Sponsorship Landmark - 30k

I awoke this morning to the news that the charity fund for St Benedict's Hospice and The Children's Foundation had passed through the £30,000 barrier. That's now also over 50,000 US dollars too!

A lot of donations have been made this week and  nice messages left with them on the 2 justgiving.com pages.

Thanks go to David Fairlamb Fitness, George Caulkin, Alison Hudson, Paul Stewart and Paul Venn for very generous donations. Thanks also to the numerous other kind folk who have made a donation. Both myself and the 2 charities really appreciate your donations no matter how large or small. Especially in tough economic times such as these.

I'm very keen indeed to get the run across the USA underway on Sunday. This will give me the opportunity to finally start earning all of those generous pledges that have been made.

I should point out that of the £30,080 of pledges made to the charities, a massive £27,397 has already been given via justgiving.com or direct via cheque. The remaining £2,683 is in the form of what I like to call "traditional sponsorship". This is where a person agrees to pay the charities upon successful completion of the run across the USA. So there's another reason why I'm keen to get the run underway and to finally begin to make it a success.

If you would like to make a donation then any amount, no matter how large or small, would be gratefully received using the following links.

www.justgiving.com/rungeordierun1

(St Benedict's Hospice)

www.justgiving.com/rungeordierun2 

(The Children's Foundation)

Sponsorship Landmark - 27k

The charity fund for St Benedict's Hospice and The Children's Foundation passed the 27k barrier last week and currently stands at 27,124.33. There was a steady stream of pledges and continued donations from Sara Sarginson, Dianne Pringle and Karen Mason were made too. These 2 very generous ladies have been making a monthly contribution to the charities for quite a while now and their support is very much appreciated. Thank you Sara and Karen and, of course, everyone else who has made a donation.

Bishop Ian Ramsey School in Medomsley held a cake and bun stall and raised £110. They are holding an Easter Egg raffle this week to bring their fund raising to a close. I look forward to writing about their total donation very soon. Thank you to Headmaster Mr Boyle, the teachers, pupils and parents for their generosity over the last term.

If you would like to sponsor my 3100 mile run across the USA then please use the following links. The good thing about using the justgiving website is that your donation is made securely and goes direct to the 2 charities; St Benedict's Hospice (Charity No. 1019410) and The Children's Foundation (Charity No. 1000013).

www.justgiving.com/rungeordierun1

www.justgiving.com/rungeordierun2

Sponsorship Landmark

After a flurry of t-shirt sales, various pledges and  sizeable contributions from my colleagues at Northern Rock and Andy Preece the fund has tipped over the £21,000 mark and currently stands at a very pleasing £21,549.34. Back in 2007, it took me from John O'Groats to 2 days from Lands End to raise that figure. The final total back then was £34,108. I really do wonder sometimes where this year's total will end.

Thank you, thank you, thank you most sincerely to everyone who has made a donation. I make no apology for repeating this important message. Every single donation, no matter how large or small, is greatly appreciated and makes a huge difference to St Benedict's Hospice and The Children's Foundation.

I reported the news of the £21,000 landmark to the charities this week. I send them a regular email simply entitled "Update". These landmark emails get the title "Special Update".

Thanks also must go to Libby Nolan and her team at The Children's Foundation for packing and posting all of the Run Geordie Run t-shirts. Almost 800 have been sold to date and they have posted the majority of them.

The total won't be staying put for too long as Northern Runner have taken up the option of sponsoring www.rungeordierun.com for a 3rd year. I can now also apply to the Northern Rock Foundation for the matching of some of the money raised in 2011. Sadly, the matching limit has been reduced to £500 from £1000 this year but every "little" helps!

£18,000 milestone passed!

Yesterday, I revealed on Twitter that the Run Geordie Run t-shirts were running short on supply. I also revealed that the charity fund for St Benedict's Hospice and The Children's Foundation was close to £18,000.

This news prompted a few people into action and I'm pleased to say that with a flurry of t-shirt sales the charity fund burst through the £18,000 barrier and currently stands at £18,080. 

I spend a lot of time doing this but once again I'd like to give a huge thank you to all of those people who have made a donation to the 2 charities. Your support is greatly appreciated by me and more importantly by the 2 charities.

As I said before, Run Geordie Run t-shirts are now in short supply and there are only small and medium sizes left in white and large left in blue. I think they'll all be gone in a couple of weeks. If you're thinking about buying one then I'd get a move on. They can be ordered here.

Fund Milestone!

