Now I don't normally blog on a weekend but this, I think is important. There are a great bunch of people on here who have just started to work together to do a Calendar for 2010 to raise money for the Macmillan charity. However, time is rushing on and we need as much professional help as we can. So please, search through the skills of your friends and family, work colleagues and even people you don't really like - can they help us?
And after you have read this blog and decided that you can't help yourself please just do one more thing - send a link to this blog to at least two of your friends as they might know someone. If we all work this hard we will get the help we need to do a good thing and raise money for a brilliant charity that provides us with What Now? - the best social network for cancer sufferers and carers in the world!
So what do we need? And we need these for free where possible!
1. A design/branding house who can develop a new and unique design that is thought provoking and challenging. We want a theme that will make people feel differently about cancer in all its forms. We don't want another "Calendar Girls" nude one, there are now hundreds of those produced every year and make virtually nothing for their charities. We want a creative team who are the "dogs bollocks".
2. We need a PR house who have those real hard to get contacts. We want this calendar, which will be newsworthy in itself, to be featured on TV and radio on a national scale. We're not after just some local press coverage, we could do that ourselves. To have a good chance of making serious money for Macmillan we need to out there and becoming "top of mind" to as many people as possible. I remember some years back, soon after we had designed and opened the Edinburgh Dungeon, that the team came up with a great PR line. "Ugly people can get in free" It was front page of just about every national paper and on TV. All free publicity and only one complaint by someone who said that we were discriminating against him because he was so beautiful!!! Even that got us more publicity! Now we need a team like that who have just the right ideas and who will work for free for this good cause.
3. We need a good commercial printer who can do a large quality run at a very very very low cost. You need to be big and can manage a timescale that means we get this out for sale in time. You have to be ready to work from day one with the team with the absolute drive to get this done. It is no good if you can't meet our deadlines - nobody will buy the calendar in February next year!!!
4. And finally, it would be great if we could find a sponsor who will financially back us with at least seed capital monies for those expenses that we will have to incur. We can offer a discrete logo position on the calendar and mush love going forward. Other than that - nowt! But you and your staff and your customers will remember the act of kindness for years to come!
So come on you lot, readers of the blogs on the Macmillan What Now? site or just people who have been forwarded this blog. WE NEED YOUR HELP!!!
Please email your offers of help to Patrick at xpatx@talk21.com
Thank you again for reading my blog. Now get thinking about how you could help. And the very least send a link to this blog or a copy to at least two of your friends and ask them to do the same.
All the best to you all and thanks again for your help.
Andrew xxx
