater communications abilities than any of those who call themselves marketing experts.

YEP, Saturday was a brilliant success. Sheffield Wednesday THRASHED Leeds United yesterday.  In the boardroom at Hillsborough today Trevor will be starting to communicate the next game.  We need to communicate our next event.

On Sunday 15th October we have the fun run at Willen Lake and yesterday friends were communicating on social media their participation in that event. Lots of messages were flying around but not a single marketing word, not a syllable. That's why ;people went to Just Giving.

I have today added a diary to our website. In so doing I have moved a couple of event to spread activity evenly.

Please take a look. All you need to do is to click on the diary at the top of our website home page - www.OurRebekah.com 

Then spread the word, tell your friends what we are doing BUT PLEASE DO NOT, NOT NEVER NO WAY market those activities.

We need LOVE. We have no time, no room nor space for cash cows.