#BloggersBeatingCancer : Nottingham bloggers unite!
#BloggersBeatingCancer.
When blogger Emma Critchley, (Island Living 365), lost one of her best friends, Sarah, to cancer earlier this year, she wanted to do something positive. So with the help of fellow blogger, Sarah from Mumzilla.co.uk, the idea of bloggers using their influence to raise money for charity was born, culminating in a virtual coffee morning on Friday 30th September 2016 at 10.30am.
As well as writing a blog post about my own experiences of cancer for #BloggersBeatingCancer (#BloggersBeatingCancer: Fighting cancer with coffee and a hashtag), I decided to host a coffee morning at my home and invite some of my Nottingham blogging friends. The plan was for us to have a lovely catch up over cakes and coffee. During the morning we would use the #BloggersBeatingCancer hashtag to raise awareness of the campaign on social media, whilst raising money for Macmillan and Bart’s Charities.
I don’t know what it is about Nottingham, but it’s a bit of a blogging hotspot! We have a veritable feast of blogging royalty here. In fact, I live just around the corner from Amanda Cottingham from The Ana Mum Diary. If I wanted to, I could easily lob a tennis ball into her back garden from my house. I’d better not though, because I might hit her lovely new summer house!
Nottingham Bloggers.
By PawełMM [CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Here are just a few of the Nottingham bloggers who’ve been such a help and support to me since I started last December 2015. I’m sure you’ll recognise some of them from the Top 100 lists. If not, I thoroughly recommend checking them out:
Amanda Cottingham – The Ana Mum Diary, We Blog Travel.
Jen Stanbrook – Love Chic Living
Penny Alexander – Parentshaped, Space in your Case, A residence.
Emily Leary – A Mummy Too
Becky Goddard-Hill – A Beautiful Space, Family Budgeting, Thrifty home plus many more!
Catherine Hughes – Growing Family
Alex Muir – My Life Long Holiday
Lucy Wray – Lish Concepts, Each Peach Pear Plum
Sarah Lyon – Each Peach Pear Plum
Morgan Prince – Morgan’s Milieu
Jaime Oliver – The Oliver’s Madhouse.
Donna Navarro – Ordinary Cycling Girl
It isn’t an exhaustive list, either. Our Notts Parent Bloggers Facebook Group has 36 members.
Let there be cake!
After deciding to host a #BloggersBeatingCancer coffee morning, I sent out virtual invitations to my blog mates and invited a few other folks too, (The Two Peas from Two Peas PR, Helen and Jo, for example).
I asked my eldest, Beth, if she would make some cakes for the cause as she is our Star Baker. Thankfully, she agreed, sparing my friends from having to settle for my creations. She even agreed to make her own version of Mess and Merlot’s Chunky Chocolate Explosion cake, which I have dreamed about since I spotted it on Instagram.
Beth rose to the challenge, making a wonderful Chocolate Explosion Cake of her own. It’s a multi-tiered Victoria sponge cake, heaped with chocolate goodies. I carelessly bought far too many chocolatey goodies for the top of the cake so we had to eat them all…It was a tough job, but someone had to do it.
Beth made some mini cupcakes with various toppings and youngest made a mini-cake too. I contributed some (Morrisons!) brownies and flapjacks.
Nottingham #BloggersBeatingCancer Coffee Morning.
The big day arrived and I was all set with cakes, coffee and tea. Plus, in true blogger fashion, I had my laptop open on the #BloggersBeatingCancer campaign page. I even offered them an analogue donation option…A bowl. No excuses!
When 10.30am arrived, I ushered my coffee morning guests in, set up my selfie stick and phone and we were all set!
We chatted, we tweeted, we ate cake, we drank coffee and tea. We also had the chance to ‘pooch’ and cuddle Lucy Wray’s gorgeous baby, Willow. Most importantly, we donated to a fantastic cause.
I took the obligatory selfie of our Nottingham Blogging Gang. I am absolutely useless at taking group selfies as you can tell from my ‘have I got everyone’s head in the shot’ face.
Left to Right: Emily Leary (A Mummy Too), Me, Jen Stanbrook (Love Chic Living), Catherine Hughes (Growing Family), Alex Muir (Front, My Lifelong Holiday) and Lucy Wray (Lish Concepts).
There was so much cake….Dare I say too much cake? In fact, nobody was allowed to leave until I’d pressed a plastic plate filled with chocolatey delights into their hands, just to share the calorific load!
Who knew ‘doing our bit’ for #BloggersBeatingCancer would be so much fun?
Here’s to you, Sarah!
People touch our lives.
Sometimes we have them for our whole lifetime and sometimes only for a little while.
Sarah touched the lives of so many in her short life, Emma from IslandLiving365 being one of them. She wanted to do something positive in Sarah’s memory and along with Sarah from Mumzilla, she did just that.
The #BloggersBeatingCancer Virtual Coffee morning united bloggers and non-bloggers alike, both virtually and in real life. We watched as the hashtag trended on Twitter and raised awareness of the campaign.
#BloggersBeatingCancer has raised £1,006 so far, (£1,171,14 with Gift Aid), surpassed it’s initial £1,000 target. However, it would be wonderful if we could raise even more money for Macmillan and Bart’s Charity.
It has been an inspirational campaign and makes me feel proud to be a blogger and to help Macmillan and Bart’s Charity in some small way.
Over to you.
It’s not too late to give! You can still make a donation, no matter how small. Simply click on the link below. Thank you.
Please support #BloggersBeatingCancer:
You can donate at our fundraising page now:
https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/bloggersbeatingcancer
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