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| Project HappyChild has 14 areas | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | click any area to access |
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Project HappyChild NEWS July / August 2001 [for ongoing updates, see Latest Site News] |
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| Well, it's "all change" this month! Sorry about the "late" Newsletter but I injured my wrist and using the keyboard is a slow process, to put it mildly.
The wrist injury came in the midst of three weeks of upgrading and integrating all 1700+ pages of the Project HappyChild site - meaning that literally nothing could be re-uploaded until the whole integration work was completed. However ..... it's all done now! All 14 major areas of the site now have a "home page" and judging by the surge in accesses, visitors are locating many more facets of the whole project than they did previously. Area 2 (The Project HappyChild Directory) seems to have become much more "visible" - and speaking personally I'm delighted by this, because highlighting the work done by the many charities helping children has been a primary aim of this website since pagebuilding first started, back in 1998. |
| There have been more upheavals (again requiring huge numbers of page modifications, to remove links) - Microsoft in their infinite wisdom have apparently decided to close down their free ListBot mailing list service [with the option to pay $149 a year for a "paying" service]. As we use three different mailing lists at Project HappyChild [all subscribed] this would be around $450 a year, which on our shoestring budget isn't viable. Not justifiable, either - one would have thought Microsoft with their huge profits could have given back something to the Internet community at large on an ongoing basis.
With everything else that's going on here, finding a free alternative which also protects our mailing list from being "sold on" has been deferred for now - but we're not prepared to use any facility which would mean our subscribers being vulnerable to "junk mail", and will probably need to set up a .cgi-based mailing list facility from the site here, in due course. Someone has this in hand! - whether it's possible or easy to administer remains to be seen, but if it's viable we'll transfer your address over in due course, and future mailings will be handled this way. Charities in the Directory will receive a monthly copy of the Newsletter regardless, but the mailing list itself is too vast now for our mailing program to cope with by conventional means. In the meantime, on an ongoing basis, you'll be able to access the latest Newsletter from the top right-hand corner of the opening screen on our Welcome page at http://www.happychild.org.uk. So please check out the site at the beginning of each month! We greatly value the support we receive from across the world. |
| Now to the News for the month! We're delighted to say that the final chapter of "How to Run a Successful Car Wash Fundraiser", by Lance Winslow III, is now on line. This fascinating book is packed with practical ideas for making your event a success - well worth a read, if you're planning any type of fundraising event.
General Events: On 12th July there's a Celebrity Golf Day at Clandon Regis Golf Club (Surrey), in aid of Ockenden International. A number of celebrities and sports personalities, including Soldier Soldier star, Miles Anderson; Olympic rower, Peter Bridge; and former Chelsea and England footballer, Peter Osgood, will be at the day which will comprise brunch, a round of golf (shot-gun stapleford) and dinner, with Kate Adie as after-dinner speaker. There are still a few places available for teams of 4 (Ł550 per team) - telephone 01483 772012 for details. Sponsored Events: A huge range of marathons across the world have been added to the Sponsored Events calendar for 2001 and 2002 - different packages are available, to include travel and accommodation, depending on the level of sponsorship obtained. If you've ever thought of running a marathon, you could raise much-needed funds for disadvantaged kids at the same time. Take a look at the Sponsored Events calendar for details of these and many other events scheduled over the next 18 months, including the first-ever British 10K Open Road Race. APPEALS: Many of you will have seen the page on the site here for the Betesda charitable foundation, helping street children in Romania. When the page was updated in January of this year, a request was included for help with the purchase of a flat for the streetgirls. We're delighted to report that Hans & Erika Kraft from Marburg, Germany, have kindly forwarded the necessary money to Betesda, to buy this flat, so that now it is almost remodeled, repaired and ready to welcome the girls. Their kindness is very much appreciated ..... to see the Betesda page, please click here. |
| DIRECTORY: Contact a Family [CaF] [No. 1079 in the Project HappyChild Directory] has changed address and contact details - their Directory entry has been updated (click here); if you have a cached or printed-out version of the Directory you may wish to update this. To quote from the CaF website - "every day over sixty children in the UK are born or diagnosed with a serious disability and the vast majority of them are cared for at home ... discovering that your child has a special need or disability is probably one of the most devastating experiences that a parent will live through. The feeling of isolation - both physically and emotionally - can often be acute. However, experience tells us that some of this pain can be relieved by sharing thoughts and fears with other families in a similar situation. We have information on over 1,000 rare syndromes and rare disorders and can put families in touch with each other."
