5 Days to go!

Our auctions finally ended last night and we now know we have raised a FANTASTIC £1,338!!

We'd like to say a BIG thank you to all those who bought items from us this year and to all those who continue to support us.

A special thank you also goes to all those who joined in the Smartie fun at the TRn camping meet earlier this year and to all in the NU Common Stack for filling those Smartie tubes!

Rose's Tribute Fund now stands at £9648.08 or 97% of this years £10,000 target!

When we return from the BritBallRun we will be putting our first batch of RoseBuddies T-Shirts up for sale. The t-shirts will have our new logo on the front and our name and website address on the back. For those of you that haven't seen the new logo here it is...

And here's a photo of Andrew wearing the first RoseBuddies t-shirt, this should give you an idea of how the back will look...

As well as the t-shirts we will have a few items from our sponsors up for auction and the Christmas Cards will go on sale at the start of October! Busy, busy, busy!

BritBallRun news - We will be writing a diary again this year and hope to post a little update each day from the car...if we can get the laptop to work! We will also, hopefully, be able to post a few photos of the car and us in our outfits.

For now it's time for us to rest before the chaos begins!

All the best,

Natalya and Andrew
Team SMARTies / RoseBuddies
Email: fundraising@rosemcgill.co.uk
Website: www.rosemcgill.co.uk

Ending Soon!

Time seems to be just whizzing by at the moment. Our auctions are almost at an end and we can't wait to add the total to Rose's Tribute Fund! If you fancy a last minute bid you can visit OUR EBAY STORE where you'll find all of the items we have up for grabs! All auctions, except the Everton FC Pennant, will end tomorrow Sunday 17th August 2008 at 7pm! Happy bidding!

Now on to the really serious stuff...7 days from today we will set off for the start of our second BritBallRun. This year we are hoping to use what we learnt from last years event and we're looking forward to meeting up with a few 'old friends'! We had a last minute costume change last week so you'll all have to wait for the photos from our first day to find out just what we'll be dressed in!

We hope to be able to post updates throughout the weekend if we can work out how to keep the laptop powered up in the car but we'll definitely post something from our hotel each night so you know how we are getting on! There will be no facility to send us messages this year but anyone wishing to leave us a message of support can post a comment on the latest post in this section. They will be authorised as soon as we get internet access throughout the weekend!

We'd like to take this opportunity to thank Steve at RS Graphics for coming to our rescue and providing all the decals we need for the car this year, YOU'RE A STAR!

Thanks to Steve we know the car is going to look great again this year and that is, of course, also thanks to all those who donated items for our auctions! On our homepage is a list of logos and links of all our sponsors, if you get a spare moment our two please take a look around their websites!

The start of the BritBallRun will also see the unveiling of our new logo which was designed by our friend, Luana! Thanks 'Booboo', we know it's going to look fantastic!

Finally, all that's left for us to do is wish everyone taking part in this years BritBallRun the best of luck...now we're off to continue packing and ticking off items on our 'To Do' lists!

All the best,

Natalya and Andrew
Team SMARTies
Email: fundraising@rosemcgill.co.uk
Website: www.rosemcgill.co.uk

It's Auction Time!!

I can't believe it's that time of year again already! Tonight has seen the start of some of this years RoseBuddies Auctions!

As always 100% of all our charity auctions will go to Rose's Tribute Fund which is part of the Clatterbridge Cancer Research Trust. And, it gets better, Missionfish (the Ebay Charity arm) will match the donation AND until further notice a power company will also match the auction total.

That means (for example) if you win an auction with a bid of £34 a massive £102 will be given to Charity!

Most of this years items are related to the North West of England but there are also items that will appeal to people from all over including an official autographed Liverpool FC football!

CLICK HERE TO VIEW ALL OF OUR AUCTIONS

HAPPY BIDDING!!

