On July 24th 2010, Give A Brick is holding it’s inaugural Give A Brick Cocktail Thing. The short video below will tell you more about it but in case you’re in a rush (or somewhere where you can’t watch video) here’s what you need to know:

What? The Give A Brick Cocktail Thing

Where? Ty Canol, Peniel, Carmarthen, SA32 7AH

When? July 24th 2010, from 6pm until late

Why? To have fun, meet friends and to raise funds and awareness of Give A Brick

Who? Everyone and anyone who loves to smile

RSVP? Yes please, by July 19th. You can send an email to cocktails@giveabrick.com, ring or send a text message to me (Eleanor) 07540154608 or add your name and email address to the form below.

Other stuff? Free camping on site (just bring your own tent and toothbrush), free collection service from Carmarthen train station to Ty Canol (this will need to be arranged in advance so please get in touch), free games, cocktails (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) and tours of the gardens at Ty Canol.

Questions? Ask them. What have I missed? What else do you need to know? Ring, email, text, leave a comment below, tweet, write on our Facebook page wall … get in touch in whatever way is best for you.

This is a super quick post to tell you about a product launch one of our Give A Brick friends is having today. He’s a little bit bonkers in my humble opinion because his wife is expecting a baby. So what? Their baby was due two days ago! And here he is, launching a product. Mad!

Anyway, I love to support our friends so I promised I’d stick a little announcement up telling you it was opening today. You can find out more over at The Big Red Tomato Company where Give A Brick friend Matthew Needham will tell you all about it in his own words.

Apparently there’s some rule about disclosure that says I must tell you that that is an affiliate link. It is. However, our affiliate link is linked to the Give A Brick charity Paypal account, not mine. I thought that was important. I (Eleanor) won’t earn a penny if you go ahead and grab a copy. You will however be donating 51% of the price you pay to Give A Brick. In my eyes that’s a win-win situation.

And in case anyone reading this thinks I’ve sold out, think again. Give A Brick won a copy of this back in May. I’d never write about something I didn’t personally own (except maybe a beautiful beach in The Maldives but that’s different )

Following on from last week’s video which showed you just how quick and easy it is to register to shop online via The Giving Machine and give to your favourite charity for free, this week it’s time to take you shopping. Cool eh? Check out the short video below to see just how little extra time it takes to shop while they give.

I’ve mentioned The Giving Machine and how super duper it is before. However, even some of my closest friends still don’t use it. However, if you live in the UK and you shop online, you really should do so via The Giving Machine. Yes, I’d love you to support Give A Brick but to be frank, even if you have another charity you’d rather support, that’s still better than no charity at all

This short video was meant to be just 60 seconds but I went over. Hope you’ll forgive me and watch to the end Coming next week, a short video showing just how quick and easy it is to shop online via The Giving Machine.

Last Friday, after growing his hair for almost a year, our Dr Egg, Mike Simmons, lost it all for Give A Brick. As promised, we have a short video for you to celebrate his big day. Enjoy

A little later than planned (I had a blog post buzzing around my brain that had to be set free last night when I should have been editing the video below) welcome to this week’s Follow Friday. If you’re a regular visitor you’ll have seen him around here before but it is my pleasure to introduce Give A Brick’s treasurer (and my dad!) Mike Simmons, aka Dr Egg. If you don’t already, you can follow him on Twitter and I’m pleased to announce that he’ll be tweeting on behalf of Give A Brick too.

Next Friday afternoon, Dr Egg is having is head shaved on behalf of Give A Brick. It’s being done in The Temple of Peace in Cardiff @ 2pm so if you’re a little local, it would be fantastic to see you. I’ll tell you more about Dr Egg’s Hair Shaving Adventure at the end of this post but first, here is his interview:

I had to edit out the usual quick fire round as it was already getting longer than I wanted. However, you’ll be pleased to hear that the quick fire round will be posted below just as soon as I get it uploaded

So, about next Friday. Many months ago I said I’d shave my hair off for GAB, but I’d want to raise £10K before doing so. My lovely husband joined forces with my mum and they told me I wasn’t allowed to. Yes, I know I’m a grown up but I’ve learned it’s never good to quarrel with my mum

