Current Total...

Just checked easyfundraising and that is currently at £28.77 (massive thank you to my Mum's friend April who has raised £8.05 of that and £7.47 has come from just the searches on easysearch (easyfundraising and easysearch info is here) 


Added to that is the £10 from Greg which brings me up to: 

£1945.25

Getting really close to £2000 now, just £54.75 to go! I have £30 in my room from babysitting and I have cheques to pay in from Christmas presents so if i included them i would have the £2000 but I think i'm going to save that to put towards the jabs and visa, hopefully the new year will bring donations from charitable trusts (fingers crossed :D)

Now back to law revision and the joys of the defence of insanity...

Thank you Greg

A friend of my Dad's who he worked with many years ago has sponsored me £10, thank you Greg :D

Merry Christmas!

The days of getting up at 5am in our house are long past, i woke up at half 6 freezing (my duvet was somehow on the floor, with my stocking under it) so opened my stocking (contents - lindt chocolate santa, a spatula, body spray and the traditional clementine! lovely useful combination of items!) then went back to sleep until half 9!

Grandma is coming over soon, at about half 11 after she has been to church and then we will open the main presents, and then wait for dinner which is now at 4 (its changed 3 times since mum picked up the turkey two days ago :P)

I wish every one a very merry Christmas!

Congratulations!

Would like to say congratulations to Alice (http://lost-in-tokyo.tumblr.com/) for after no posts in 1 month she has posted 3 times in 24 hours, even better is I am mentioned in 2 of them! :D

I walked and I walked and I walked!

Today was the bus way walk, we got the bus to the last stop on the busway this side of cambridge and walked the 10 miles back! it took us about 5 1/2 hours including us stopping at each of the stops (5) for about 10 minutes.

I did the walk with my friend Sophie who is going to China with Project Trust, she has all the photos so I will upload them when she send them to me.

My current total of sponsorship is a fantastic £213.31 I am very, very pleased with that but there is still time to make donations at virginmoneygiving.com/AmeliaSykes

As long as I can get the money from everyone who has written it down it takes my fundraising total up to £1906.48

Next target is £2000! There is also currently £21.25 raised through easy fundraising so that leaves just £72.27!

Thank you!!!

I love my work!

I work as a cleaner in a primary school 3 days a week, not the most glamorous job but the people make it good. The staff are fantastic and the three that I asked for sponsorship today each sponsored me £5. Also me and my friend who i work with on friday's were given some lovely Thorntons chocolates as a christmas present from the teachers and the headteacher gave us each a long tube of jelly beans! THANK YOU!!!

Also one of my friends in form asked me on Wednesday if she could straighten my hair (my hair is pretty curly!), and would give me an extra £5 sponsorship on top of the £5 she has already put on the sponsorform, it was the money that convinced me! so this morning we got to form room at quater past 8 (normal time is half past) and she straightened my hair, hopefully she will send me the before and after photos later and i will add them

edit on 7th jan, got the photos from my friend...



I don't have a 'before' photo from on the day but this photo was taken on the ferry to Coll, me on the left, Alice who is going to Japan in the middle and Tara who is going to Guyana on the right, as you can see my hair is curly...

Half way through Frankie straightening my hair...

And an 'after' photo :)





Frankie's extra sponsorship brought the current sponsoship total = £193.31, so close to £200!!!

+ £10

another £10 in sponsors from 2 of our neighbors, total sponsorship is now at £173.31 :D

Over £100 on my sponsorship form(s) now :D

Over filled my 2nd sponsor form today and now have a total of £103.31 on the form (some one donated £2.51 to outdo someone who donated £2.50, hence that penny!) Add on the £60 from dad's friend and my uncle that brings me to £163.31, really hoping to reach £200!!!