We're delighted to welcome another organization to the Project HappyChild Directory - Child Advocacy International, which works to help children in a number of countries worldwide, for example providing emergency drugs to children's wards in Kosovo where youngsters were recovering from operations without effective pain relief. We've now added CAI to the relevant geographical areas of Appeals & Projects worldwide. |
 Child Advocacy International benefits from mobile phones sent to CRUMP - the Campaign to Recycle Unwanted Mobile Phones - which has now been added to our "Resources Required" area. There's a FREEPOST address if you're in the UK, or free collection can be arranged for larger quantities of phones [UK mainland only].
EXCELLENT NEWS: Many of our regular visitors will have watched the progress of solo skipper Vinny Lauwers (a paraplegic from Australia) in his landmark voyage around the world during 1999/2000, details of which have remained on our FOCUS page ever since. We have left the details of this voyage on line here as a tribute to Vinny Lauwers' extraordinary courage in braving the elements single-handed on his boat "Vision Quest", so as to raise funds to help disabled and disadvantaged children. We've now updated the FOCUS page to include the information that Vinny has recently received the Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year award - congratulations Vinny! - well deserved. |
| FREE THEATRE TICKETS for kids, in August: We've been contacted by Christina Hicks, at the Society of London Theatre (non-profit) about "Kids Week" in the West End, which allows children from 5-16 to go free to a whole range of top London shows for the last week of the summer holidays, 24-31st August 2001. Parents have to pay! - but one child goes free for each paying adult, and as the usual price of a family outing to the theatre is well outside many parents' budgets, this offer makes a welcome change. The offer apparently includes not only free theatre tickets, but also free meals in some of London's family restaurants, free entrance to theatre workshops and discounted travel and accommodation. Ticket go on sale in mid-July ..... more details at http://www.kidsweek.co.uk where you'll also find details about disabled access, etc. |
| Hope many of our UK visitors will be able to take up this offer in August! I'll be taking my own three sons if we can stretch our family budget far enough - so maybe we'll meet some of you there.
As for the website - well, I'm taking a break, for now, from new pagebuilding at least. First since this started, back in 1998! It's been a long haul but so much has been done in the last five weeks to upgrade all the main pages and link everything together thoroughly, that the whole site should be easily accessible no matter where anyone comes in from [search engines etc.]. My wrist needs to settle down [this is probably an RSI-related problem, all that keyboarding!] and as my children have all been ill this year (one for four months, after an accident) we all need some "time out" as a family, to let life get back to normal. The site will still be "maintained" [e-mails etc. plus amendments to pages as required] but the remaining "new pagebuilding" (for Areas 12, 13 and 14] will have to be put on hold until after my sons go back to school/college somewhere around 5th September. |
| My thanks to everyone who continues to publicise the site - all those links from your websites make a real difference. Current "visit level" (at time of writing, 2.15pm GMT, 10/7) is 2361934 ..... so here's hoping we will be significantly beyond that by September!
A parting thought - hope you'll enjoy "The Daffodil Principle", just on line in Area 6, not linked in from the main site as yet. See you in September!
Penny. ****************************************************************** |
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| Project HappyChild News - July / August 2001 -
http://www.happychild.org.uk/nvs/news/2001/07.htm located in Area 6 at Project HappyChild - PO Box 911, Epping CM16 4AA, England.
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