Several people have mentioned in the past few days that they enjoy reading this blog and the comments left by others. My challenge to you is to go beyond reading and actually engage with me in making a difference. If you are reading this, please add a comment (by clicking on the comments word below this posting). I genuinely am interested to know your thoughts about the £65,000 Giveaway. Your comments just might be the catalyst for others to make a difference.
I was busy last week running my monthly Go MAD Thinking Skills programme for a great group of people who, in the space of a 10 minutes possibilities exercise, produced several innovative ways of ensuring sustainability within £65 projects - mainly involving the pay it forward idea. So let's see how many of them take personal responsiblity to make it happen.
Let me know your thoughts
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11 comments:
£65 could help a person set up their own business to generate income. It doesn't take much to turn £65 into £130 through good buying and selling. This could then be repeated with £65 being paid forward and given to help someone else. Perhaps something to involve schools/young people with?
I think this is brave as it actually takes some time and effort to think of ways that £65 can help people. It is easy to just switch off and either give money to charity or decide that your contribution won't matter. To make a difference with a small amount of money is a real challenge and I've been thinking about it all day. I've now come up with a good idea so I feel good twice over as I've had to use my brain/creativity and now will be helping someone less fortunate than myself. It makes me feel good so I win too!
Julie in Milton Keynes
I agree with you Heidi. In the past couple of weeks I have helped several people to set up their own businesses - including a 13 year old boy importing electronic goods from China.
Julie - good to know that you are using your thinking skills. However, you didn't let me know what your good idea was and if you want my support with £65. Look forward to hearing from you.
It would be great to know how the £65 are being used, and how much you've managed to give away so far ... it seems like it's harder than you think to give money away to help make differences!
How about a 'Blue Peter Style' barometer of how you're doing Andy?
I'm intrigued by all this and the links to 'Pay It Forward' ... also reminded me of the 'Join Me' idea about making differences every Friday.
Keep up the good work, Andy ... my heads buzzing with what I could do to help others for £65 and when I've got a great idea I'll be back in touch for my £65.
Arthur
Hello,
I am Daniel Spencer. Andy gave me £65 to help me start up my own Electronics business. My website is http://electrostarelectronics.co.uk
I am a 13 year old boy.
Without Andy my business would still be an idea in my mind.
Thanks Andy!
Daniel Spencer
I think this is a wonderful idea - I'll spend the morning thinking about this and then get back in touch.
ok, as promised I gave this some thought and here are a few of my better ideas... I'm fired up to do some of these without the £65 but it will help me do more. Feel free to nick the ideas and let me know if you suceed with any...
Buy something and sell it for a profit. Teach someone or an organisation (scouts, guides, charity) how to do this using wanted ads or ebay.
Print some flyers or advertising space and advertise a training service to help others (3d modeling, email, internet use, general computer use - all stuff i can teach) and train them. Encourage them to pass the training on.
Buy some fabric paints and teach some local children how to start a small business creating original t-shirts to sell to their family and friends - i have a box of t-shirts already. (I did it as a child and it made a fortune)
Install a computer (I’ll put up the rest of the money) in a local ‘old folks’ home where they aren’t all so old. Spend some time training some of them how to use email to keep in touch with their friends, families, grand children… and also how they can pass their skills on to the other residents. Old people are often forgotten and can feel lonely.
Buy a load of seeds, compost and pots and teach younger children (friends children and my son) how to grow fruit and vegetables. Show them how to retain seeds from fruit and veg to make it sustainable for planting more and show them how to sell them to family and friends or encourage them to eat them. My son wouldn’t eat many vegetables until he’s grown them, now he eats the lot.
Buy some quality goods for a raffle – sell the tickets until a profit has been made. Donate some money to good cause and repeat. Or, use profit to buy higher value goods, to sell more tickets, to make more profit (make more donations to good causes) or continue to repeat. Finally donate all profits to charity to end cycle or continue forever.
Agree with a public leader a deal to help them profit from recycling. Purchase a couple of bins for aluminum can recycling and put them in their youth club, library, school... Help them to find a volunteer (or agree for them or yourself) to take the aluminum to Alcan (or similar local recycler) to weigh the cans in for cash. Purchase more bins, or distribute profits and repeat.
Advertise for old computers to be donated to old folk homes, schools, youth clubs… fix up (if necessary) and distribute. Train someone to train others to use them or ask for volunteers, or align with existing charities that offer computer recycling and training.
Promote www.freecycle.org (non-profit organisation) where people recycle unwanted goods too good to throw away. Things can be requested also –great way for lots of people to benefit from free stuff. Number of members is around 3,536,815
I've thought about this all night and realised I've been thinking too small. I'm going to ressurect a private club I used to run a few years ago and run events to raise £15,000 to build a classroom block with 3 classrooms for a school in Africa. I will probably have to complete all of the other ideas I listed previously, who know's I may even be able to get the whole school built :)
Andy - thanks for making me think outside my comfort zone and for getting me on the path of REALLY making a difference. I'll keep you posted with my progress, and good luck to everyone else going MAD.
Well done Andy Gahan - you have really grasped the concept of possibility thinking - lots of great ideas. The classroom block in Africa is a great idea - let's make it happen. When you get it built, I will commit to going out there with you and doing some Go MAD teaching.
Thanks Andy. I think going out there is a great idea - it's what I was thinking too. It will be great to see for ourselves the difference we've made. I'm going to start including other people in this project and see if they have any good ideas for making this happen. I'll keep you posted.
Hi Andy, The project is underway and as you can see yours is the 1st donation on my website http://www.justgiving.com/15000 thanks again
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