I'm delighted to report another charity fund milestone so soon after the last one!

As I reported earlier this week, I've been trying to get 3000 followers by the end of August on Twitter. The so called "Cash For Followers Coalition"of Digital Spark Ltd, Fix My Alloys and Will Banks (aka @CancerMatters) promised to donate £500 if successful.

Thanks to so many people spreading the word on Twitter, the 3000 follower mark was passed this afternoon. Much to my delight and relief, I must add!

It's such an intricate and widespread web of people and followers, that it's very difficult to pin point all of those helpful folk who have helped with this. It's been one big team effort and both myself and the 2 charities will be eternally grateful.

In all the excitement of reaching 3000 followers I almost forgot to tot up the latest charity total. The latest total is (drum roll........) £14,426.

For my US followers that's 22,409USD. As always, I can't resist converting to Japanese Yen and it's a grand total of 1,921,975JPY. Wow! The fund is almost at 2 million Yen!

Thanks to the "Cash For Followers Coalition"of Digital Spark Ltd, Fix My Alloys and Will Banks (aka @CancerMatters). Thanks also to all of those kind folk who buy t-shirts, CDs, download the Run Geordie Run MP3s from iTunes or make a good old traditional pledge.

Sponsorship Landmark

It's been 2 weeks since the charity fund burst through the £12,000 barrier. This week, much to my astonishment, the fund for St Benedict's Hospice and The Children's Foundation has burst through the £13,000 barrier and currently sits at £13,038. For my US followers that's 20,800USD. It's a very impressive figure in Japanese Yen with a grand total of 1,785,973JPY.

Whichever currency you convert to, thanks to the generosity of so many kind folk, I have now reached over 1/4 of the fundraising target. I've said it on countless occasions but that remarkable generosity is something I never take for granted, by the way.

There are 40 weeks left until the run across the USA starts. I really do wonder what the final total will be by the time I reach New York in August 2011.

Just to give you an idea of where the money goes, this video should explain a little bit more about one of the two charities I raise funds for. Watch out for yours truly near the start! 

Fund Milestone!

Another month and another fundraising milestone. This time, it gives me great pleasure to report that the fund for St Benedict's Hospice and The Children's Foundation has burst through the £12,000 barrier and currently sits at £12,140. For my US followers that's 18,560USD. It's a very impressive figure in Japanese Yen with a grand total of 1,606,397JPY.

Whichever way you look at it, thanks to the generosity of so many kind folk, I have reached almost 1/4 of the fundraising target. That remarkable generosity is something I never take for granted, by the way. And I really mean that.

There are so many people doing so many wonderful things for charity. I'm very humbled by the fact that people are choosing to contribute to the 2 charities I'm raising funds for.

I noticed this week that justgiving.com have setup a page where you can see all money raised via them to date. The overall justgiving.com total is £53,225.41. Prior to using justgiving.com I raised £14,765 for other events since 1994. That gives a grand total raised to date of £67,990.41.

When I set out to repay the debt of gratitude to St Benedict's Hospice in 1995, I didn't even imagine that it would reach anything like that figure. Not bad, for putting one foot in front of the other a few million times!

For the record, here is my justgiving page. 

Fund Milestone!

Thanks to a flurry of t-shirt sales over the last couple of days the fund for St Benedict's Hospice and The Children's Foundation has now passed £2,500 and stands at £2,514.84. Of that figure, £1,474.84 has already been passed to both charities. The remaining amount is in the form of conventional pledges and will be paid by the sponsors when I successfully complete the run in 2011.

Thanks to everyone who have contributed so far. Rest assured, that I'm training as hard as possible and spending every bit of spare time I have planning the next big run.

The first sponsorship landmark!

Thanks to recent t-shirt sales and a generous pledge from Northern Runner, who are now the main sponsor of this blog, the fund has gone over £2000! Northern Runner will be making a pledge each year up to the run and their support is very much appreciated.

It's brilliant to be writing about a sponsorship landmark so early in the campaign and I'd like to thank all of those people who have bought a t-shirt or made an early pledge. In particular, I'd like to thank Peter McCowie for paying for the t-shirt production costs. This has allowed every penny of t-shirt sales to go to the 2 charities. I'd also like to thank Ivor Potter whose pledge of £1000 in August last year got the fund off to a great start.

Rest assured everybody that I'm working as hard as I possibly can to make the run across the USA in 2011 as big a success as it can be. Believe you me, there is no greater feeling than handing a cheque over to a charity that means so much to me. Both St Benedict's Hospice and The Children's Foundation carry out vital work in our wonderful region. It is your money that will help them continue to do so. Thanks everyone!

