Free Shipping!

Free delivery is available on all orders over £30 from our Spreadshirt shops 27th Dec - 2nd Jan 2012. 

Make the most of the free shipping offer and choose your favourite products from the main LDIFME Shop and/or design your own LDIFME products in our Designer Shop. 

To apply the discount use the voucher code FREEDELIVERY at checkout.

Let's do it for ME!

* All profits from both our Spreadshirt shops go directly to Invest in ME towards the UK centre.

Thank you for your support!

We Wish You A Merry Christmas

Many thanks to everyone who has joined us in supporting Invest in ME's plan to establish the first UK centre for biomedical research and treatment and wishing you all a peaceful, joyful Christmas.

A big thank-you to all those who have so generously given of their time and talents during this season of goodwill by making, donating proceeds from, and buying greetings cards and calendars, handmade gifts and decorations, gifts from our on-line shops, and raising funds for free when searching the web and shopping on-line, as shown in our post Christmas Gifts 4 ME!

So far you have helped us raise £24,656 for Invest in ME and the UK centre!

There is still time to make a Christmas Gift Donation to our festive fundraising page Gift4ME - which will remain open up to 31st December.

You can now also Donate By Text:

Text IBRF33 and either £2, £5 or £10 to 70070
e.g. IBRF33 £5

All the very best,

Let's do it for ME!

100 Birdies 4 ME!

Diana Hamilton is aiming to sell 100 of her lovely handmade birdies to help raise funds for the UK Centre of Excellence by donating 50% of her profits to

Invest in ME's Biomedical Research Fund.

 Diana says:

"The idea for 100 Birdies 4 ME came about in early September; I had just joined a local craft group who were looking to take part in Light Night Leeds 2011 buy making 3 'gardens' out of various crafts, and at the same time I had heard of the Let's Do It For ME fund-raising campaign to raise money for a biological research centre focusing on M.E.

As with all good ideas, the idea to create something for the craft gardens that could then have a 'higher purpose' after the event just evolved. I had to make something for the craft garden that was easy to do, portable (read: able to be done from bed/sofa!) and would be unit based, so that I could manage to do it as I was recovering from a bad M.E flare during the summer myself. I spent lots of time on my days stuck in bed researching online projects and looking on Pinterest for inspiration. And then one day, I found some small felt birds which hung on a loop of ribbon and bingo! It was the perfect idea.

I have spent the last few months up to the eyeballs in felt cut outs, ribbon and stuffing but I have thoroughly enjoyed making them. I have found my own health improving as I have been making birdies, and have felt like I have a purpose even though housebound for the majority of the time.

I set myself the target of making and selling 100 birdies – the total made so far is at 40 but I have only sold 22 of these so far. I really don't know if I will manage to make 100 before Christmas, but I plan on keeping the project going until I have reached my goal.

I wholeheartedly support what Let's Do It For ME! and Invest in ME are doing, it is about time that some proper research was done into M.E so that we can find a cause and cure the thousands of people who are just forgotten about and left to cope with a devastating illness with little medical intervention".


Click here to see and order the birdies.

You can find 100Birdies4ME on Facebook.

Of course, you can also follow the birdies on Twitter @100Birdies4ME

Many thanks to Diana and all who choose to give her Birdies a home.

Would you like a Birdie for Christmas?

Let's do it for ME!

UPDATE

As at 16th February 2012, these lovely birdies had raised £64.60 + £16.15 for ME!  You can see Diana's donation to Invest in ME on our fundraising page on Everyclick.

Photo of the Month - November

We are delighted to announce James as winner of November Photo of the Month!

James with Bob

 James said:

"Thank you for choosing my picture, that's me James (14) with Bob my little Yorkie. My mum has had M.E. for the past 11 years and has to go out in a wheelchair when she feels well enough. She can't do many normal things and she wasn't able to come on holiday with me and dad as she was too ill, but she likes to sit in the garden in the sunshine. I hope you reach your target of £100,000 so that people like my mum can get treatment one day."