All the best,

Natalya and Andrew
Team SMARTies
Email: fundraising@rosemcgill.co.uk
Website: www.rosemcgill.co.uk
Donate at www.justgiving.com/rosemcgill

Bid on a DPC Membership for Charity

Thanks to a very kind donation by Steve Brown and Mark Simms we currently have a years membership on DPC up for auction in our eBay store. Here's a little more information from a recent thread by Steve on DPC:

In another thread, here, Mark Simms, simms, is raising money for charity by asking DPCers to pledge money for each pound that he loses in his effort to drop 46 pounds. The proceeds will go to a very worthy charity, The Rose McGill Tribute Fund, which was set up to raise money for The Clatterbridge Cancer Research Trust. So far, through your generosity, he will raise over $1100 if he reaches his weight-loss goal. As an incentive to encourage folks to pledge, Mark offered a one-year membership to a randomly chosen DPCer. I was that lucky person.

In an effort to 'pay it forward', I asked Mark if I could offer the membership to another deserving person. At the suggestion of Andi McGill, ecce signum, we are offering that membership to the highest bidder on ebay, with the proceeds of the auction going to the same charity. The wonderful part of this is that ebay will match the winning bid, and donate that as well.

Would you please consider making a bid for the free year-long membership? If you are already a member, it will extend your membership for a year. Remember, your bid will be doubled, and the money will go to help fight cancer! You can bid here. Even if the winning bid is simply the cost of the membership, basically a break-even for the bidder, the charity will still get $50. And, you can still pledge money for Mark's weight loss, too!

Thanks,

Steve

Once again we'd like to thank Steve and Mark and we'll keep you all posted on how the auction goes!

All the best,

Natalya and Andrew
RoseBuddies / Team SMARTies
Email: fundraising@rosemcgill.co.uk
Website: www.rosemcgill.co.uk
Donate at www.justgiving.com/rosemcgill

May 2008 Update!

With the 'ticker' above showing exactly 3 months to the start of this years BritBallRun we thought it was about time we gave you all a bit of an update.

Firstly here are a few ways you can help us reach our £10,000 target...

• The Smarties fundraiser is currently in progress and we hope to have a few tubes of change to count very soon! For more details of how you can take part CLICK HERE
• If you, your company or organisation would like to sponsor a part of our car for the duration of this years BritBallRun all you need to do is visit our eBay Store and take a look at the various options :o)
• We are also still looking for items for this years auctions. The auctions will be held through July and early August via our eBay Store, if you are interested in donating an item please send us an email at fundraising@rosemcgill.co.uk detailing the item/items you would like to donate and we'll get back to you as soon as we can :o)

Other Team SMARTies news...

• We have begun to put together our costumes for this years event. We finally settled on SMART but slightly mad Scientists as our theme this year...which will be more comfortable for Natalya than last years ballgown!
• Although Christmas is over 6 months away we hope to order our Christmas cards in the next couple of months. Thanks to donations from members over at DPChallenge we'll have more unique designs available in our eBay store at the start of September.
• Thanks to a friend we are working on our own fundraising event with a Smart twist! Plans are only in the very early stages so we won't announce anything yet, but, once we confirm the details we'll be sure to let you all know more!

To all those who have followed our progress since the start of our fundraising you are probably aware that Natalya isn't in the best of health. Thoughts and prayers around the 12th June would be greatly appreciated as she returns to the hospital for results of some tests which will hopefully allow the Doctors to finally confirm a diagnosis.

That's all from us for now but we'll be sure to keep you all posted on developments in the Team SMARTies 'camp' in the run up to the BritBallRun 2008...

All the best,

Natalya and Andrew
Team SMARTies
Email: fundraising@rosemcgill.co.uk
Website: www.rosemcgill.co.uk
Donate at www.justgiving.com/rosemcgill

February 2008 Update

I can't believe we are already into February! Time seems to really fly by these days.

I read an appalling statistic today. Tragically, more children and people under 40 lose their lives to a brain tumour than ANY other cancer. What's more appalling is that brain tumours aren't nearly as well publicised as other cancers such as leukemia. It is also very sad that treatments, funding for research and the standard of care received by brain tumour patients here in the UK is far lower than that experienced in other countries.

