Let's Do It for ME!: 01/10/2012

12 October 2012

‘Let’s Get Snapping for ME!’ 2012 Christmas Cards Photo Competition Winners Announced!

The ‘Let’s do it for ME’ team came up with the idea of the ‘Let’s Get Snapping for ME!’ as we were discussing plans for producing our Christmas cards for this year. We wanted to go that extra mile and make them a little bit special and more relevant to ME than just buying in stock images. So we decided that it would be a really good idea to run this competition whereby LDIFME supporters could make a contribution by sending in photos and have winning entries printed on our cards. We realised that this would be a great opportunity for ME sufferers in particular, whose talent often remains behind closed doors, to have the chance to be acknowledged and celebrated. There couldn’t be more powerful and positive ME awareness whilst raising money for vital biomedical research.

The response to this competition has been simply amazing! 180 photos were entered and a staggering 2351 votes cast in our online poll; we couldn’t have asked or wished for more. The great success of the ‘Let’s Get Snapping for ME’ simply wouldn’t have been possible without your support and we would like to say a very big thank to everyone who got involved, including those who sent in and posted up messages of support and thanks. This means a great deal to us and makes all the hard work that the team, most of whom have ME ourselves, has put in behind the scenes worth it. Special thanks go to Julia Cottam for her hard work on planning and coordinating the competition.

The standard of entries was particularly high and went way beyond our expectations. We did say this was an opportunity to shine, and you certainly did just that! This obviously created its own challenges in that the team had the very difficult task of selecting those for the online vote; and again for those casting votes in the second stage online vote. Many online voters remarked, ‘how could they choose between them, when they’re all so good?’ The online vote was however successful in determining the top five photos that attracted the most votes.

Each winner will have their photos printed up on our 2012 Christmas cards and receive free packs featuring their photo. The cards will be sold to help raise funds towards our £100K campaign target (see page tabs and leaflet for details). We aim to have these available to purchase in early November. For those shortlisted entrants who missed out in our online vote, don’t be disappointed. The team has been coming up with lots of ideas. We hope to be able extend the number printed and possibly branch out into other products too. An announcement will be made shortly, so keep an eye out for updates!

Given the success of the competition, we aim to run this again next year. For those that have never entered a photo competition before don’t be put off entering, the majority of those who entered this year’s had never done anything like this before and just look at the results! We hope this inspires you in the coming months to dust off your cameras. Here’s to an even bigger and better Let’s Get Snapping for ME! in 2013. Let’s do it for ME!

This is the moment you’ve all been waiting for, so without further ado, Let’s do it for ME can proudly announce the five winners of our ‘Let’s Snapping for ME! 2012 Photo Competition.

Congratulations and well done!

Suzanne Hudson 'Winter Landscape' - 375 votes

Claire De Marinis 'Bailey' - 300 votes

Kate Stanforth 'Icicles' - 149 votes

Danielle Lee 'Toby' - 142 votes

Kelsey Palmer 'Star' - 142 votes

8 October 2012

2012 Summer Trivia Quiz - Winners Announced!

Raising money for Invest In ME and The Pain Relief Foundation.

Thanks to everyone who bought a Trivia Quiz this year and also a huge thank you to everyone who made such generous donations. We’re so grateful. We were really impressed with the high standard of the quiz entries. It was very close, but we do have a winner of the 1st prize of £40, Chris Simmons from Norwich, who scored an incredible 99/100! 2nd Prize of £15 goes to Helen Catling from Peterborough and the posh organic choc for coming in 3rd goes to Owen James from Hunstanton. Well Done!!

The total amount raised for Invest In ME is £1,203 and amazingly this was matched (£1000 by one friend and £203 by two others) and donated to The Pain Relief Foundation. The prizes had also been donated so that all the funds raised went to the causes. Thank you SO much for your amazing generosity.

Finally thanks to Jo Best & Paul Kayes for spreading the word so effectively, and to Rowan , Charlene and Mum for being top quiz sellers! and everyone else who helped us especially Paul and all the Hursts and Allens :-)

For an answer sheet just email calamity-jane@sky.com. Oh and if anyone has outstanding quiz-sale funds or would still like to make a donation our Justgiving page: http://www.justgiving.com/Summer-Trivia-Quiz-2012 will be open for another 3 months (these donations will not be matched though). Thanks again :-)

Love,

Jane and Geoff
PS. We promise next years Quiz will be easier! Honest!

Jane Hurst Geoff Allen

Both Geoff and I have suffered with Severe ME for over 14 years - Prior to ME we both enjoyed full, active lives. We worked, we travelled, played sport, had social lives, and, well, put simply, we had our freedom and our health. Sadly ME has taken all this away, as it has for so many of our friends. Pain and distressing neurological symptoms dominate each day, in fact most days can feel like nothing short of an endurance test. This quiz had been organised to help raise money for Invest In ME, a charity that campaigns for vital biomedical research into ME, with the hope that one day a cure will be found for this blimmin horrid illness. Incredibly, all money raised by this quiz was matched by a hugely generous friends and donated to The Pain Relief Foundation (Charity No. 277732). This is a charity which funds research into the causes and treatment of chronic pain. Millions of people in the UK alone, including many with ME/Fibromyalgia, experience severe chronic pain. It goes without saying that it’s hugely distressing to live with on a daily basis, especially when pain drugs aren’t tolerated which is often the case for ME sufferers, therefore research into the causes and treatment of chronic pain is vitally important.

Here is some more general info on ME:

ME is recognised by the World Health Organisation as a serious neurological illness. It affects around 240,000 people in the UK alone. It is a potentially severe, disabling and chronic condition affecting the immune and central nervous system, and varies greatly in its severity and duration. Some people do recover or at least make a partial recovery, but for many, symptoms remain for decades. These symptoms include incapacitating exhaustion after even the slightest activity, together with malaise, nausea, joint and muscle pain, and disturbances of major body systems eg.respiratory, auto-immune and cardio-vascular. Severe chronic pain and major digestive problems are also common. Very severely affected sufferers can experience paralysis, severe light & noise intolerances & some even require tube or intra venous feeding.

5 October 2012

'Let's Get Snapping for ME' 2012 Christmas Cards Photo Competition Online Vote

The ‘Let’s do it for ME’ team has been very busy over the last few days looking through all the entries. We have been overwhelmed by the response to the competition, and with 180 photographs we certainly have had our work cut out. The quality and creativeness of the photos sent in has amazed us. This has made selecting those for the online vote, whilst very difficult, enjoyable too. Once again, we would like to thank everyone for taking part.

Now it’s your turn to vote! You can vote in two ways, either by sending an email to fundraising4me@gmail.com stating your chosen photos. (To make it easier to identify and vote for photos on the website we have numbered them. When emailing us, all you need to do is state the number of the photo or photos you have chosen. Please note you should use the number allocated to each photo on this webpage, the one displayed beside the name of each entrant, not that in the gallery if you are scrolling through photos. You can however, subtract 1 in the gallery and this will match its allocated number.) Alternatively, you can go to our Facebook Competition Event’s Page and simply ‘Like’ your chosen photos. You can vote for as many photos as you want. But remember, online voting closes at midnight on Sunday 7th October. We aim to print the five most voted for photos on our 2012 Christmas Cards. Although, there are possibly plans afoot to print more given the quality of entries – so watch this space! The winners will be announced on 12th October, both on the website and our Competition Event’s page.

Please note the competition is now closed to new entries.

Congratulations to everyone who has made it to the online vote.

Good luck!