Still have a few more people in law to ask for sponsorship and some friends still haven't offered yet, also my brother is going out with some friends tonight so is planning on getting some money off them :D

Sponsor me, please :D

Everyone at school is being very very kind and generous, just 4 sponsors away from filling my 2nd sponsorship form! currently at £89.30, adding onto that the £10 my Dad's friend has said he will donate (thanks Dad for dropping the hint whilst on the phone to him, your not really supposed to repeat the "hint hint" bit after the "amelia is collecting sponsorship for a walk she is doing dressed up" but it worked :D ) and the £50 my Uncle has said he will donate thanks to my slightly merry Aunt! that brings me to £149.50 My aim is to reach £200, i thinks its possible...hopefully!


so if you want to donate it would be very gratefully received, just go to virginmoneygiving.com/AmeliaSykes


thank you :D

Just 2 weeks until Christmas Eve!

The last minute christmas shopping is beginning now so if that includes you PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE (is that enough please's? :P) register at 

http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/AmeliaSykes

it literally takes a few seconds and if you go through the site when you do your shopping by searching the shops you will be raising money for my gap year at the same time, so it works out perfectly for everyone!

You can raise money with so many shops, if you want to have a look at the shops go to

http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/retailers/

Thank you :D

Sponsorship's are starting to come in!

After Claire's £3 at work last night i started on my form tutor and the rest of my form this morning ;) sponsorship sheet was signed by everyone in the the form (my form is great! :D), granted not everyone was in today but was still very happy. We then had a driving safety day today and were in groups mixed with another form, so they saw my sponsorship form too :D i finished today with a whole sheet completed and £52 on it! very very happy! on Monday people who weren't in form today will be passed my sponsorship form and my law class and some people in politics may see it too :D

Reached the November target, a week late...

Very, very happy!!!!


Today just seems to be getting better and better! Had a free period 2 and only half of period 1 (tutor time which today was devoted to year book photos, joy! (ps. insert the sarcasm :P ) so went into town to pay in the ceilidh money with Tara, (£335 each after expenses :D ). I also already had £128.65 written on a pay in slip at home so was planning on posting £463.65 to PT today, got home at 1 (I love only having 2 lessons on wednesday's) and the post hadn't arrived, but i had a good feeling about the post today. The dog the dutifully informed us when the postman did arrive, a few Christmas cards, a letter for Dad with a combination of 2 old addresses on - its somehow managed to get to one of the addresses though and forward to us , a magazine and a letter for me. As I opened it i thought it was another rejection letter to add to the pile that is growing on top of the piano (no one plays the piano, its just covered in my PT stuff!), but as i took the letter out a cheque fell out, that is possibly the best feeling ever! Even better when i turned it over and it was made out for £500!!!! So that brings my total up to.......

£1393.17

Add to that £300 which a trust wrote to me saying they will give me and the cheque will follow in 'a few months' I am at...

£1693.17

(and i still have absolutely no idea where that 2p of the 17p has come from, or the 7p for that matter as i dont think anything has been sold for 5p)

And! I got my first sponsor for my walk to Cambridge today, the lovely Claire who I work with cleaning said she would sponsor me £3, the teachers seem to hang around for longer on thurdays as they have the staff meeting so may be able to get a few more sponsors tomorrow, also going to send my brother back to Leicester with a sponsorship form when he comes home for the weekend, he just doesn't know this yet :P

So close to £20 of FREE money for my fundraising

Just logged into easyfundraising again today and every time I check it the amount goes up! currently at £19 and 70 pennies. This money really is free money with out it costing anyone who is supporting me any money (other than what they are spending anyway from shopping online), and even £5.97 is just from using an alternative to google!


So if you are reading this and also want to help raising money for me without it costing you a penny extra and you shop online, especially with Christmas 2 weeks and 5 days away (!!! didn't realise it was THAT close) then please go to


www.easyfundraising.org.uk/AmeliaSykes


and sign up, just takes a minute and i would really appreciate it so much!


Also if you do have google as your home page it would be great if you would consider changing it to 


http://ameliasykes.easysearch.org.uk/




Thank you :D


Edit - checked again today and the amount has gone down, im guessing someone has returned something so please sign up to help me get to £20

Walking, 16 miles, in December, dressed as Father Christmas...

Sounds like fun right!