We are glad that Rose's Tribute Fund supports the work of the J K Douglas Laboratories which specialises in research into brain tumours and breast cancer and we hope that our fundraising will continue to provide much needed funds for the Laboratory to continue its vital research into treatments for brain tumours.

Now, it's about time I gave a little update on all that's been happening in the RoseBuddies / Team SMARTies corner of the world!

• Having asked for ideas on what we should wear for this years BritBallRun it's now been narrowed down to the following three...

1. Mad scientists, white lab coats and truly messed up hair.

2. Smart wear from yesteryear as in the tweed and goggles for the guy and big flowing dresses and bonnet for the lady (think chitty Chitty Bang Bang)

3. Thelma and Louise (Andi in drag?!)

We haven't had a chance to discuss the pro's and con's of each option but once we have we'll let you all know which we decide to go for!

• Work has started on sponsors for this years BritBallRun. We are hoping to get many more items for our auctions between now and the August Bank Holiday weekend. Thanks to all those who have already donated items, we are extremely grateful for all your help.
  

• Through 2008 we are hoping to use various photography projects to help raise funds for the Clatterbridge Centre for Oncology.

• This year we will be returning to Scotland to watch and photograph the Tunnocks Tour of Mull. We had a great time in 2007 and we were really pleased that our photography of the event enabaled us to help Rose's Tribute Fund. Hopefully we'll be able to have the same, if not better, success in 2008.
  

• We are working on a number of projects which, at the moment, we are keping underwraps but as soon as we have some definite news I will be sure to post it here!

• Over the next month or so there will be a few changes with our website. The main one will be the layout and content of the homepage. We have been really pleased with how our fundraising has been going and as we take on more projects we want to be able to incorporate those into our website. So, watch out for the new look!

That's about all from us for now. Once again thanks to all of you for your continued support, it's greatly appreciated.

All the best,

Natalya and Andrew
Team SMARTies
Email: fundraising@rosemcgill.co.uk
Website: www.rosemcgill.co.uk
Donate at www.justgiving.com/rosemcgill

December 2007 Update

What a year we have had! It was, of course, with deep sadness that we began our fundraising but, over the months we have taken great comfort from the people we have met, the kindness so many have shown and the opporunities we have had to talk to people about Rose and the Charities we are supporting.

Yesterday we watched our latest eBay auctions raise a fantastic £262 for Rose's Tribute Fund which means our fundraising total now stands at £6,101.76!

We couldn't have got this far without our many loyal supporters and it's only right that we say a BIG THANK YOU to you all and wish you a Merry Christmas from all here at rosemcgill.co.uk.

So what next? Well, 2008 has a lot instore for Team Smarties and RoseBuddies Auctions including an auction of a space in the BritBallRun 2008. More details about this will appear here in early January.

We will also be asking for ideas on what costumes we should wear for the BritBallRun. We will remain as Team SMARTies so we need some great ideas of costumes that fit in with this name...and can be easily worn in the Roadster!

2008 will also see a few projects coming together to help Clatterbridge Centre for Oncology directly. Again, we'll tell you more about this in the New Year!

For now we hope you all have a great Christmas and wish you all the best for 2008.

See you in the New Year,

Natalya and Andrew
Team SMARTies / RoseBuddies Auctions
Email: fundraising@rosemcgill.co.uk
Website: www.rosemcgill.co.uk
Donate at www.justgiving.com/rosemcgill

SOLD OUT!

Our Christmas Cards went on sale almost one month ago and we are very pleased to say they have now all been sold! We have received great feedback from all who bought them and raised over £400 for Rose's Tribute Fund!

A BIG THANK YOU from us to everyone who bought a pack!

We are already planning next years cards and hope to have some great new designs to tempt you all with!

