A Tourist's Tale: NADWcon 2011
Going west across the ocean, your intrepid Chairman visited a ...
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Why ShelterBox?
Posted by Ian Oldroyd on June 7, 2011, 10:34 p.m.
How did we come to choose ShelterBox as our second charity?
All right-thinking folk will know that each Discworld Convention supports two charities.
This is a long-standing, ancient Tradition.[1]
One of these charities is always The Orangutan Foundation.[2]
This is also a long-standing, ancient Tradition.[3]
The other charity has, in my admittedly incomplete experience, been suggested each time by a Committee member, through a personal connection or interest, and adopted by general acclaim.
At the long-ago time of which I write[4], the latter step had not yet occurred.
So there I was, Brung Low with the 'flu. Proper 'flu as well, none of your bad cold. Temperature upwards of 40, shivers, cotton-wool for brains, the works. Disgruntled lagomorph, as you might say.
Prostrate on the sofa, continuous News 24 on TV, on account of not even having the mental capacity to turn it over.
This was a couple of days after the earthquake in Japan. There were two different pieces on ShelterBox which I saw probably three or four times each.
Good publicity for them because even my addled brain remembered them.
Your esteemed Head of Comms[5] saw this too, and we looked at each other across the VAST expanse of space she was optimistically leaving between us[6], and went “Hmmmm. Charity.”
Next step was to get brain, fingers and laptop into the same space-time continuinuumumum, and email the Committee - "You know we need a Charity..."
Some of the Committee had heard of them already and said suitably complimentary things.
Some of them read their website and said equally complimentary things.
Then Jerry said “Luggage To The Rescue,” and that was it.
We had ourselves a Charity.
When I was better, I emailed them. “Would you like some money?” “Well, duh.”
Or something like that.
I wanted some official pictures and stuff, and to let them know that we are doing this, especially since we are publicising it.
Also who we are, and what kind of event. It’s likely that they'll have volunteers at the event, and will give a presentation of some sort.
Creating a web page for them took longer than it should have, because these things always do.
But in the end, an announcement was made to your good selves.
And that, ladies and gentlemen of the Convention, is how we choose a charity.
[1] If something has been done once before is is a Tradition. Once it has been done twice, it becomes a Long-Standing, Ancient Tradition. Terry Pratchett, Liverpool, 1998.
[2] If you don’t know why this is … well … just, well.
[3] See [1].
[4] March.
[5] It’s not coincidence that we have the same surname, you know.
[6] She didn’t come down with it, as it happens. Luckily for her and all her customers. (Ed: thanks to the NHS vaccination programme)