The first winning entry for the competition aimed at getting our photo album off to a flying start was announced last month. It was so great to see supporters of our campaign that we decided to extend the competition as a regular Photo of the Month event, with previous entries remaining eligible for a winning prize selected from our online shop.

You can see our photo album and choose a sign to show in your photo here.

Please keep sending us your photos at fundraising4me@gmail.com and we will announce December's winner early in the New Year.

Many thanks to James for sending us his winning photo and our best wishes to him and his family - including Bob of course - for a Very Happy Christmas and New Year!

Thank you so much for your support!

New Designer Shop

When the kind people at Spreadshirt saw that our shop is raising funds for Invest in ME they took it upon themselves to upgrade us to a premium account for free. This charitable gesture means we can now offer you the opportunity to create your own products using LDIFME designs. The new 'Design Your Own' Shop means you can choose any item sold by Spreadshirt, in any colour, and add a LDIFME design, as well as other designs and text of your choice. You can choose from a selection of miscallenous free* designs from Spreadshirt as well as upload your own images or photos. As with all Spreadshirt Designer Shops, 20% is taken in commission which of course will go directly to Invest in ME.

The LDIFME Designer Shop can be accessed via the header of our the main LDIFME Shop or visited directly at http://designerme.spreadshirt.co.uk/

So now you can size and place designs yourself, and customise items to your own individual taste and style - or maybe that of a friend or loved one? If you wish to purchase a gift from either of our Spreadshirt shops for Christmas, your order must be placed by December 17th to guarantee delivery. 

So check out our new shop and/or revisit our original shop for some ME related goodies which will raise funds for Invest in ME and the UK centre.

Also visit Carmel Hillary's Cafepress ME Awareness shop for a great variety of ME products, featuring a wide range of designs. All funds from Carmel's shop also go directly to Invest in ME and towards the UK centre.

For further ME awareness and fundraising items see our Christmas Gifts for ME post.

Let's do it for ME!


* Free means no commission is taken by the designer, you will be charged the standard printing costs by Spreadshirt.

Grantastic!

A Grantastic Coffee Morning!

Many thanks to Pat and Geoff and their friends for their kind and generous support and to Rosa's mother Julie for sending us these lovely photos - you can click on the smaller ones to enlarge.  Julie says:

"Pat and Geoff Smith, grandparents of Rosa Amor, held a coffee morning on Saturday 3rd December to raise funds for LDIFME. Even before the day, friends who could not attend gave generous donations and people were quick to volunteer to help - organising the raffle, baking cakes, manning the bric-a-brac and book stalls and making the tea & coffee. At the end of the day not only had a large number of people had a very enjoyable time, but an amazing £310 had been raised. 

"But what I am so pleased about," commented Pat, "is that the event raised not just funds but awareness of ME issues. One friend belongs to the Manningtree Co-Operative Women's Guild and wants to put forward to their national organisation the proposal that they send an instruction to the government to facilitate research into ME. Another friend wants a speaker to talk to a group they are involved in."

Even something as simple as a coffee morning for people you know, can make a huge difference. Why not plan one yourself for the New Year?"

What a great idea ....

Let's do it for ME!

You may also like to take a look at the ideas for Christmas post here.

Thank you so much for your support!

One Last Goodbye

Yesterday marked the 3rd anniversary of the death of Lynn Gilderdale on 4th December 2008, after 17 years of suffering with very severe myalgic encephalomyeltis, which she had contracted at 14 years of age. Along with others who have lost their lives to the effects of this disease, Lynn is never far from our thoughts and our sincere condolences are with Lynn's family at this time; particularly with her mother Kay, whose deeply moving book, One Last Goodbye, is dedicated to her inspirational daughter. Kay is also a contributor to the film Voices from the Shadows, produced by Natalie Boulton and Josh Biggs, mother and brother of a sufferer of severe ME. In the Epilogue to One Last Goodbye, Kay writes:

“Meanwhile I have decided to carry on campaigning in Lynn's name to promote awareness of ME and to raise money for research. Research is the key to understanding this illness and Lynn has already made her own contribution. When her body was examined by the pathologist who specialised in M.E, he discovered “dorsal root ganglionitis” - infected nerve roots – and nodules of Nageotte, which are little tombs of dead cells, in her spinal cord. These would have caused her terrible pain and sensory nerve damage. They found similar cells in the body of Sophia Mirza, an ME sufferer who died in 2005 at the age of 32, and I believe in other sufferers. These findings are proof that Lynn's ME was a neurological disease”.

