Let's Scare to Care at Halloween! Photo Competition, Scary Bear Party and more ..

Let's be devils and help Invest in ME reach their fundraising ghouls this Halloween!

Enter Giveacar's Halloween Photo Competition and win some fantastic prizes 

as well as great donations for our favourite charity - Invest in ME!

Giveacar are looking for creative, imaginative photographs of your Halloween festivities - pumpkin carvings, spooky costumes, terrifying decorations or maybe something even more unique!

Prizes

1st Prize: An Amazon Kindle and £200 donation to charity

2nd Prize: A 6 month Netflix subscription and £100 donation to charity

3rd Prize: A £20 Amazon voucher and £50 donation to charity

The competition will run from Friday 24th October to Tuesday 4th November at midnight.

To enter: You can enter the competition in a number of ways:

Facebook: Go to the Giveacar Facebook page, like the page and upload your photograph to the timeline. Make sure you mention Invest in ME charity in the text! (your picture won't appear on the timeline straight away but Giveacar will have received it).

Twitter: Tweet your photograph, making sure that you include @Giveacar so that they can see it and mention the name of Invest in ME charity (@Invest_in_ME) Follow @Giveacar to be notified of the results.

Email: You can also email your entries to charity@giveacar.co.uk making sure that you attach the photograph and mention Invest in ME charity.

For more information visit www.giveacar.co.uk/halloween-competition

Giveacar will release the results on Friday 7th November - GOOD LUCK!

More fiendish ways to raise funds or have just have fun and lift some spirits .. 

Well enough for a Halloween party, or know someone who is? 

Why not ask them to scare to care and donate £5 to Invest in ME?  

Not well enough to party, but want to raise some spirits? 

You are warmly invited to join Scary Bear for M.E. Halloween online on Facebook!  

See you there, if you dare .... mwahahah! 

Need some fiendishly fine jewellery to adorn your party scary wear?

Fly on over to Jenny's Treasures Halloween 2014 Album!

Want to shed a little light on the night?

Alison Orr's gorgeous candles - organic unscented option available!

Roger's Fright Hike for Invest In ME!
Batastic! Roger Ogborne's story: "On 31st October I will be taking part in the Fright Hike; A 20 mile hike through Epping Forest in Essex in the dark! I will be starting at Midnight on Halloween and I am doing it to raise money for Invest in ME as my daughter was diagnosed at 15 with this illness. Invest in ME is a charity that seeks to raise money to fund biomedical research in regards to ME." 
See Roger's Everyclick fundraising page.

THANKS to all joining in with the spirit of our campaign to raise awareness 

and lots of funds for Invest in ME - Happy Halloween everyone!

Thank you for your support! 

*Let's do it for ME! is a campaign to help raise awareness of the work of independent 

UK charity Invest in ME (Research) and funds for the biomedical research into myalgic encephalomyelitis that the charity is organising and/or funding. Invest in ME is run entirely by unpaid volunteers who either have ME or are parents and carers of ME patients. They are driving the agenda of scientific biomedical research into diagnostic tests and treatments for myalgic encephomyelitis in UK in collaboration with international researchers of world renown - 2014 is an exciting year for progress in M.E. research - you can help*

Let's do it for ME!

in support of

Invest in ME

£25,000 target passed!

We are pleased to announce a new total of funds raised so far of £25,161. This takes us past the quarter way point on our way to raising the required £100,000.

Thank you to everyone who's helped us get this far, we'd love to raise the remaining £75,000 in time for the Seventh Annual Invest in ME International Biomedical Conference which will take place on 1st June - more details.

Can you help? Please take a look at the ways you can help on our How to Help page.

Are you able to donate? See the donation options here. 

Don't forget to sign up with Everyclick and Easyfundraising to raise funds for FREE while you shop online and search the web - more details can be found under RAISE FUNDS FOR FREE! here.

Please contact us at fundraising4me@gmail.com if you have any questions or suggestions for the campaign team.

Let's keep doing it for ME!

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.

Announcement - New Matched Donation Period

With a big THANK-YOU to James Wythe, his family and friends!

 

James Wythe


We are delighted to announce another matching period - this time for donations made to any fundraising page on Everyclick belonging to the Let's do it for ME! fundraising group, £ for £ to a total of £3,000.

Effective immediately and ending midnight Wednesday 30th of November or until such time as the total has been reached.

Please note that this matching period will apply to all donations made via Everyclick to the pages linked to Let's do it for ME! fundraising group only, to make it easier to keep an eye on donations as they come in. The matched amount will be added at the end of the matched donation period.

The various fundraising pages linked to Let's do it for ME can be found here. 

They include Paul Kayes' Sponsored Weight Loss and Amy's Sponsored Screen-Free Weekend from11th-13th November and many more.  You can choose to support any of the individual sponsored events listed on the group page, set up your own fundraising page, or donate to the general Let's do it for ME! page here.

Don’t forget to tick the Gift Aid box if you are a UK tax payer.

You can continue to donate by any other means, e.g. cheque or PayPal on Invest in ME website, during the matching period, but only donations via the Everyclick fundraising pages will be doubled during this period of time.

