Category Archives: Fundraising

The Three Tenners

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For those of you who came to the Birdshot Day on Saturday, 3 March, you will have heard Mike Brace with his inspirational opening speech to the Day.

Mike is the BUS professional Advisor. He has long experience in running charities, and he is currently the Chief Executive of VISION 2020 UK which is an umbrella organisation that facilitates greater collaboration and co-operation between organisations that work with people who have eye and vision problems. BUS is a member of VISION 2020 UK.

Mike is helping us to ‘grow’ BUS and is our main speaker for any events we hold. He has been blind from a young age, but that has not stopped him becoming a medal winning Paralympian and he was awarded a CBE for services to sport. He is working on the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.

To celebrate his impending retirement, Mike and two other Chief Executives of charities working with people who have eye problems have decided to take on an extreme challenge to raise money for sight loss causes.

The three of them are calling themselves ‘The Three Tenners’ (and he promises not to sing!). Mike has already competed in a game called Boccia and is about to compete in the Goal Ball challenge this Friday 9 March. He then goes on to a rowing challenge, sailing (he says he hopes to manage this without a seeing guide, so stay out of his way if you see him on the water!), tandem riding, judo, shooting (ohoh – another place to stay away from!), track and field athletics and ‘sound’ tennis.

Mike is truly inspirational and has been such enormous help to us.

If you want to donate to his magnificent fundraising event, go to his Be My Charity page at

http://www.bmycharity.com/3tenners

 

Carrots Walk – raising money for Birdshot research

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BUS is hoping that as many as 50 walkers will sign up and join the Birdshot Uveitis Society Team for the Carrots Nightwalk  which takes place on Friday 21st September 2012 in London.

Click here if you want to sign up as a walker  for the Carrots Nightwalk and raise money for the Birdshot Biobank.   When you are completing the form, please remember to select Birdshot Biobank in the ‘what you want your money used for section’!  Please also let us know that you have registered to support Birdshot Biobank so your Just Giving fundraising page (which you need to set up) can be linked  to our Team Birdshot page . Don’t forget to invite fit friends and family to  join us on the walk to help us achieve our fundraising target.

If you can’t walk but want to support the Birdshot Biobank initiative by making a donation, please go to our Just Giving  Birdshot Team Page where you can make a donation to support all of our fabulous carrots walkers

We have set a target of £12,000 for the team but it would be great if we are able to exceed this.

Read on for further details about the Biobank and the walk.

We are really excited to be working in partnership with Fight For Sight to raise funds for the Birdshot Biobank and research by participating in the Carrots walk – a 15 mile night walk through London, taking place on 21 September 2012 and we really need your help, either by becoming a walker and raising funds, or by donating to our growing ‘Team Birdshot’ of walkers.

The Birdshot biobank is a really exciting development, which will allow us to hold samples of everybody affected by this disease, and allow us to research why we get it, who gets it,  how we can stop it into the future, and how we can find more targeted and less toxic medication to stop us needlessly losing our sight.

We have already had a grant of £15,000 promised us from Fight for Sight who are very keen to help with this initiative, but this is dependent on us finding additional money from elsewhere.  We are looking to find some sponsorship but we need our members help as well to show that this is something which we support.

If you want further information on Fight For Sight, please go to their website at http://www.fightforsight.org.uk

Please see below for further information on the Carrots Walk:

The route:

Carrots NightWalk – See London in the Dark 2012 will take to the streets of London with the aim of raising funds for vital eye research. In 2012 there will be two walks of different distances. The 15 mile NightWalk is available to anyone of 13 years and above. The 6 mile NightWalk is available for all ages.  More information on the routes

Registration fee:

A registration fee of £25 is required to register and we ask you to pledge to raise a minimum sponsorship of £150. There is no registration fee for children under 13 years taking part in the 6 mile walk.

Where your money goes:

By supporting the Carrots NightWalk, every one of our walkers will help to bring us closer to preventing sight loss and treating Birdshot uveitis. This will help to improve the lives of  us Birdshotters and our family members.

Please join us in this great fundraising opportunity which will be great fun.  We can benefit from the larger infrastructure of  Fight for Sight and still really make an impact and obtain publicity, helping to raise the profile of Birdshot Uveitis.

Please do let us know if you need any help setting up your Just Giving fundraising page, by contacting BUS by email.  We can talk you through this process on the phone if required.

