(on a bit of an off-topic tangent)

I’ve never been quite sure where I sit on the political spectrum – the mixed influences of my right-wing parents and my guardian-reading habits have left me somewhat politically confused.  But as I set about pruning my worryingly overgrown garden yesterday morning, I suddenly caught sight of the Tory streak in me.

To set the scene, I haven’t attempted any serious gardening since planting pansies as a little girl, and about a year ago I found myself responsible for maintaining our little back garden. It was full of life – roses, a vine, a few dark-green-waxy leaved typed plants, one really prickly thing, and one oversized shrub that’s about to burst into amazing yellow blossom. I let everything grow and grow, and totally ignored the fact that they were getting too big for our little square patch, that they were at risk of strangling one another whilst crumbling the raised beds that they sprout from.

Then came yesterday, when I realised it was high time for some ruthless pruning. Having not donned my gardening gloves for so many years, I decided the best tactic was to go for the full-blown cut back – cut each plant right back to the size and shape that I think it should be, swiftly snipping off healthy but out-of-place or oversized branches, and see what happens.

I’ve definitely saved the flower bed walls from imminent collapse, and my hope is that the plants will grow back much healthier, thicker, and prettier than before, whilst leaving space for the spring bubs to break through and flower.  I’ve been assured that everything in our garden is incredibly hardy, and will grow back no matter what. If that’s really the case, then I’ve done a great job. But somehow I suspect that one or two poor plants might not survive this morning’s brutality.

Luckily I spotted the new bulbs and blossoming shoots before I snipped them as well; let’s just hope that Cameron spots our country’s spring shoots before he cuts their lifelines too.  There are so many innovative social enterprises and ambitious community projects out there, ripe and ready to burst into blossom in the spring of ‘Big Society’, but they’re still far too vulnerable to withstand the ruthless snip of the secateurs.

Yes, it’s true – we’re recruiting again…. and for a paid position at that!

It’s very exciting and made possible by the amazing fellowship I received from Carbon Leapfrog and Telus Mater Foundation.

We’re looking for someone passionate and professional with knowledge or experience in Corporate Social Responsibility and sales/marketing to come and help develop and market our corporate facing packages. The role, Business Development Manager, will start as a six month position but may be extended if funding allows.

For more info, check out the job spec.

People often joke about interns having to make tea and after a few weeks be given some mildly important task to do. At The DoNation it’s a different story, I’m required to work 12 hours a day, 5 days a week… Well not really. It’s pretty sweet actually.

I’ve been part of the team for 5 weeks now, and things have only gotten better. When people ask me how my new internship is going I always start with the same sentence: “it’s super interesting”. Why? Because of the work I’m doing. Let me explain. The exciting web development of the new site is coming along. The web team are doing their bit, pretty essential, but we have to finalise the content of the website, just as essential. So my current task is to help research and draft out the content of the DoActions (the sustainable actions people will undertake for a couple months/forever). This basically means to read up on loads of fascinating facts and discover exciting new sustainable initiatives cropping up all over the place; such as Swishing, a sustainable way to acquire new clothes.

If I had a diary (of course I don’t), each entry about my work so far would start with:

Fascinating, encouraging and fun. Bring on tomorrow.

Fact 1. Did you know that up to 17,000 litres of water is required in the production of a kg of cotton? Crazy. Some of you may know about the tragedy of the Aral Sea (caused by intensive cotton farming) which lies between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, but if notcheck it out.

Besides the work-induced joy, I also savour a lovely view of London, a super friendly working environment and free milk in my tea. Get in.

Time for another fact:

Fact 2. For each tonne of rubbish recycled, 10 jobs are created, while for every tonne of rubbish sent to landfill or incinerated, only 1 job is created. So dedicate a few minutes a week to sorting out the recycling, it’s well worth it.

I’m very privileged to be part of this exciting time The DoNation has embarked on, things are materialising fast and positively. The Nation we are helping create is soon going to need all of you, especially you, to make it bigger, better, faster and a lot more like Daft Punk; funkier. Speaking of music, I discovered an exquisite tune while researching one of the DoActions, and it was played on repeat all day: SDC’s Alien Pulsating Mass Mix – not to worry, it’s not dangerous, Hermione liked it too, although she may have just been polite. Enjoy.

“Start Something You Love” was the title of an inspirational event that Xavier and I went to last week, hosted by the wonderful Escape the City. As someone who has already started something she loves, it all rang a lot of bells – some being blaring alarm bells, some chiming bells of excitement and anticipation. You can find my rather gushing reflections of it on Escape the City’s blog.

Al Humphreys and Ed Stafford painted an incredibly alluring picture of the life of adventure and made us all want to shut down our computers, pack up our bags and head off around the world.  “Just do it – what’s the worst that could happen?” was Al’s powerful closing line. Sadly, that rang rather more sombre bells for me, as I’ll come onto later.

