Monday 3 October 2011

We Raised Money


Having a virtual coffee morning was always going to be a bit of an experiment. It’s one thing throwing a virtual party for a bit of fun. It’s quite another inviting people to a virtual fund raising event... but it worked! 
Some party statistics:
  • 172 visitors shared virtual coffee and cake with us over the last three days.
  • There were 20 fancy dress outfits and 5 jokes. [awards announced later this week.]
  • More importantly, we’ve raised £177.50 so far for the Macmillan Cancer Support charity (and there are a few more donations still to come in!)
The JustGiving website has been a great help, ensuring that all your donations went straight to the Macmillan Cancer Support team. If you haven’t visited the memorial page that we set up then please feel free to do so. There’s no obligation to donate and we’ve talked a bit about Mum and about the way we lost Dad to cancer too. The page, which you can find here, will stay live for the next few weeks.

There has been an additional bonus for me over this weekend. As I explained a few posts ago, my sister, Hilary Rifka, and I have lived 200 miles away from each other for over 15 years now. We’re always talking on the phone but we don’t often see each other and we weren’t sure quite how running a joint virtual party would work... but it did! 

We’ve giggled our way through her three fancy dress outfits, my deteriorating parrot costume and we even ended the party in the way we always used to end parties when we were kids... 

We sang “Sisters, Sisters”. 


Members of the family reading this now will be grimacing and nodding their heads and saying, 
     “This is true. They did. And they still can’t sing it in tune!” But do we care? No! We thoroughly enjoyed our weekend so thank you to everyone who came along and turned it into a real virtual party!

Hilary Rifka has asked me to include this message from her:
It’s been a fantastic party.  I've loved meeting everyone, the jokes, the fancy dress, the endless coffee making and the feather clearing.  But on a serious note this was all for a really good cause and something very close to our hearts. Our way of giving something back to the Macmillian Nurses who do such a wonderful job. A big thank you for sharing this with us - and honestly Ros has been the brains behind it all - I'm just the clown playing for laughs and clearing up the mess!!!!!! So Ros (my lovely little sister), credit where its due -  Well Done sis..... *big hugs*.
And *big hugs* back... in fact let’s all pat ourselves on the back and have a group hug. [or is that a physical impossibility... hmmm!]