Lynn would say to her mother:

“The answers are within me, Mum. It will be too late for me but it will help others.”

Kay says, “I hope she was right and that some good will come out of her death and others will not have to suffer the way she did.”

We sincerely share that hope and extend our deep respect to Kay for all she has been through and our grateful thanks to her for all she is doing to help make that hope a reality. You can read more of Kay's memories of Lynn in our September post here.

“One Last Goodbye” by Kay Gilderdale is published by Ebury Press (ISBN 978-0091939144)


You can read some Amazon customer reviews here.
To help raise awareness, please ask your local library and local book shops to stock copies of this book and also Lost Voices.

You can buy One Last Goodbye from several shops or on-line in paperbook or ebook format from The Random House Group.

If you buy through the Easyfundraising site, e.g. from Amazon or The Random House Group and choose Invest in ME as your cause, the charity will receive up to 2.5% of the price as a donation, with no extra cost to you.

UPDATE:  Voices from the Shadows is now available for those in USA and Canada to view online on MUBI and for those in UK and Europe to buy on DVD.  You can watch the trailer here.

To raise awareness, you could send these links to your MP, GP, local and national media.

The film won the “Audience Favourite Documentary Award” at its world première at Mill Valley Festival, California in October 2011. Invest in ME hosted the film's UK première in Norwich and also in London in December. Thank you for your support in raising awareness of severe M.E.


*Remember ME is a fundraising page on Everyclick for sponsors wishing to donate to our cause in memory of those who have lost their lives to this disease.



Message from Miss 3%

Kathryn Lloyd, now known affectionately as our Miss 3%, explains here how she earned that title with not just a little help from her friends ...

Dear all,

Finally, after collecting, counting, re-counting, asking someone who can count faaaar better than I can, then double-checking with a calculator and doing the same with gift aid, the total for my sponsored silence is .... £3060.53!

Thank-you so, so much to everyone who sponsored me – family, friends, neighbours and total strangers who I now consider friends!
 

Kathryn receiving a generous donation from Michael of Houghton-le-Spring Round Table


In the end, I was silent for 31 hours. As everyone was so kind, I thought I'd try and do it a little longer than planned!  It was certainly a different 31 hours. It brought back many memories I'd rather forget but I thought I'd share one with you just to demonstrate the intolerable suffering severe M.E can cause. I remembered the times when, during my 40 months of being unable to speak, I suffered periods of total paralysis. where I was completely concious but unable to even open my eyelids. So terrifying, and made even harder to bear by the fact that after they passed, as I was unable to speak or move my arms I couldn't tell anyone what had happened - it was only when I could speak again after the 40 months that I finally could.

The 31 hours weren't all bad! It did make me so appreciate how far I have come. I have a long, long way to go but it is truly a miracle that I can now speak and eat and sit and stand etc. - all things I couldn't do for most of 10 years. It also made me realise that now I have noise in my life again - like music and TV and talking - just how important some quiet time out, to reflect still is.

This illness is utterly devastating and anything anyone can do to either raise money or help support those who are, please, please do – I have so loved feeling I was doing something to make a difference and would recommend fund-raising to everyone – it's such a great feel-good feeling. I love the quote ... it is better to light a candle than complain about the darkness ... so if any way you can light a candle for Invest in ME please, please Let's do it for ME!

Many thanks again to each of you for your support. It is so much appreciated by us all.

Love,

Kathryn Lloyd x

Huge thanks to Kathryn and her generous sponsors. 

Click here for Kathryn's Sponsored Silence blog post. 

Click here for Kathryn's fundraising page on Everyclick.