Blog from Canada #1

Hello out there.

If you read this blog you are likely in Scotland. However, I'm currently in Canada. Today it was 26 degrees celcius, sunny and the tour of the Southern Okanagan wine region couldn't have been bettered. More of that later perhaps...

So first of all a big thanks goes out to Mark Hunter at Hunter Property Fund Management (www.hunterpropertyfundmanagement.co.uk) for his wonderful and generous donation of GBP200. That is just the sort of thing that is realy very helpful. Mark of course, is a scholar and a gentleman and a property investment manager of distinction...

Some of you will likely have heard of the inaugural Women's Informal. The cleverest among you will have realised that the acronym for the event, the Women's Informal Networking Event spells 'wine'. How's that for subliminal advertising. Anyway, the response has been terrific. We're *almost* to capacity for the 16th so if you are reading this blog and haven't RSVPed to me at erikka_23@hotmail.com, there might even have to be a WINE waiting list! It is shaping up to be a terrific night and thanks again to to Charlotte at the Radisson SAS on the Royal Mile for offering their generous support!

Cheers from the Sunny Okanagan

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And another!

Thank my lucky stars. Another large corporate donation of £1000 although this large Scottish PLC wants to remain anonymous...

The First Member!

I'm so thrilled - and I'd like to extend a big, warm, heartfelt thanks to Raymond O'Hare and Lynda Walker of Microsoft Scotland. They are the first members of the 1000 Metre High Club! They have pledged £1000 in my fundraising effort for breast cancer research and care in Scotland.

"We can do something here for you Erikka and this very good cause," said Raymond.

I couldn't have said it better myself!

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.

FAQ #1 - What the heck is a booby bird?

A booby bird is a tropical seabird, genus Sula, of which there are five species. These are masked, red-footed, and brown boobies, found the world over; the Peruvian and blue footed boobies, found on the West Coast's of the Americas; and the Abbott's booby in the Indian Ocean. In northern waters they are related to the more familiar gannet.

Like the more unfortunate dodo, it lacks the fear instinct. In fact this is how it got its name – from the Spanish bobo, or ‘stupid fellow’. Boobies became known by jumping into boats to be eaten by sailors. Hence the old expression, "A booby will never make a hawk," meaning that a bird easily duped by hungry sailors will never itself become a bird of prey.

It’s more nobler aspect is the spectacular dive, sometimes from great heights, it makes to catch its prey.

Of course, Booby Birds in Scotland are a small but significant group of women, also lacking in a fear instinct and who are planning to make a spectacular drive. They each expect to raise £20,000. Does that make them stupid fellows? I should think not.

Check us out http://www.boobybirds.co.uk/

Spinning top

And a big Thank You to Ian Spinney for his marvellous C-note. An all around good chap and PR man of distinction. www.spinpartners.com

Philanthropy factoids

The good news is, according to the Sunday papers, corporate philanthropy is growing at 10% a year in the UK. British companies last year gave away £1bn a year to good causes.

See: http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article2560014.ece

The bad news is more than a third that £1bn came from one company, pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline.

Businesses in America contribute nearly 5 per cent of the total amount of money received by charity or good causes in the US, while in Britain it is 3 per cent.

I think we can do better!

Jump for my love

My sister, who lives in Canada, reports she did a tandem skydive on the weekend – and it was exhilarating! If she can do it, well I certainly can.

Flying over Vernon, BC, in a Cessna, her friend went first, then another sole diver, then it was her turn. When the moment came, it was sudden, with her dive partner shouting in her ear to Go! And she did.

Summersault out, 20 to 30 seconds of free fall as the ground screams towards you, cheeks rippling in the velocity like a tent flap in a windstorm. When the chute deployed, it jerked her back with a snap. But landing was terrific. Advised to pull up feet and land on her bottom, they both landed feet-first like a pro!

Jumping tandem appears quite an intimate experience with one’s tandem partner – they have to snuggle quite close in order to buckle up safely. I joked that some of the Booby Birds are quite looking forward to that part! However, Sis ended up strapped to a 50-year-old veteran of 3000 dives who lacked front teeth.

Nevermind. That’s not why we are jumping! We’re raising cash for an excellent cause. Please donate what you can here. http://www.scottishcf.org/page11748.cfm

Darling Darwin

I stand corrected, and a bit humbled, by a four year old. Following my munro bagging triumph last week my colleague left a cutout of the story of wee Darwin Bradley: http://heritage.scotsman.com/people.cfm?id=716012007. He's the four year old who has scaled 11 munros. Turns out there are 284 of them (I got the number wrong - new ones get addes, not because hills are growing but rather measurement is becoming more precise).

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Erikka in Arrochar

I've climbed my first Munro - Beinn Narnain, just outside of Arrochar. And also, my first Corbett. All in the same day. And boy, a couple of days later, I'm still feeling it!
For reference, a munro is a Scottish mountain over 3000 ft. According to Munro's Tables (started by Sir Hugh Munro) there are 277 of them in Scotland. And then the corbetts are 2500 to 3000, according to J. Rooke Corbett. You can spend to long thinking about these things, but there you go.
My corbett, Ben Arthur, or 'The Cobbler', was actually the tougher climb. It required the use of hands and feet once near the top and the look down is scary, although on the day the cloud was low and thick making it difficult to see much. It was popular too - when we got to the top we found a family of Glaswegians picnicing there, one young women of which was on the phone to, presumably, one of her mates, saying: "I'm at the top and we cannae see anything"…
Of course, hill walking or climbing is a little like fundraising. You start out with firm purpose. Then perhaps you lose some momentum, get tired. Or you have a moment of fear - it's not possible to get there! Or, thinking you are there you have that 'oh bugger' moment, when you realise you aren't at the top, and instead the top looms above you in a steep, final ascent.
Right now, I'm not that far above sea level. But this will soon change.

I could use your help! Please make a donation at: http://www.scottishcf.org/page11748.cfm (choose me...)

Trickle in

My first clumsy attempts at chinking away at my £20,000 target are starting to wear it down. Got a £20 note in the post today, from a guest at the PLC Awards who had to dash away early and didn't get a chance to make a donation. Cool. Thanks, Bill Nicol. Anyone else? Please feel free to try out the new online payment system (see link below). And God bless.

Lots of stuff is happening as well. It seems I've joined along with a cohort of fellow jumpers -
Bernadette Murphy, an estate agent; Linda Birkbeck owner of House of Bruar (posh!) and Angela Paterson, MD of new recruitment company for the Highlands, Hijobs.co.uk. Apparently Angela has walked on hot coals. Crikey. Jumping from 10,000 feet should be a scoosh.

Donate online!

OK. Things are realy up and running. There's now a link where kind folk can make donations to my cause online. The Scottish Community Foundation is acting as the secretariat of Booby Birds, thus this link to the payment site is hosted on the SCF website. Just choose Erikka Askeland on the drop down panel and go!

http://www.scottishcf.org/page11748.cfm

And don't forget the Gift Aid declaration. It's the government's fiddly way of giving tax relief to charities, as the money donated from UK taxpayers has already been taxed! Hurrah.

My next ambition is to create a button at the side of the blog here so that by pressing it is goes right to the donation site. As I'm an HTLM illiterate, it might take a while, but like I said, small steps.