Are ready to double the value of your donations?

Let's do it for ME!

UPDATE:  You did it!  Together we reached the £3000 target by midnight 30th November, so £6000 with James' generous matching sponsorship and with almost £500 extra in Gift Aid!

THANK-YOU so much to James, his family and friends, all the fundraisers and their generous sponsors, including the lovely Ladies at Boots Thornaby and The VU Sound, whose donation was a delightful surprise!  Click here to see the full list of sponsors - thank you all!



*The Let's do it for ME! awareness and fund-raising campaign is run by ME sufferers in close cooperation with the charity Invest in ME. Your donations go directly to Invest in ME towards the UK Centre. See this campaign highlighted on the Invest in ME website here. 

Peter Amos BUPA Great North Run

Peter Amos has a relative with myalgic encephalomyelitis.  He said:
 
“I'm running in the Bupa Great North Run Sunday 18th of September and want to raise as much money as possible for Let's do it for ME in support of Invest in M.E. and their plans to open a Centre for Biomedical Research into M.E. in East Anglia, the first of it's kind in Europe.

Let's do it for ME is a patient driven initiative in support of Invest in ME and gives great hope to the estimated 250,000 sufferers in the U.K. 25% of whom are severely affected / bed bound. Also for the very many children and teenagers who suffer from this debilitating illness.

Thank you for your generous support,

Peter.”


UPDATE

Peter finished the run in a time of 2.03.49 and has raised £756 so far!

He has asked us to pass on a big thank you to all those who have sponsored him and for all the support and encouraging posts and comments.

Peter's fundraising page on Everyclick remains open until 31st October so there is still plenty of time to donate in support of his achievement.

Thank you so much to Peter and sponsors for doing this for ME!


To donate via Peter's page on Everyclick, click here.

P.S. When you make a donation, don't forget to check the Gift Aid box if you're a UK taxpayer as then your charity can claim an extra 25% from the government!



*The Let's do it for ME! awareness and fund-raising campaign is run by ME sufferers in close cooperation with the charity Invest in ME. Your donations go directly to Invest in ME towards the UK Centre. See this campaign highlighted on the Invest in ME website here.

Kathryn's Sponsored Silence

“My name is Kathryn Lloyd and I have suffered from severe M.E for 26 years from the age of 11.

I've spent many of those years bed-bound in a dark room, unable to tolerate light or any noise at all.

At my illest, I couldn't use my limbs, had to be fed liquid food as I couldn't chew, and I had to lie in one position for 6 years. I had to lie flat, as my blood pressure would drop so dramatically if I even raised my head that I used to start to get the symptoms of frontal lobe brain damage.

I also couldn't speak for 40 months and this is why I've decided to do a sponsored silence as it symbolises just how severe this illness can be.

I want medical evidence that will finally silence the barbarism I've had to put up with by doctors in the press suggesting my illness wasn't physiological. Not many people know as much as I do just how physiological it is. I also want treatments so I can be healthy again, as I was when I was a child so I can make up for the 26 years of my life I've lost.

This centre offers me both of these things and I will do everything to can to support it - please do everything you can too.

Love and hope,

Kathryn” 

Kathryn plans to hold her event mid-October but she won't hold her tongue for peanuts so to help her family and friends to reach her target you can sponsor Kathryn here.

Thank you so much for your support!

• UPDATE:  A huge thank you to all who have sponsored Kathryn's silence so far, including Houghton Round Table for their generous donation of £350!

*The Let's do it for ME! awareness and fund-raising campaign is run by ME sufferers in close cooperation with the charity Invest in ME. Your donations go directly to Invest in ME towards the UK Centre. See this campaign highlighted on the Invest in ME website here.

Matched Donation Total Reached!

What a fantastic response to our announcement on Sunday of the matched donation offer!
The total of £1300 as been reached already - doubled by our generous matched donation sponsors and with just under £600 courtesy of Gift Aid for UK tax-payers, you have raised £3,200 in just 4 days!

Together, we have raised just under £6,000 in the 6 weeks since this campaign was launched.

A huge thank you to all who have donated - and are continuing to donate in a variety of ways - and special thanks to the wonderful sponsors for donating the matched amount.
This is what some sponsors said on the Everyclick page over the past few days ...

“A great cause trying to achieve great things.”
“Not a huge amount . . . but hoping every little helps :o)”

“Gotta make the most of the match funding period, even if broke”

“Supporting REAL research into ME!”

“Fantastic initiative and so needed”

“Thank you so much Invest in ME & others”

“I just wish I had more to give! Thanks, IinME xx”

“The proposed research centre is a beacon of hope”

“Just what's needed!”

“I support this tremendous venture 100%”

“Fantastic cause worth every penny!”

“Good luck with this project!”

“Hope you reach the target.”

The matching period may have ended but for more ways to donate see How To Help

Thank you so much for your support!

Let's do it for ME!

*The Let's do it for ME! awareness and fund-raising campaign is run by ME sufferers in close cooperation with the charity Invest in ME. Your donations go directly to Invest in ME towards the UK Centre. See this campaign highlighted on the Invest in ME website here.