We also heard from two leading entrepreneurs, who shone a bright light on the daunting world of business that I’ve launched myself into. But listening to Zarine Kharas (founder of JustGiving) and talking to some of the other JustGiving folk afterwards really inspired me and brought home again what fantastic and effective work they do. I often find people react to my explanation of The DoNation with a mixture of excitement, caution, and cynicism, as they think that it’s aim is to fully replace charitable fundraising as its currently known, thus ousting the likes of JustGiving, Virgin Money Giving, and BMyCharity.

Yes, I have ambitious goals, but that sure as hell ain’t one of them!

Traditional fundraising is an incredible and powerful from of charitable giving, and I hope it always will be. Let’s face it, some charities just need our cold hard money; our action isn’t going to cut it.

I might be able to do a lot in my personal life to help further environmental sustainability and fight climate change, but there’s not much that I can personally do to help cure pulmonary heart disease, apart from donate money to support ground-breaking research. Or even better, I could encourage hundreds of others to donate by sponsoring me for taking on a mad but noble challenge.

There’s no better example than that of Simon Roney, Michael Puddifoot and Daniel Grieves. Here’s their heartbreaking story…

Back in 2009, shortly before I set off on my bike to Morocco, a wonderful friend of mine set off on his own two-wheeled adventure. His made my 2,100mile ride pale in comparison: Timmy was to cycle around the world.  He had always been an adventure-hunting, adrenaline addicted kinda guy, but this particularly extreme challenge was motivated by the death of a close childhood friend of his, James Harrison, who’d recently died of a pulmonary embolism.

So Timmy Roney, Karen and Chris Puddifoot, all close friends of James’s, set off around the world to raise sponsorship for the British Lung Foundation, in the hope that it would help others from suffering in the same way as James.

The trio successfully covered the 3,000 miles to Asia, at which stage Chris returned briefly to the UK. Tim and Karen continued, and on 24^th September 2009 were crossing Ha Long Bay in Vietnam; night fell, a storm struck, and their boat capsized. Aged just 21 and 27, and fitter than ever, the two passed away.

Tim was one of the most smiley, loving guys I ever met, who had a life of adventure ahead of him. His family and friends meant more to him than anything else, and this cruel tragedy hit them all hard. But it didn’t end there.

Less than two months later, Chris, Karen’s brother who’d cycled so far with them, was killed in a car accident back at home in Watford.

For one small circle of friends to have been struck with so much misfortune is shattering. The loss and pain their families have undergone is unimaginable, but the way in which they are handling it and holding together is nothing short of admirable.

Simon, Michael, and Daniel are about to continue the journey that our lost trio started: they’re cycling the 1,000 miles from Lands End to John O’Groats in May 2011, raising sponsorship for the British Lung Foundation.

Sadly there’s nothing that I can do nor any action that I can donate that will bring Timmy, Karen and Chris back, but by donating money to the cause that they felt so strongly about, at least I can help make sure that their lives weren’t lost in total vain.

So please, let’s make Timmy proud, let’s annihilate that ambitious £12,200 fundraising target. It’ll mean so much.

Click here to go to their fundraising page.

I may not have written for a little while, but that’s not because life in The DoNation’s been too dull to write about. Far from it. It’s been exciting, and fun, and manic. I won’t delve into the details now; in brief, it’s involved:

1. Receiving some amazing funding from Carbon Leapfrog and Tellus Mater Foundation – in the form of an exciting new fellowship pilot. I can’t say a big enough WOW, THANK YOU!
2. Expanding the team – welcome Xavier, our breakdancing doctor!
3. Re-starting the web development with the lovely guys at Effusion, who are proving to be fantastically fun to work with.

And a few other exciting bits and bobs…

But right now, I have a question for you, our loyal advocates who are still visiting my slightly neglected blog.

It turns out some of the terminology that I chose for The DoNation was slightly contentious. And so I’m turning to you, our wonderful crowd of future users and supporters, for some help! Good alternatives and advice is what I need, and I trust you can provide it…

What do I need terms for? Simply to give names to the different types of people using The DoNation, as explained by the sketch below:

(N.B., one person could use The DoNation both to raise sponsorship and to give sponsorship).

Clearly the terms have got to fit into The DoNation’s image and values – which are to be fun, proactive, friendly, inspiring and positive. And they must be clear and intuitive, without the need of much explaining.

Some ideas that have been bashed around are shown below…

What’re your thoughts? Which do you like? Which do you hate? And as ever, the options are not limited – be creative and throw some more ideas out there.  Of course, we’ll credit your ingenuity if you strike gold….