Dr Egg stepped up to the plate and many months later, (and thanks in part of a kind legacy of £2K left to GAB by my grandmother in her will) he’s now raised the promised £10K. This would have been impossible without the support, encouragement, tweets and donations from you so give yourself a pat on the back and thank you

If you’ve not yet given a brick, it’s never too late to do so. You can Give A Brick very easily via Paypal or Charity Choice by clicking on these words. Thank you

If you’re in a rush, here’s what you need to know: The Give A Brick trustees met on Sunday afternoon and as a result, we’re now in a position to ask you, the wonderful GAB community, to send us your ideas for the next project we should support. Application is via a video post and we’ll be uploading the video applications to our YouTube channel. As such, we reserve the right to edit if necessary and please, for copyright reasons, only send us your own videos. Videos should be sent to help (at) Give A Brick (dot) com

OK, so the time starved people know what they need to know. For the rest of us, I have a short video and an open email from Give A Brick Treasurer Dr Egg telling you more about this development.

And here’s what Dr Egg had to say about these last few days:

“Our trustees meeting was an exciting time on Sunday when we heard all that Eleanor had been able to achieve with the support of the on-line community that is getting behind Give A Brick.

Give A Brick works in a totally different way to other charities.  Many other charities will have money in the bank and invite people to make applications of support.  Others may have money in the bank but make a new appeal in response to some need.  At Give A Brick, we recognised that if we dream to support a project, we start with nothing but ask everyone who is committed with us to Give A Brick and ask their friends to do the same.  A brick represents just ￡1. We realised with our first project to support Cross Hands Christian Centre to build their community centre annex that like them, we didn’t have ￡100,000 but maybe, just maybe, we could find 100,000 people who would give ￡1.

Some dreams will be relatively modest. Indeed when we recently learned that a brilliant young blogger was being hampered by the lack of a dedicated domain name, we decided that we could back that because it would make little difference to our first project.  We believe that by such little blessings, Give A Brick will be blessed.  Who knows, our entrepreneur may be the next Bill Gates and just look what his foundation is achieving for good across the world!” – Dr Egg

Remembering that our remit is fairly wide open (children, young people, the elderly and those facing financial hardship) it is now up to you, the community, to spread the word. Talk to people. Find out what they need. If you don’t need help personally, you can bet they’ll be a project in your community that does so tell them about us.

Videos should ideally be less than 10 minutes long and are an opportunity to tell the world why your project deserves support. We’ll be adding the Give A Brick logo to the start and end of your video and will send you a link to your video when it is uploaded to our channel so you can tell your friends and family members. We’ll be utilizing the comment and vote system at YouTube to gauge support for a project so feel free to tweet, re-tweet, write and talk about your video.

Videos can be sent in just about any format and should be sent to help (at) Give A Brick (dot) com

I look forward to seeing your project

A fortnight ago we had a fabulous Sunday Surprise from Heather Craik of Shades of a Dream fame. Incidently, if you don’t already, go talk to her on Twitter or over at her place. As you’re about to find out, she’s very entertaining It was a humorous but thought provoking post which … actually, if you’ve not read that yet you really should. It will make the context today soooo much easier to appreciate. Don’t worry, I won’t carry on without you. Go ahead …

Did you read it? It’s OK, I kinda had my suspicions that you might not. But at least this way it hasn’t spoiled the ending for you

So after reading Heather’s post I immediately thought that this would make a great audio post. I put the idea to Heather and, in her own words:

“I had a fun idea that, unless you object, I’m going to incorporate. I have a list of mythical creatures – A to Z. While I’m telling the story I’m going to try and fit them all in, in order; as a challenge. We could engage the readers to listen out in case I miss any, and if I don’t, you could lay a wager with them that they have to give a brick, or go comment on my blog, or something small like that. Upshot being that if I do miss one I have to donate ten. I’ll only record the audio once, in the morning,”

Life being what it is, we changed our minds slightly and Heather ended up recording a video instead. However, it wasn’t until after filming that Heather discovered her camera wouldn’t allow her to edit or remove the water mark without paying a fee. Seeing as we’re doing this to raise funds for Give A Brick, that seemed a little counter-productive That left us with two options: re-record using someone else’s equipment or publish as is. We went for the latter since if nothing else, it shows that Heather was good for her word and did this in one take.

