Di Flatt's Blog

Jay Khan (Hollyoaks’ Ash Roy) supports National Doodle Day…

 

This is my personal blog so always remember that these are my views and thoughts and not those of  my charity. If I do say anything as ‘Epilepsy Action’ then I will make that loud and clear.

 

Well it has arrived guys

 

It’s National Doodle Day^TM

Friday 27 February 2009

Celebrity auction now live online

 

For your chance to bid for one of this year‘s fantastic celebrity doodles check out our online auction now!  

Hundreds of celebrities are taking part in National Doodle Day^TM, to raise money for Epilepsy Action and the Neurofibromatosis Association. Doodles by the likes of Sophie Dahl, Jonathan Ross and Heston Blumenthal are being auctioned on eBay in aid of National Doodle Day^TM now!

A host of famous names from the worlds of fashion, entertainment, sport and literature have put pen to paper.

Bidders will be able to choose from countless celebrity doodles, including those from: Dragon’s Den entrepreneur Deborah Meaden; BBC Radio 1 DJ and TV presenter Edith Bowman; Strictly stars Alesha Dixon and Jill Halfpenny; actors Bob Hoskins and Diana Rigg; award-winning film director and creator of Wallace and Gromit Nick Park; survival expert Bear Grylls; and comedy actors Ricky Gervais and Simon Pegg.

The eBay auction begins today and runs for 10 days. People can also vote for their favourite by text. Details of how to do this can be found on the National Doodle Day^TMwebsite www.nationaldoodleday.org.uk

 

 

2009 will be the sixth year of National Doodle Day^TM and we hope to build on the £160,000 raised so far.

 

For tomorrow I wish lots and lots of luck to the two big National Doodle Day^TM events taking place, at Meadowhall Shopping Centre in Sheffield and Eastgate Shopping Centre in Inverness.

 

We are very pleased that Jay Khan (Hollyoaks) is representing the celebrity doodlers and signing autographs at the Meadowhall event between 1pm and 2pm on Saturday 28 February 2009.  So a huge thank you to Jay.

 

Please forward this to as many people as you know and help make this year’s National Doodle Day^TM the most successful yet!

           

All funds raised by National Doodle Day^TM go towards the work of the two charities Epilepsy Action, registered charity in England (No. 234343) and The Neurofibromatosis Association, registered charity in England (No. 1078790).

 

Well I promised to tell you more about our trip yesterday and the shenanigans of the wayward satnav!

Well as I don’t have much time today (my team and are all running around dealing with lots of doodle doings) – so this will be a short story.

 

As I said yesterday, myself and two more of the Yorkhshire IoF Committee were trying out potential venues for the inaugural two day residential conference we are planning for Yorkshire and the North in February 2010.  We firstly went to Ilkley followed by Skipton, and then needed to get across to Ravenscarr nestled between Whitby and Scarborough (to see the hotel I discussed yesterday that rather stretched its own imagination when it came to advertising itself as a conference venue – you remember now, yes that’s the one !).

 

Well as you can imagine, as we were trying to fit this all into one day, we were rather tight on time.  So after we had spent the morning checking out the Ilkley and Skipton hotels, my trusted committee colleague doing the driving tapped the hotel address into the well used and trustee satnav and we set off from Skipton to head out towards the coast.

 

We were happily bimbling along enjoying the lovely rural views, and chattering away about the various venues we had seen and how we could (or not) work the conference around the spaces they had available.

 

After a while we began to realise the roads we were following were in fact becoming more and more rural as we drove along, not a motorway in sight!  Not even the A64.  We thought about turning around, but unsure of exactly where we were we figured it was best to keep on trusting the satnav and keep on going.

 

The road got narrower and narrower and the inclines and falls got steeper.  We passed fields of sheep, and chicken coops, and some beautiful tiny villages.  I was busily trying to check my emails using my phone but found we had no signal whatsoever!

 

We came upon a shooting party with around ten land rovers, lots of flat caps and guns slung over the shoulder filling up the road ahead of us.  Once we managed to pass them we continued up hills and down dales through the most beautiful scenery – it was certainly an enjoyable drive.

 

Well of course as fundraisers we are full of belief that we will always reach where we need to be so we held on to our trust of the satnav and kept on going.  Through village after village, following every tiny back road there must be across the North Yorkshire Moors.

 

It seems that we had chosen the shortest route on the satnav rather than the fastest route.  So perhaps a more direct, shorter route, it actually took us a lot longer to drive.  We did get to the hotel in the end as you know, but more of a late afternoon arrival than straight after lunch as we had planned.

 

So is there a moral to this story?  Hmmnn well you can plan ahead but sometimes however careful you have been things will work against you anyway, the best advice I can give is don’t panic.  Stay calm, make adjustments if you can, but make sure that you enjoy the ride anyway and hang on to your self belief that you will get there in the end…

 

This is me signing off for the working week and looking forward to the shopping trip with my sister tomorrow, so have a great weekend and we can catch up again soon.

 

DON’T EVER FORGET THAT FROM ONE BLADE OF GRASS WE CAN GROW A LAWN

Every £1 donated to charity goes towards changing someone’s life or positively changing our environment. My charity www.epilepsy.org.uk, and every charity – we need you.

KEEP ON GIVING.

Di x

2 Comments so far
Leave a comment