 

Annie and Rea

 

 

Birdshot Day Super Draw!!

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This year we are delighted to tell you about our Birdshot Day Super-Draw.

We have some amazing prizes up for grabs with all the proceeds going towards raising funds for the Birdshot Bio Bank.

Some of the prizes include…….

  • Membership for a Day for two at Guards Polo Club with lunch and drinks in the Club House

  • £150 EyeCare Voucher for Specsavers

  • A case of Pink Champagne

  • £100 Voucher for Frame Set and Match

  • A Carluccio’s Hamper

  • A fabulous  quilted patchwork king- sized bedspread made by BUS member Liz McKinnon

………And Many, Many More!!!!!

Tickets will be £5 on the day.

Remember to tell your friends and families to place their  orders with you

London/SE Birdshot Friends First Meeting

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Last Saturday we had the first meeting of London/SE Birdshot friends and 18 people attended including some friends only recently diagnosed.

We spent a lot of time talking, exchanging experiences and debating ideas, and eating sandwiches and cake!

Some of the main points to come out of the meeting were:

  • Carrot Walk – we need 30 volunteers to join the Fight for Sight Carrot Walk to help us raise funds for research.
  •  Vitamin D – some friends reporting positive results from taking Vitamin D.
  •  High Street Opticians – identified by many friends as being a week link in the chain of diagnosis which can delay treatment. We are looking to find ways to improve the education of opticians.
  •  Volunteers to help educate medical staff identify Birdshot – we are going to compile a register of Birdshot Friends who would be willing to volunteer to let medical staff examine their eyes to familiarise them with Birdshot as and when required. Please let us know if you would be willing.
  • Volunteers to accompany patients to appointments at Moorfields – Appointments can be quite daunting on your own when you are first diagnosed with Birdshot.   We’d like to build up a register of  anyone willing to accompany newly diagnosed patients.  We have had a few offers from people willing  to do this already.  Do please get in touch with us if you would like to help new diagnosed people in this way.
  • Volunteers for Hypnotherapy sessions – Lorraine is doing a degree in Hypnotherapy and would like volunteers for case studies, others on her course would also be keen for volunteers across London & SE. Hypnotherapy is well known for helping stress and so could help all of us! Please e mail BUS if you would like to be involved and we will pass on your details to her.

The next meeting will be in June and we will let you know more details nearer the time and hope even more Birdshot friends will be able to attend.

Join BUS and Fight for Sight on the “Carrot Walk” and raise funds for Birdshot Research

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Fight For Sight (FFS) is a large charity that funds research into eye diseases. They have often concentrated on eye diseases that affect a large number of people. However, they are now looking at how they can help fund-raise for rare diseases and small charities.

FFS have offered us a place on the programme they are developing for small charities and rare diseases, subject to us finding enough volunteers to qualify.

Here is how it will work: FFS has set up a 15 mile London Nightwalk on 21 September, 2012, starting at 11 pm.  If BUS can find 30 people who are willing to pay £25 each to participate in the 15 mile night walk, and are willing to find sponsors for their walk (each person needs to be sponsored for at least £150), then all the money these people raise will be banked with FFS specifically for research into Birdshot.  This means that, if we manage to get our biobank set up, then researchers who want to use the biobank samples for research into Birdshot can apply to FFS for a small grant to fund the staff and other equipment for that research.  Exciting!!!

Before we can accept this offer, we need to be sure that we can find 30 people.  We are approaching all our members and all ‘Team Birdshot’ (which includes consultants, nurses, low vision experts, etc) to see if we can find the 30 people.

Could you let us know as quickly as possible whether you want to/are interested in undertaking this 15 mile London night walk?  FFS is expecting a very big turn out for this event, and we would really like to participate if at all possible.  21st September is a Friday night, so we could have the week-end to recover!  We might have to wear some silly clothes for the walk – maybe we can all go dressed as birds!

Please, please let us know as quickly as possible whether you want to be involved in this, so we can get back to Fight For Sight.

 

Rea

Easy Fundraising continues to raise funds for BUS

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Birdshot Uveitis Society supporters raised £118.43

with easyfundraising & easysearch!

There are 13 of us signed up raising money via Easy Fundraising and we have just received a cheque for £37.68 for doing our on-line shopping via the Easy Fundraising website.  This brings the total raised since we signed up about a year ago to £118.43.

