Wednesday 12 October 2011

And now for something completely different...

I don't often blog about non-book related things, but the idea of micro-volunteering has been rattling around in my brain for a few days now so I thought I'd share. It's a concept I only came across at the weekend, courtesy of charity The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds on their blog. They are trying to encourage supporters who don't have the time to give up whole days, or the cash to make donations, to do small things that don't take much effort but when multiplied can make a real difference. The post that has inspired me is right here. Great idea, right?

So, looking at their list I'm off to a flying start. For years we collected stamps which got passed on to a friend who passed them on somewhere else, where they eventually made money for a charity. This ingrained the habit of ripping stamps off of envelopes so I have a small stack in a drawer, and now I know what to do with them! I'm already pretty good at the climate change things, and do as much recycling as I practically can. However, how many of us have a stash of old mobile phones, showcasing the development from house brick to teeny tiny smartphone with it's all singing all dancing features? I'm guilty as charged, and have been meaning to finally have a clear out. Now I'm feeling motivated and know I can support one of my fave charities at the same time it may actually happen.

Looking a bit further into it online there are masses of ideas for pajama participation, on sites like this; things like using certain search engines that donate to charity, or clicking on site that will give to charity using money raised from advertising, to different ways of helping save the planet. I'm definitely going to look into more things that can be done easily from home, and hope one or two others might look into the idea and decide to join.

And my next good deed? At the moment I'm selling raffle tickets for the National Deaf Children's Society. They're not a well known charity like some I could mention but they do wonderful work, experienced by my family firsthand. So far friends and family are being remarkably generous, so hopefully we'll help contribute a decent amount to the total.

I'd love to hear from anyone else who is already in the know, especially if you can give me some great ideas!


2 comments:

LRAtRandom said...

If you go to www.thebreastcancersite.com there's tabs for hunger, breast cancer, animals, veterans, autism, child health, literacy and rainforest.

Each tab has a 'click to give' button where certain things are donated for everytime the buttons are clicked. For example for every click on the animals tab .6 bowls of food is donated to rescued animals.

I've also ordered things off these sites as Christmas presents. Portions of proceeds goes towards the causes.

TC said...

Thanks for that link. I have used sites like that in the past and it has fizzled out, seemed so small, but if enough people do it often enough it has to make an impact.

I have been debating Xmas gifts from RSPB, a lot of the online gift shops have high P&P but they have a shop near us.