Friday 30 December 2011

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

Sunday 25 December 2011

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!

Sunday 18 December 2011

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!!!

Friday 16 December 2011

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!!!

Thursday 15 December 2011

+ £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

Wednesday 14 December 2011

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

Saturday 10 December 2011

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 


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


Thank you :D

Friday 9 December 2011

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

Wednesday 7 December 2011

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

Monday 5 December 2011

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

Friday 2 December 2011

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!!!

Thursday 1 December 2011

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