If you’d like to see Heather’s A to Z, a printable version is available but you can also read the list here:

• Ampithere (type of small feathered dragon)
• Basalisk
• Cerberus
• Doppleganger
• Ettin (three headed giant)
• Faun
• Gremlin
• Harpy
• Imp
• Jiang Shi (life-draining reanimated corpse china)
• Kapre (malevolent tree spirit philippines)
• La Sayona (venezuela female ghost that punishes unfaithful husbands)
• Munchkin
• Nymph
• Ouroboros (serpent eating its tail)
• Pixie
• Quinotaur (Frankish five horned bull)
• Rakshasa
• Succubus
• Troll
• Unicorn
• Vampire
• Wampus cat (Cherokee human-cougar hybrid)
• Xenu
• Yeti
• Ziz (Jewish giant bird)

So, it is my pleasure to introduce Heather and her Give A Brick audio challenge. If you’re in a rush, bookmark this page because you really need to enjoy this with a nice cup of tea or glass of wine. Some things are definitely worth taking time over and this video is no exception.

We both look forward to hearing what you think and remember, if she does it without error, you need to hit the “Paypal Donate’ button to donate £1 to Give A Brick. Thanks

Heather, take it away:

So, how did she do? Here’s the Paypal button if you would be so kind and don’t forget to tell us what you thought it the comments below before hitting the re-tweet button on your way out the door Finally, if you enjoyed today’s video and would like to complete your own challenge, please get in touch. Thank you

Welcome to Charity Tuesday. Have we got a treat for you today? Oh yes In truth, the real treat comes next week. Today I’m just going to tease you a little by telling you about it Did you read our Sunday Surprise courtesy of Heather Craik? If not, you really need to read that first. It’s brilliant and you’ll understand how the challenge evolved once you’ve read it.

OK, so you’re back. Did you enjoy it? I knew you would

After I’d read it I immediately thought how brilliant it would be as an audio post. Having watched her 3D tutorials, I’d already heard Heather’s gorgeous Scottish lilt. It’s really lovely So I suggested the audio post and she came back with a more interesting idea:

“I had a fun idea that, unless you object, I’m going to incorporate. I have a list of mythical creatures – A to Z. While I’m telling the story I’m going to try and fit them all in, in order; as a challenge. We could engage the readers to listen out in case I miss any, and if I don’t, you could lay a wager with them that they have to give a brick, or go comment on my blog, or something small like that. Upshot being that if I do miss one I have to donate ten. I’ll only record the audio once, in the morning,”

And so The Big Audio Challenge was born I’ve set up a special Paypal button below that is linked to The Big Audio Challenge. If you’d like to support Heather in this endeavour and Give A Brick, both she and I will be very grateful.

And if you’d like to see Heather’s A to Z, a printable version is available but you can also read the list here:

• Ampithere (type of small feathered dragon)
• Basalisk
• Cerberus
• Doppleganger
• Ettin (three headed giant)
• Faun
• Gremlin
• Harpy
• Imp
• Jiang Shi (life-draining reanimated corpse china)
• Kapre (malevolent tree spirit philippines)
• La Sayona (venezuela female ghost that punishes unfaithful husbands)
• Munchkin
• Nymph
• Ouroboros (serpent eating its tail)
• Pixie
• Quinotaur (Frankish five horned bull)
• Rakshasa
• Succubus
• Troll
• Unicorn
• Vampire
• Wampus cat (Cherokee human-cougar hybrid)
• Xenu
• Yeti
• Ziz (Jewish giant bird)

Between now and next Wednesday morning when she records The Big Audio Challenge, I’d like to rally as much support as possible. Therefore, please RT, Stumble, Digg. Facebook and Email this post as much as you can. And remember to put next Wednesday April 14th in your diary. Thanks

What can I say by way of introduction? You can read the details in previous posts but in a nut shell, Mrs Egg has said enough is enough! She agreed to be photographed for this video for the sole purpose of getting her husband’s hair shaved! Enjoy