Boobybirds united

Went to a lovely event last week hosted by Booby Bird extraordinaire, Anna St Clair. She's the boss of The Ceramic Experience, a franchise network of, I think, some 50-odd stores nationwide where people go to paint pottery. It's good fun too - don't knock it till you've tried it. Although whether I'll ever show anyone my cosmos blue and lime green ceramic CD holder is another thing altogether.

About eight of us Booby Birds got together to paint, talk fundraising, eat lovely nibbles and drink wine. Irene Grant was there. She's the head of HSBC Business Banking in Scotland and was one of the first to sign up. She's raised her £20,000 - good for her! I'm so jealous.

But for my own consolation, there were others, like Bernadette Murphy, who like me has also recently joined the jumpers. She's an estate agent in Hamilton (see her website http://www.justthinkpink.com/ ), and her energy and ethusiasm was infectious. She started out as an estate agent with Remax, but has gone out on her own. Another intriguing character I met there, also a new recruit to Booby Birds, was serial entrepreneur Angela Paterson. She recently set up an online jobs board for the Highlands called hijobs (www.hijobs.co.uk).

No-one I've met yet seems to be doing this becuase they have extra time to kill. Even the woman who has worked tirelessly for such a long time to get this show on the road, Tina Korup, is MD of her own corporate perfomance management consultancy. Although she did admit to us she's looking forward to going back to having only one full-time job when this is over.

But then it's probably not going to be over, as the hard slog we're putting in this year will likely spill over to the next. And the next year after that. In fact most of us fully expect to see Booby Birds become a permanent fixture in mobilising funds for breast cancer research and development in Scotland.

Long live Booby Birds.