A most excellent pledge!

And so it starts!  The first pledge for the USA 2011 run has been made.  And this isn't any old pledge.  It's a £1000 pledge to be split between St Benedict's Hospice and The Children's Foundation on successful completion of the run.   Immense thanks go to the kind sponsor, Ivor Potter for this amazing show of support.  In fact, it is an amazing show of continued support as he was one of the contributors to last year's total of £34,108.  Thanks Ivor!!!!

And while I'm on the subject of totals, all of the Pennine Challenge fund has now been collected and stands at £1,300.  An application for matching by the Northern Rock Foundation will be made by 2 of the team and hopefully the final total will be £2,600.  There is no guarantee of this though but we keep our fingers crossed.

50 thousand not out!

People's generosity never ceases to amaze me!  The Pennine Challenge fund has nudged the all time total raised to just short of £50,000!  Upon seeing this, one of the running team, Carlton Fletcher (pictured), put his hand in his pocket for The Children's Foundation and promptly got the all time total raised to £50,000!!!!  What an unbelievable milestone!  

As I said yesterday, there are so many people to thank for helping get the amount to £50,000.   Of course, the latest set of folk are the Pennine Challenge Team and all of this year's sponsors.  Here's to the next £50,000!

Those kind folk at the BBC Tyne website have posted an updated article about the Pennine Challenge.  It can be viewed here.

Day 66 - Fund, blog, presentation and book news.

Another day goes by and the fund is still growing in size. This afternoon, Paul Robinson made the pledge that got the fund up to £28,000. What a landmark! Thanks Paul. Also, colleague Chris Checkley increased his original pledge today. Not only was this reward for running 874 miles but Chris also commented how much he enjoyed reading the blog during the run.

I've had some really good feedback over the last 6 months about the blog. At the peak of the run I was getting over 3500 hits per day. It's almost a month since the run ended and I'm still getting 150 hits a day on average. Who are these 150 people? Haven't they got some paint to watch drying?

I'll continue to update the blog for a good while yet. It will eventually turn into a "Geordie running across America" blog or something similar. Knowing that people are taking an interest in my running and fundraising antics provides tremendous motivation.

There are only 17 days to go before the cheque is presented to St Benedict's Hospice at Dunston Excelsior. Over 100 people will be there and there are only a handful of tickets left. If you are interested in attending then please drop me a line at keeponkeepingon@markallison.com. Tickets are only £5. This includes entry into a raffle, buffet and top North East band The Happy Cats.

Finally, I've been offered some expert advice from a local celebrity concerning writing a book about this year's run. After receiving so many requests to write such a book over the last few months, I've decided to start it within the next few weeks and hopefully publish it next year. All proceeds will, of course, go to St Benedict's Hospice. Does anyone have any ideas on what the title of the book should be? Please get in touch at keeponkeepingon@markallison.com.

Day 56 - Where will this fund total end?

Thanks to a couple of Northern Rock colleagues upping their original pledges, the fund has now breached the £27,000 mark. Namely these colleagues are Jonathan Jobe and Mark Alderson (Gino). Remember that pledges from Northern Rock staff are double matched by the Northern Rock Foundation.

Gino's extra pledge came from a winning bet that he placed at the Barnsley game on Wednesday. As far as I remember, his prediction was Obafemi Martins for the last goal and a 2-0 win. His bet came up trumps and he decided to put the winnings into the fund. What a guy!

I travelled to the UEFA Cup Semi Final in Marseille with Gino a few years back. I hope it is not too long in the future before we get the chance to watch the Toon in Europe again.

Day 46 - Major all time sponsorship landmark.

I've been raising funds for St Benedict's Hospice since 1994. During this time I've been sponsored by a great many people for doing events ranging from the Great North Run right through to running from John O'Groats to Lands End.

The pledges made yesterday took the total amount that I've raised to over £40,000. What a landmark!

I look forward, over the coming years, to continue to raise funds for the Hospice in memory of my Mam.

I hope that, as a result of this year's event, I've inspired lots of people to do the same for whatever cause is dear to them. I suspect that this is actually the case judging from the hundreds of emails I received over the last 6 weeks.

Day 27 - Major Sponsorship landmark.