We’d like to thank the people who have decided to help us via Easy Fundraising.  It’s simple, painless and it doesn’t cost you a penny more than you would otherwise be spending on yourself and your friends and families, especially at this time of year when you are Christmas shopping.

The Easy Fundraising site  is an excellent, easy, on-line way to help raise money for future research and Birdshot days, while you do your normal on-line Christmas shopping and it doesn’t cost you anything extra. Retailers such as Amazon, Next, Argos, John Lewis, Comet, iTunes, eBay, M&S  and HMV, Clarkes all give money when you shop-online via Easy-Fundraising. You shop directly with the retailer as you would normally do, but if you sign up to http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/bus for free and use the links on the easyfundraising site to take you to the retailer before you shop, then a percentage of whatever you spend comes directly to us at no extra cost to yourself. This service is FREE to use and will give you access to hundreds of exclusive discounts and voucher codes, so not only will you be helping us while you buy your Christmas presents, you will also help to save money yourself

Quinn Wilson Associates raise Money for BUS

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 Kerry Quinn is an amazing, energetic and inspirational person who constantly thinks of others.  She set up Quinn Wilson Associates which specialises in using digital and social media to market organisations to help them become more successful.

On Friday 23rd September, she organised a small social media event at my local art gallery, Lemon Grove in Chiswick, London, and I was invited along.  I have to say I was in total awe of Kerry and her stunning social networking skills.  She is one of the nicest people I have met, and she spent a lot of time with me, giving me advice about how to use digital and social media to improve BUS.

Even better, she held a raffle and decided that all the proceeds would go to BUS – what a wonderful person!

The raffle prizes were a voucher for a hair cut and design at Tony & Guy (thanks to Tony & Guy, Chiswick for donating this) and a wonderful book of paintings by Fabian Perez, a very prominent artist (donated by Silvana Bedford at the Lemon Grove Gallery, Chiswick)

The raffle raised £124.  This adds to our growing pot of money for our next Birdshot Day on 3rd March 2012.

The whole event that Kerry organised was really helpful, as I met so many people who have offered their time for free to help me learn some new skills. and Kerry has said she will think about whether there are other ways in which she can help BUS.

If you want to find our more about Kerry, her website is at

http://www.quinnwilson.co.uk

And if you want to find out more about the Lemon Grove Gallery in Chiswick (Silvana has been so supportive of me, particularly when I was at my worst on medication and struggling to even get the shopping done – Chiswick is just full of wonderful people) her website is at

www.thelemongrovegallery.co.uk/

Team Birdshot just keeps growing and growing!

While I was at Kerry’s networking meeting, I met a solicitor, Eilish Adams from Adams Law and she told me about an interesting scheme called WillAid where, in the month of November, you can seek out a participating solicitor and make your will in exchange for a donation to charity.  You can find out more about this scheme at  http://www.willaid.org.uk/

Rea

Volunteer help for BUS

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We’d like to introduce you to some of the people who provide voluntary help to BUS.  All of these people either have Birdshot, have a partner or family member with Birdshot or have a professional interest in Birdshot.  It is wonderful the way this has just evolved, and it helps to make BUS a powerful tool for developing a Birdshot community. We are truly grateful to everyone who is involved with BUS.

Lori Bonertz is a Canadian pharmacist and medical editor living in northeastern British Columbia. She edits manuscripts for Dr David Mackey, a specialist in the genetics of eye disease, with a focus on glaucoma. She became interested in birdshot uveitis when a well-informed patient at her pharmacy had questions she couldn’t answer. While scouring the internet, she found the helpful UK BUS website. Her particular interest at work is smoking cessation. She and her Australian husband have four children and they enjoy skiing, hiking, and watching the UK series Top Gear and Sherlock Holmes.  Lori is helping us to make sure that all our news items on research and trials are accurate.

Hamamelis,  a retired pharmacist from the Northwest of England, recently edited  the Birdshot Chorioretinopathy fact sheet for us and has volunteered to proofread future fact sheets.  These two people provide us with our pharmacy expertise – without them, we would never be able to write informative news items for you.