On Sunday 18th December, so a week before Christmas, I am walking the 16 miles i think it is down the Guided Busway from St Ives to Cambridge dressed as Santa with 2 other Project Trust people who are also at the same school as me, all in the aid of raising some money for my gap year with Project Trust


Sponsorship would be massively appreciated and you can sponsor me at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/AmeliaSykes you may even be the first person to make a donation through virgin moneygiving :D


so that is my latest fundraising idea, please let me know if you can think of anything!




Photos will of course be provided after the event!!!

Ceilidh!!!

Myself and my friend Tara, who is spending her gap year with Project Trust in Guyana in South America, held a ceilidh (pronounce kaylee) last night and it was a fantastic success! Everyone involved had a really fun night (no one looked bored anyway!) and i think we had roughly about 50 to 60 people attend which seemed to be the perfect number for the area, any more and it would have been to squished and any fewer and it wouldn't have had the fantastic atmosphere that it did!


We also held a raffle on the evening and had some lovely prizes donated by Tara's mum's friend as well as a cricket bat that my brother got for us with it being signed by the Leicestershire cricket team, the guy who won that seemed very, very happy which was great to see!


From ticket sales, raffle and the soft drinks we managed to raise an amazing

£700!!!

This is split between my self and Tara and we are both very very pleased with our £350 each towards out fundraising totals and had a really good evening out of it as well.

I would also like to say a massive thank you to the Cambridge University Ceilidh Band (www.cucb.co.uk) who supplied the fantastic music for the night.

Another thank you goes to all those who came along to support us, i hope you enjoyed the evening as much as we did which is definitely a lot!

ps. this brings my total fundraising up to about £1100 :D

cake sale success :D

Made another £12.45 from the red velvet and the flapjack! and that is even with me eating a slice of cake at break and flapjack at lunch and 2 pieces of flapjack left as well :D

The red velvet cake is RED! :D

After a kind of failed attempt at red velvet cake last week with it not turning out very red (still tasted good though) this weeks attempt has been more successful!

The mixture for 2 out of the 3 layers, just before they go into the oven

All cooked and still looking lovely and red!

And the frosting begins with the most delicious cream cheese frosting!

The pattern on top...

...and the sides

Also making marshmallow muffins like last week again so here is the mixture, now waiting for a lovely roast dinner to be finished in the oven before they can go in

However, whilst mixing the muffin batter tragedy struck, our electric whisk died on us. It has been a long and faithful electric whisk with it being about 10 years old but it stopped working just after i started the muffins, so we had to improvise so I hope they turn out ok, will let you know after dinner!

ps. the muffins failed, going to make some flapjack after x factor results

Thank you letter

Wrote my first thank you letter today! Got home to a letter that was very thin (too think to have a cheque in) so opening it i thought it was another rejection but it wasn't! It was a letter saying that the Trustees will be willing to make a grant of £300 with the cheque coming at a later date, cue me jumping around the living room a very happy person!

That brings my current total up to around £750 :D

Cake!

Another cake sale raised £12.80 with just 2 slices of cake left which me and mum enjoyed :D i made a red velvet cake (which wasn't at all red as didn't have enough food colouring) covered in the most amazing cream cheese frosting! and also marshmallow cupcakes which according to my friend who brought one tasted just as good as they look which I was very pleased to hear!

forgot to take a photo of the (not very red) red velvet cake before putting the tin over it (and didn't want to risk smudging the frosting) and then forgot to take it when i got it out at school but here are some photos of the marshmallow cupcakes.

Before the frosting with marshmallow in the middle as well!

Frosting added with mini marshmallows in the mixture 

And a few more for good luck!

And a close up... (and yes i was finishing them off at half 11 last night :D )

My friend Alice

My friend Alice is also spending her gap year with Project Trusts but in Japan, this is her blog Lost In Tokyo sharing all her fundraising fun!

Long time no type

Sorry for not updating recently but so far my total (including the deposits we pay) is just over £450 :D

Had a fantastic day on Saturday at the local co op doing a bag pack with 2 friends who are also having gap years with Project Trust and came away with £80 each which we were all very pleased with! The latest cake sale today raised £11 from my marshmallow muffins and mini chocolate cupcakes, which i am rather pleased with after the fight i had with the melted marshmallow and getting it into the cake!