All the best,

Natalya and Andrew
Team SMARTies
Email: fundraising@rosemcgill.co.uk
Website: www.rosemcgill.co.uk
Donate at www.justgiving.com/rosemcgill

November 2007 Update

Time seems to be passing so quickly. The ticker tells us it's 9 months 1 week and 5 days till the next BritBallRun, before we know it we'll be off cruising the country, wearing silly costumes and collecting very odd items from more baffled shops and passersby again!

We thought it was about time we gave an update on whats been happening in the Team SMARTies/RoseBuddies Auctions 'camp' but before we do I'd just like you all to take a moment to look at this beautiful girl...

It has been 12 months of lows and highs for all involved in the fundraising for Rose's Tribute Fund but throughout we have had the biggest smile to keep us going. As those who knew and loved Rose hold thoughts of her close right now I'd like to take a moment to say thank you to her for giving me a reason to go on.

I have faced many challenges this year, the hardest of which have been this last month or so. Each time something has happened and I've found myself thinking 'why me?' I've been able to pull myself together and plough all the energy I have left into fundraising for Rose's Tribute Fund. The smiling face above really is an amazing motivator!

Team SMARTies / RoseBuddies Auctions News:

• On Friday 9th November 2007 I headed over to the Clatterbridge Centre for Oncology for a tour of the facilities and to see where the money raised through Rose's Tribute Fund is being used. Firstly I'd like to thank 'The Susan's' and all those who took time out of their busy days to show me around, answer my questions and share a little of what makes Clatterbridge the way it is. It is comforting to know that through Rose's Tribute Fund we might be able to make a difference to someone receiving treatment at Clatterbridge Centre for Oncology and that the research done at the J K Douglas Laboratories, which is all funded by donations, may one day help in finding a cure for Brain Tumours and other cancers. I learnt so much from my visit to the centre and we are looking forward to working with both charities in the future.

• Our Christmas Cards have been flying out of our eBay shop for just over 3 weeks now and we have raised a fantastic £358 for Rose's Tribute Fund! There are just 5 packs left so if you haven't grabbed yourself one yet then head over to our eBay Shop before they're all gone!

• Thanks to the generosity of this years BritBallRun winners, Team Killerviral, and with the co-operation of the event organisers the new year will see RoseBuddies holding a unique eBay auction! We will be auctioning entry to the 2008 BritBallRun for 1 car and 2 passengers and we can't wait to see who the highest bidders will be!ALL of the winning bid will be donated to Rose's Tribute Fund and thanks to eBay the donation will be matched 100%!
  

• New Year will also see the start of the sponsorship 'work'. With lots of ideas already being thrown about, 2008 looks set to be just as exciting as the 2007 event! We're keeping quiet for now but watch this space to find out what we'll be getting upto in the run up to the big event in August!
  

• Struggling to find the perfect Christmas gift or maybe you're exhausted from all that shopping!? Thanks to www.ineedpampering.com we have another fantastic Makeover Day for 2 to auction to help us raise money for Rose's Tribute Fund. We will be holding the auction at the start of December and we'll make sure we let you all know once it's in our eBay shop.
  

That's about all the news from us for now!

Before we go we'd like to say a BIG THANK YOU to all of you that have supported us this past 12 months and to Dave, our Web Guru, for all his hardwork! We couldn't have fixed our eyes on the new £10,000 target if it wasn't for the encouragement and help you have all shown us along the way.

All the best,

Natalya and Andrew
Team SMARTies
Email: fundraising@rosemcgill.co.uk
Website: www.rosemcgill.co.uk

Christmas Cards On Sale NOW!

Over the past few weeks the Christmas cards have been flying out of our eBay Store to places across the globe and, the feedback we have received has been wonderful! We were so pleased with the images and the quality of the printing, it's been great to hear others feel the same!

To check out our cards visit our eBay store...

ROSEBUDDIES AUCTIONS

More from us soon :o)

All the best,

Natalya and Andrew
Team SMARTies
Email: fundraising@rosemcgill.co.uk
Website: www.rosemcgill.co.uk
Donate at www.justgiving.com/rosemcgill

Christmas Cards On Sale NOW!