Sue from Lincolnshire is talking to her local ophthalmologist from Hull Hospital to try and find ways of raising Birdshot awareness locally.  She has approached her GP, talked to her local optometrist and made approaches for us to the UK lottery fund for future Birdshot Days.  Sue would value help from others in the Lincolnshire and South East Yorkshire area who want to join forces with her in this initiative.  If there are enough people – (at this stage we don’t know enough in the locality), a local support group could also be formed.  Anyone interested in this should let us know and we will pass the details on.  Hopefully, this will be the first of many local support groups.  If there is anyone else who wants to start a local support group, I am sure Sue will be able to advise – she is brilliant at getting local people interested.

Steve is looking at producing a map of where our members are – we will then be able to see the geographical location of all members.  Currently, all we are able to analyse is what geographical location people access BUS from. Once Steve has completed the mapping, we can use this to look at whether there are ‘pockets’ of Birdshot, and what the implications of this might be.  Thanks, Steve, for progressing our research agenda.

Sandra has been gathering items together to hold a a raffle for BUS amongst her friends and local community.  She enjoys  making hand-made cards and has found that they have sold really well.  We are just about to receive a cheque from her.  Thank you, Sue for developing our first ever fund-raising initiative.  You are an inspiration.

And of course, David our Graphic Artist continues to produce stunning artwork for us. His latest triumph is the label and packaging for the Birdshot DVD. We have other projects where we hope he will assist us into the future.    David’s design skills have really helped us launch Birdshot Uveitis Society  across the world.  Everyone who comes across BUS comments on the very eye catching and effective logo!

Every small initiative helps raise the profile of the Birdshot Uveitis Society and Birdshot Chorioretinopathy.  We have just highlighted a few initiatives more to follow!

We have also started to notice that people with Birdshot do seem to be a very highly skilled group of people – just look at all the initiatives above.  What a powerful and inspirational group of people we are!!!

 

Easy Fundraising!

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We’ve just banked our second cheque from Easyfundraising and are  pleased to announce that we have raised nearly £65.00 from the 7  people who have signed up for this simple way of doing normal on-line shopping.   Thank you so much to those seven people for signing up!

It might not sound like much, but every penny counts and if all our members decided to shop this way, it would soon mount up!  It’s  an easy and free way for you to support Birdshot Uveitis Society.    The brilliant thing about this way of giving  is that it doesn’t cost you a penny.

We’ve teamed up with Easyfundraising who provide a shopping directory listing some of your favourite online stores. Hundreds of popular retailers are participating including Argos, Next, Debenhams, John Lewis, Toys R Us, M&S and over 2000 others.  You can buy anything from books, DVDs and clothes,  to larger items like  washing machines and computers.    It’s also  great for buying Birthday and Christmas presents.

All you need to do is use the links provided on the easyfundraising site whenever you shop online. The retailer will then give Birdshot Uveitis Society up to15% of every purchase you make – it’s that simple!

It doesn’t cost a penny extra to shop and raise funds in this way, and you can even save money as many retailers give exclusive discounts, special offers and even ‘e-vouchers’ exclusive to easyfundraising.

If you already shop online why not help raise extra funds for us by using this completely free service? Follow the instructions below to find out how.

It is as easy as 1-2-3 and it’s FREE!

1. Go to www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/bus and register for FREE!

2. Once you are registered, use the links on the easyfundraising site to go to your favourite online shops and shop in the usual way.

3. Every time you shop online, log on to www.easyfundraising.org.uk and use their links to visit your favourite shops.

Please encourage your friends and family to sign up too and raise even more money for Birdshot Uveitis Society.

That’s all you need to do – apart from remembering to return to our site next time you are going to shop online!!

Providing you login and use the retailer links provided we’ll track all your transactions and pay your nominated cause the appropriate donations. These will then be displayed in your easyfundraising account (which you can access online).

If you have any questions or require further assistance please see the Easyfundraising  FAQ section.

 

 

London Marathon – Ken’s amazing feat

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Just to let you know that Ken Fitzmaurice (who was running for UIG and BUS via Fight for Sight and raising money for Dr John Curnow and Professor Phil Murray who are researching the causes of uveitis) completed the course in under 4 hours (he did flag a little at the 30 km mark – he blames the heat!).

So far, he has raised just over £1,200 and our target is £2,500, so we really want to keep raising money. With this in mind, Ken has decided to run the Dublin marathon in November – so please, please dig deep and donate to this amazing cause, which may find a cure for all of us! For those of you who have donated, thank you so much.
Rea