I was planning on having a race night but had to cancel it as i couldn't sell enough tickets, no one replied to posters around the village and when i went knocking on door many people were busy so we are re-arranging it for next February! But the very kind people in my village surprised me in their kind generosity and i raised £73 in kind donations from people who were busy on the evening of the race night but still wanted to support me with my gap year, my Grandma and her friends also collected £40 which was very kind of them.

Spent a few hours in the library last week and got another 30 charitable trusts to write to bringing me to 70 :D however so far no luck in donations just a few rejections but as Mum keeps saying still got many more who haven't replied yet and may be considering a donation than those who have sent rejections!

Ps. If you have come to my blog from the link i gave you after i packed your bags at the co op then thank you very much for your donation! :D

My leaflet

Getting started now

Leaflet is very nearly ready, letter is ready and applied to my first charitable trust online today and so far have about 35 to write to when my letter and leaflet is ready!

Today I took my leaflet and letter to my form tutor at break time to ask her to have read though and see how it is and hopefully she will tell me its great tomorrow morning, or tell me how to improve it. But I've just realised i have forgotten something very important from my leaflet, the web address for this blog! will have to add that tomorrow, unfortunately it's been a slow process with my leaflet as we don't have publisher at home so i have been using my frees to make it, all i need to add to it are the photos and its ready :D

will scan it in and add it on here when its ready

Library, how I love you and loathe you

After spending 3 and a half hours of a lovely rainy Sunday afternoon reading through page after page of the Directory of Grant Making Trusts I now have a grand total of 20 trusts to write to! 20 down, only many many more to go, and I still have 23 more letters of the alphabet to go through! My life is just so exciting! But its all worth it, if only for the little buzz you get when you find one which you fit the criteria for!

Now just to design a leaflet, think of what to write in the leaflet, get the leaflet printed, find more very kind trusts to write to, write a letter to each of the trusts, and then send of each letter with a leaflet and then think of more fundraising ideas to help reach my target :D I am actually really looking forward to this year of fundraising, and then even more looking forward to the year in South Africa after that :D!!!

A little bit about easyfundraising and easysearch...

Easyfundraising makes it possible for money to be raised from purchases people make online if they are registered to support my cause, please see http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/ameliasykes  and go to the shop through the site.

If you are buying anything online please check http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/a-z-of-retailers/ and see if the site is on there (they have over 2000 shops listed with quite a few big names) if it is listed Project Trust will get a small set percentage of what you are spending. 

You will need to be registered, go to http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/ameliasykes and click on the yes sign me up – it’s free to register and only takes a minute – then find the shop again on the A-Z, then just click ‘go shopping’. 

This is another way to raise money for by doing something very easy...

Instead of using google please use http://ameliasykes.easysearch.org.uk/ and I will get 0.5p for each search, not a lot but its more than nothing, and will hopefully add up to a few pounds over the next year – if you use internet explorer or firefox you can scroll down and click ‘easysearch from my search bar’, or it would be great if you would set it as your homepage and use it instead of typing in the site you are going to, even if it is just google, scroll down again and there is the option to set as homepage. Thank you :D

I'm going to South Africa

As the title says really, I'm going to South Africa!

Yesterday I got my letter from Project Trust to say that I have been successful and will be going to South Africa, Malawi or Swaziland, with the most likely being South Africa and to fund raise for that country. I am very, very excited to have been chosen and to be given a chance to go to South Africa for a whole year!


Project Trust is a charity which sends young people abroad the various volunteer projects around the world during their gap year, their website says the following 

Project Trust is the UK's original Gap Year provider. Established in 1967, we have over 40 years experience and have sent over 6000 volunteers to over 60 countries.
Project Trust is registered as a Charity in Scotland (SCO25668). We specialise in sending 17-19 year old school leavers overseas for long term volunteering placements of 8 or 12 months. We currently have volunteering opportunities in 23 countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas.

A big part of the gap year abroad with Project Trust is the fund raising, fund raising £5,100! 


This blog is to help share with everyone how my fundraising is going, and just keep track of how this next year goes before I go to spend a year in the amazing South Africa!