Irish Aid

Hi guys
 
Well, after a herculean effort on the part of Amber, Nirmala, Tara and myself, our proposal to Irish Aid went in last Friday 11th June.  We worked last week until the small hours of the morning each day to get it finished.  Poor Amber in particular was absolutely exhausted.  I'm just beginning to get back to normal today.  I think it's in great shape, so we will hear back in mid September if we have secured funding.  Fingers crossed!
 
We had our flag day last Monday, but once again we were cursed with the weather.  The heavens opened for the whole day, there was a galeforce wind and it was freezing cold.  The people who came down to watch the powerboats sat in their cars - it was too bad to even step out onto the prom.  So we had to cancel everything - the bouncy castles, DJ's, face painting, sand castle contest etc.  Terribly disappointing for Amanda, who had put so much work into it, and we lost money.  We raised just under €600 euro, but our costs for buckets, t-shirts, stickers, flyers, insurance, tables, etc. were significantly more than this.  We will have all the stuff for any future bucket shaking, but very disappointing all the same.  A huge thanks to the 50 volunteers who turned up on the day to shake buckets and get soaked!  Most buckets had more rainwater than cash in them.
 
So things are going to be very tight for us over the next two months.  I had hoped to raise up to 10,000 from the flag day.  Once we get towards the end of August, we have a lot of different fundraising activities on, so things will ease considerably, but it's going to be a tough two months between now and then.  If we can pull through til September, and get Irish Aid over the line, things will ease considerably. 
 
I'm off on holidays to France next week, so looking forward to the break!  No blog next week from me as a result.  Donagh is in great form - he's starting to crawl now, and is mad to be up on his feet, trying to walk all the time, so he's being very cute and funny.  I found him a few days ago, when I turned my back, after he had just stuffed an enormous feed of dinner into his greedy tum, sitting at the cat's dish, shovelling handfuls of super-smelly dried catfood into himself, grinning madly from ear to ear!  He's going to be a handful...
 
Hope you are all keeping well!
 
Lots of love
Nicky