What an amazing achievement! The fund has now passed £15,000 thanks to the unbelievable generosity of friends, family, colleagues, the Northern Rock Foundation and my biggest backer - The Toon Army. The boys at NUFC.COM deserve a huge amount of credit for the continued daily publicity they have afforded me. Special thanks are also due to the Northern Rock Foundation for agreeing to double match every pledge made by a Northern Rock employee. This is only payable upon succesful completion!

Sponsorship landmark and then some!

I was just sitting in a pub in Wick getting my tea when a text message came through saying that my run had been publicised on www.nufc.com and the fund raising target of £5000 had been exceeded. Straight away, the "pre match nerves" gained as a result of the 400 mile drive on the route, lessened somewhat. I'd just like to express my gratitude (from my cheap B&B in Wick and via a dodgy wi-fi connection) to those readers of nufc.om (some of who I know) for the most generous donations. From a personal point of view, it's going to be a great help over the next 36 days, knowing I'm running for such a sizable amount. I was so excited when I was told the fund was over £5000 that I almost bought myself a pint in the pub. Almost!

That's not the end of it either. Earlier good news came when I found out that the Northern Rock Foundation have agreed to double match all pledges made by Northern Rock employees. So that's £2 donated by the Foundation for every £1 pledged by my colleagues at Northern Rock.

I'm still coming to terms with these amazing amounts and I'm trying to calculate how much exactly I'll be running for. I should be having an early night really! I think it's in the region of £9000. I'm going to therefore increase my fundraising target to £10,000. This is to ensure that I keep putting in the effort on the fundraising front while en-route.

Once again thanks to one and all for the kind pledges and to nufc.com and the Northern Rock Foundation.

This is Mark Allison signing off from the B&B in Wick. Let the adventure begin!

Sponsorship landmark!

A few people were leaving it until the last minute to sponsor me and I've had a flurry of pledges today. The fund now stands at a very pleasing 85% of the target or £4233 in old money!

I've just about dried up all avenues of fund raising and I'm left with attempting to collect the remaining £767 while on the route.

Hopefully the Batman and Borat costumes will attract some further attention from people willing to chuck a few pence in the collecting tin that I'll have with me.

One thing is for sure, I'm now setting new records for fundraising. The previous best has been beaten and I'm almost at the £20,000 mark for the last 13 years.

Sponsorship landmark!

Thanks (yet again) to my colleagues at Northern Rock, the fund has now reached 81% of the target and stands at £4050, just short of my £5000 target.

It now feels like there is light at the end of the fund raising tunnel. For the first time I'm left with raising a three figure sum instead of four.

There are just a few days to go before I set off from John O'Groats. I will hopefully exceed the previous best total donated to the Hospice before I set off. That was £4140 back in 2003 where a colleague (John Mallon) and I dressed up as Roman soldiers and ran the 84 mile Hadrian's Wall path over 3 days.

It will also be nice to get near to a grand total raised (since 1993) of £20,000. I couldn't have done any of this without the help of colleagues, friends, family, local businesses and a surprising number of complete strangers who have sponsored me via the Internet and en-route. The generosity of the good folk in this region never ceases to amaze me!

Sponsorship landmark!

I've had some brilliant sponsors this week (they are all brilliant by the way no matter what the week!) and the fund has reached 75% of my target. Thanks to Aunty Ada, Uncle Brian, Chris & Kev and Mandy for boosting the fund which now stands at £3734.

There are still many avenues to pursue and I feel sure that the magic £5000 will be reached.

Are there any rich individuals or companies out there? Still up for grabs is individual sponsorship for my "FANCY DRESS" days. See the full tariff further down the right hand side of the page for details. A few Batman days have gone. I'm half glad that I haven't sold the "Borat bikini" day (£300) or the "naked 1.5 miles over the Forth Road Bridge" (£500). There's still time mind!

Sponsorship landmark!

Thanks to my Aunty Joyce getting some brilliant donations from her friends and family, the sponsorship total has now reached a very impressive £3479. That is 70% of the target.

There are still 1 or 2 avenues to pursue in order to try and get up to the magic £5000 mark. One of which will be the use of a secure collecting tin on the run provided by Anne Oliver at St Benedict's Hospice. An example of it's potential use will be when Batman and Robin (aka myself and Ian Glasgow) stop for a drink at Carter Bar on the day Ian joins me for 10 of 26 miles. Hopefully, any tourists stopping to admire the view of the Borders will dig deep!

I also have one iron in the fire which I can't say too much about at present. But rest assured, as soon as I get any good news I'll post it up here on the website under the heading "Sponsorship target reached". Fingers crossed!