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Child Item

Santa Strike Force 2017!!

DeVore

So, once more into the breach dear friends!!!! Unfortunately its for the last time

... More on that in a later post.

Every year people on Boards.ie donate money to the cause and I find kids residential charities to buy life improving equipment for them at xmas! Its just that simple. No one gets paid. 100% of the cash goes into projects for kids charities. Simples!

If you want to donate right now, click this button!

[SSF]Donate[/SSF]

What sort of thing are we talking about?
Anything non-medical that improves the life quality of any kids in their care. That can be as complicated as giant wooden swings and puzzles in a forest (Barretstown)... to as high tech as Playstations in an ambulance (Bumbleance)... to as rudimentary as tables and chairs and beds (Don Bosco).

If you donate (and please do!) every penny you send will go into these sorts of projects. No one gets paid. There are no overheads.

Lets make the world a better place for some kids this xmas!
[ssf]Donate[/SSF]

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DeVore

SSF started with me going "hey everyone, we should club together and buy some books and an xbox for Temple Street". That was... wait for it... 15 years ago. Fifteen! Yeah, boy do I feel old right now. I never intended it to be a tradition but well, here we are.

For 15 years its been my honour to work on this project and its something I will never forget.

But all good things come to an end and this is the last year I will be running SSF for a few reasons.

1. I wont be on this side of the planet next year. I'm planning on being in NZ and Japan around this time next year. That in itself wouldnt stop me (the intertubes are very long) but...

2. What used to be a conduit has now become friction. 15 years ago, charities didnt use the internet. Most people didnt use the internet! I was providing a service by collecting money and turning it into gifts. Now there are more direct ways to support your chosen charities and I'm actually more of a middleman than I want to be.

3. Charities have become a lot more cagey about accepting gifts from weirdos on the internet. Go figure!

4. Its a lot of work. I wont lie, while its amazing to see these charities benefit, its a fair amount of work for me and there are better, easier, more effective ways to support and work for these charities than SSF. After 15 years, I'm retiring.

So what now?
I dunno.
30 years ago I started the Gaelcon charity auction. (Its still going strong despite me stepping back 15 years ago). Its raised easily over 1M by now. SSF has raised approx 200k at a guess... I'm always going to do charity work but its time to do something different. What that different thing is, I dunno. I'm going to finish SSF 2017 and have a sit and a think. I'm open to ideas. Maybe we elect a pet charity for Boards each year, maybe we put up several direct-donation options. I dunno.

I want to say thank you.
Thank you to everyone who has donated over the years. Thank you for your trust. Thank you for letting me be the one who walks into charities with bags of toys or iPads or whatevers and see their reactions. Its been a rollercoaster. Its been an honour.

Ficheall

I think this is the only time of the year I look forward to giving away money.
€100 before Beasty rolls along to make me feel terribly inadequate

Thanks for doing this, DeVore. Best part of Christmas.

King George VI

DeVore wrote: »

What sort of thing are we talking about?
Anything non-medical that improves the life quality of any kids in their care. That can be as complicated as giant wooden swings and puzzles in a forest (Barretstown)... to as high tech as Playstations in an ambulance (Bumbleance)... to as rudimentary as tables and chairs and beds (Don Bosco).

Yeah cool and all, but if the kids don't want the giant wooden swings can we raffle it off to After Hours?

DeVore

You should see those things... you'd barely have room in your back garden for them!

DeVore

blatant bump is blatant

mahamageehad

Sad to see that this will be coming to an end! I just made a donation. I haven't been in a position to donate every year, but I tried when I could!

Thanks for all your hard work over the years Dev!

Ken.

Thread stickied.

Ms. Chanandler Bong

Starting small, €20 for now, hope to give more as the festive season rolls on

Sleepy

I'll be making my annual donation closer to Christmas but for my 2c worth:

I just passed one of the Bumbleances at lunch with the SSF logo on the side and got the usual swell of pride that I get every time I see one knowing that I've played my tiny part in that and it makes me said to think that might be coming to an end.

I can think of a few posters here who might be open to taking over the workload and who'd have the same trustworthiness as yourself Dev but I'm not going to volunteer anyone, that's something for themselves to do. If there's no-one to take over the role, I'd vote for keeping the name Santa Strike Force and turning it into a fundraising arm of one of the charities we've worked with throughout the 15 years, who closely match the raison d'etre for the SSF, have the scale to make efficient use of the cash and have never (to my knowledge) been involved in any of the scandals so common to Irish charities: Barretstown.