After a well deserved holiday we are back and have wasted no time in getting the first of our Christmas Cards on sale in our eBay Shop! Check out the following links to see the designs and to purchase a pack or 2 of our Christmas Cards...

12 Unique Charity Christmas Cards

6 Unique Charity Christmas Cards

100% from the sale of each pack will go to Clatterbridge Cancer Campaign in memory of Rose McGill. Better still, eBay will match every donation so double the final sale price will go to our chosen charity!

All the best,

Natalya and Andrew
Team SMARTies
Email: fundraising@rosemcgill.co.uk
Website: www.rosemcgill.co.uk
Donate at www.justgiving.com/rosemcgill

October 2007 Update

Well, the BritBallRun seems so long ago now! According to the ticker we have 10 months, 2 weeks and 2 days till we do it all again! We are both quite excited about it already and hope that we have learnt from this year...for example, we need to bring a clipboard and smaller map!

We have now finished the auctions of all the items we were given for this years event and our fundraising total stands at a fantastic £5024.47! With this in mind and knowing we have no intention of stopping we have decided to increase our fundraising target to £10,000!



It's always great to have something to strive for and we are missing seeing our little bar increasing with each donation! So, here's hoping we smash through our target before the BritBallRun 2008! :o)

Our Christmas Cards will be going on sale from Sunday 21st October so don't forget to keep checking in on Our eBay Shop for further details!

Team SMARTies are off for a well deserved holiday this week, should you have any queries please use the Contact Us form on our website and Dave, our Web Guru, will get back to you!

See you all in a couple of weeks!

All the best,

Natalya and Andrew
Team SMARTies
Email: fundraising@rosemcgill.co.uk
Website: www.rosemcgill.co.uk

Don't forget to visit our BRITBALLRUN section to read the Event Summary and Our Diaries from 2007

WOOHOO!!

After the sale of some of our remaining auction items and just over one month after we completed the BritBallRun we are extremely excited to announce that Rose's Tribute Fund has just sailed past the £5,000 target that we set for ourselves...



We are both grinning from ear to ear right now and wanted to share our excitement with all of you who have supported us along the way!

Is this the end? OH NO! We intend to continue fundraising in Rose's Memory starting with our own collection of unique christmas cards. As soon as they are available in our eBay shop we'll let you all know!

All the best,

Natalya and Andrew
Team SMARTies
Email: fundraising@rosemcgill.co.uk
Website: www.rosemcgill.co.uk
Donate at www.justgiving.com/rosemcgill

eBay!

Congratulations to the highest bidder on our very first eBay auction! Once we clear up the paperwork Rose's Tribute Fund will rise by a fantastic £130.66!

We can't wait to see what our next auction will raise. You can find our eBay Shop HERE!

All the best,

Natalya and Andrew
Team SMARTies
Email: fundraising@rosemcgill.co.uk
Website: www.rosemcgill.co.uk
Donate at www.justgiving.com/rosemcgill

Ch ch chchanges!

As many of you will have noticed by now, there have been a few changes around here! Please take a look through the menu on the left and explore some of the new sections including BritBallRun, Sponsors and Our Auctions.

Seamless link here...

The new look to the website also coincides with the opening of our eBay Shop. Following on from the auctions we held via the website earlier this year we have decided to open an eBay shop to give us a wider audience for any future auction items. You can navigate to the auction page by clicking on 'Our Auctions' in the menu on the left.

At the moment we are still putting the finishing touches to the RoseBuddies Auctions shop front and trying out the auction template that our web guru, Dave, put together for us. We currently have 1 item listed which you can find via the shop front or by clicking HERE.

As we put together more of our auction pages we will let you all know here in the latest news section.

For now it's back to work!

All the best,

Natalya and Andrew
Team SMARTies
Email: fundraising@rosemcgill.co.uk
Website: www.rosemcgill.co.uk
Donate at www.justgiving.com/rosemcgill