2011 Charity Poll

Merry Christmas to all members of Nice to Be Nice, hope you have an amazing Christmas and can take a few minutes to think about who we can support next year.

Many thanks to all those people who have nominated a 2011 charity for our group. Here's some information about the nominees, with links to their site so you can find out more. The poll on this blog will be open until the 24^th December, and open to all readers, though we do encourage you to become a follower of Nice to Be Nice on Facebook, so that you can be kept up to date with the results and all our events. 

Barefeet: A creative arts and performance project staged, rehearsed and presented mainly, though not exclusively, by children on, or formerly on, the streets of Zambia. The project uses theatre, art, dance, music and creative writing as a tool to engage with and support the development of children most at risk of disengaging from their communities.

http://www.barefeettheatre.org/background

Action Cancer: Action Cancer is a Northern Ireland cancer charity, established in 1973 by cancer specialist Dr George Edelstyn. Action Cancer's mission is to save lives and support people and to maintain a pioneering role in the development of cancer services.

http://www.actioncancer.org/ 

Praxis Care – Rainbow Lodge: Based in Ballymena this was the first facility of its kind in Ireland upon opening in 2005. It provides both permanent accommodation and short-stay facilities for eight children at a time. It offers a range of respite, shared care, longer term care and assessment services for children and young people with learning disabilities - such as autism - and/or physical disability who have challenging behaviour and complex health needs.

http://www.praxisprovides.com/ 

Simon Community in Northern Ireland: The Simon Community in Northern Ireland strengthes communities by leading the way in addressing homelessness. They actively respond to the needs of homeless people through initiatives aimed at prevention, provision and progression to independent living.http://www.simoncommunity.org/


Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

April Review

Well we're one month into our year long fundraising campaign for EBM, and so far we've raised £600 from Sponsored Walks and Coffee Mornings. This is a great start and bodes really well for the future as we are in many ways still finding our feet as a fundraising group. 

The 10 Mile Sponsored Walks down the Lagan Towpath where particularly successful, despite the sore limbs and hooves experienced by some of those taking part (myself included). We've still a bit to go if we're to reach the £1500 target we've set for ourselves by June as part of the Trek Kilimanjaro campaign, but hopefully the up-coming Shave Event will go a long way towards making this happen.

We'd like to thank everyone who has supported us so far, either by becoming a group member via Facebook, through sponsorship of simply by offering help and participation for future events. We'd just like to say a particular thanks in advance to Roysta who has agreed to play at the Shave event and to Auntie Annie's Porterhouse, Dublin Rd, Belfast ,for the kind use of their facilities for the night.

Shave-o-Rama

Our next fundraising event will be held on Sunday 16th May at Auntie Annie's Bar, Dublin Rd, Belfast, and is entitled 'Shave-o-Rama'. We've a bunch of people all getting sponsored to shave or wax various parts of their body, and the night itself will feature live entertainment from Belfast based Roysta and DJ support.

It's £5 in, though if you have sponsored a participant before hand you'll be on the guest list. Things kick off at 8pm.

Its great to see so many people getting involved so far and in the next few days you'll be getting a summary of the money we raised in April. Hard to believe we've only been doing this for a month, the response have been brilliant, thanks to everyone who has helped out in one way or another.

Sinead's Kilimanjaro Diary

Sinead Tighe will be part of the EBM team trekking Kilimanjaro in June this year, here she writes about how her preparation is going so far...

It’s about 5 weeks since I took the plunge to scale the highest free standing mountain in the world (thank you wiki). So far the training has been mental, (literally) To be honest getting my head around the fact that this is going to become a reality has been a real challenge. For anyone who knows me I’m not exactly what you would call an outdoorsy type! If there’s a bus passing I’m on it, a car...I’m shotgun, not really the words of someone embarking on a 6 day ascent!!

I remember hearing about my cousin, who would spend his evening cycling 30 miles.. and this would be for pleasure! My reaction used to be general dis –belief, tainted with a (he’s the mad one, not me, much more rewarding sitting on the couch with a movie on the download!) But I’ve had to change my attitudes and to be honest it’s been really rewarding. I suppose it’s like any new challenge...giving up smoking.... or starting a new job, it’s all about getting a fresh outlook and finding the hidden pleasures in your new found lifestyle. For me, completing a 22 mile walk was a real confidence booster...suddenly 10 mile walks seemed doable and the feeling of completing them would linger enough to give you drive for the next walk. Now no rose tinted glasses here, my legs were feckin aching, stiff as a board the next day, walking sticks never looked so cool! But where there’s pain, there’s gain and I knew it was doing my body good too which gave me a sense of security.

I’m still a long way off being fit enough, and the other climbers are training flat out, but I guess when something is good, it’s worth doing.


Sinead

10 Mile Sponsored Walk

Nice to Nice NI group founder Sinead Tighe will be taking part in the EBM trek of Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, in June this year. The mission hopes to raise £30,000 and events have been taking place throughout Northern Ireland to help them in this effort.

In order to support Sinead and the rest of the group, we are appealing for people to take part in a 10 Mile Sponsored Walk in April. If you can attend either of the two dates given (or even both if you're feeling really fit), then please get in touch via email at nicetobeniceni@googlemail.com for sponsorship forms and more details.

The event will take place from 10am and will end around 12.30pm, depending on pace. Even if you can only manage a small amount of sponsorship don't worry, the more people we get involved the bigger the impact we'll have. The walk will follow the Lagan Towpath route, consisting of beautiful riverside scenery and refreshments will be provided at the finish line. Even if you cannot take part in the walk, we are also looking for volunteers to drive people to the event. If you have a car and a spare half hour on either of these Sundays, please get in touch on the email address provided above. Though we're not always blessed weather wise here in Norn Iron, hopefully this should be a great day out for family and friends.

Sinead will be blogging about her preparation for the climb, which peaks at 4600m, over the coming months. She has already raised over £250 in the short time she has been preparing for this event, through coffee mornings and competitions. If you would like to sponsor her individually please email us for further details.

If you would also like to hold a coffee morning for the EBM, either at your place of work or recreation, we will be happy to provide you with help and advice on how to do so.

East Belfast Mission

For our very first charity we have chosen the East Belfast Mission in the Newtownards Rd area of Belfast. A registered charitable organisation since 1985, the work that EMB do in the local community is as wide reaching as it is important, with youth schemes, meals on wheels, Mission Cafe and Re:store Chairty Shops to name but a few.

To try and explain just what they do in a simple blog post would be to do them a great disservice, so we urge you visit their website for more information or visit their Facebook Page.

They are currently looking for volunteers in many areas.

We will be begin our fundraising for the EBM in the next couple of weeks, so please keep checking this blog for more information on how to get involved and share fundraising ideas, as well being kept up to date with events and services at the mission itself.

What we're about

Nice to be Nice NI is a group of people interested in non professional fundraising for charity. Each year we chose a charity to fundraise for, organising various events and sponsorships. We are volunteers and receive no payment, commission or remuneration for the fundraising work we do on behalf of our chosen charity. Any costs incurred whilst organising an event are covered by our members independent of the fundraising total. We are not a registered charity and do not on any occasion present ourselves as such, though we ensure that our chosen charities are recognised under section 63 of the Charities Act 1992 and/or ROI equivalent.

For more information please see the attached document.

Nice to be Nice NI