Beasty

December is but a few minutes away. Let's see if we can build a bit of momentum. So I'll pledge €10 for every poster who makes a (genuine*) pledge in this thread between now and midnight on Friday 1 December

* I reserve the right to siteban non-genuine "pledgers"**

**

Admin powers this year give me scope to do a few things I couldn't in previous years

:pac:

uck51js9zml2yt

Beasty wrote: »

December is but a few minutes away. Let's see if we can build a bit of momentum. So I'll pledge €10 for every poster who makes a (genuine*) pledge in this thread between now and midnight on Friday 1 December

* I reserve the right to siteban non-genuine "pledgers"**

**
Admin powers this year give me scope to do a few things I couldn't in previous years
:pac:

When you up your pledge (as you will) I'll pledge a number.

What powers?..can you make it snow?:):)

cruizer101

This thread needs more bumping, I just chanced across it, might I suggest getting a link from the boards main page announcements, try catch people on their November paycheck before they spend it all on pressies.
Here 50 quid to bump it sure
Receipt No. 085366326G145093V
Fair play and thanks to all involved.

Boards.ie: Mark

cruizer101 wrote: »

This thread needs more bumping, I just chanced across it, might I suggest getting a link from the boards main page announcements, try catch people on their November paycheck before they spend it all on pressies.
Here 50 quid to bump it sure
Receipt No. 085366326G145093V
Fair play and thanks to all involved.

Good call

bump

Boards.ie: Niamh

Right, I'll get the ball rolling - €20 in the pot there now, receipt ending in 12615.

Beasty,

your Admin powers won't work on me :P

drake70

€50 from me. Receipt number: *****6191G876423J

zinzan

€20 from me for the pot, Transaction ID ending **********9273804

Tv2013

€10 there, transaction ending in **********514973D

brianomc

€50 paid in, receipt 0CL40448RF4995933

Ficheall

Beasty wrote: »

December is but a few minutes away. Let's see if we can build a bit of momentum. So I'll pledge €10 for every poster who makes a (genuine*) pledge in this thread between now and midnight on Friday 1 December

* I reserve the right to siteban non-genuine "pledgers"**

**
Admin powers this year give me scope to do a few things I couldn't in previous years
:pac:

I hate "midnight" deadlines. Was midnight today 44 minutes after your post? :P
23:59 is easier to work with..

Beasty

Ficheall wrote: »

I hate "midnight" deadlines. Was midnight today 44 minutes after your post? :P
23:59 is easier to work with..

Didn't want to exclude any of those last minute pledges. Anyway midnight Friday is still nearly 4 hour away, so let's up this to €15 for all pledges made between now and 23:59:59.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 on Saturday

uck51js9zml2yt

Beasty wrote: »

Didn't want to exclude any of those last minute pledges. Anyway midnight Friday is still nearly 4 hour away, so let's up this to €15 for all pledges made between now and 23:59:59.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 on Saturday

I knew you would

Receipt ending **************1F702645D €20

Im sure your accountant hates loves you!!

juke

I'm getting a paypal error message...

'Things don't appear to be working at the moment. Please try again later.'

Hope I don't miss the first Beasty deadline :eek:

keith_sixteen

Any way to donate besides paypal?

Beasty

keith_sixteen wrote: »

Any way to donate besides paypal?

You can do a direct bank transfer - I'll try and dig out the details

Beasty

juke wrote: »

I'm getting a paypal error message...

'Things don't appear to be working at the moment. Please try again later.'

Hope I don't miss the first Beasty deadline :eek:

You only need to make the pledge - payment can follow

Beasty

Assuming DeVore has not gone bankrupt over the past 12 months, the Bank Account details he's posted in the past:

DeVore wrote: »

or you can transfer cash to:
Tom Murphy
Bank Of Ireland, St Stephens Green
Sort Code: 900084
Account Number: 65748028

Kuva

Beasty wrote: »

Assuming DeVore has not gone bankrupt over the past 12 months, the Bank Account details he's posted in the past:

Think it needs to be IBAN now?

juke

Beasty wrote: »

You only need to make the pledge - payment can follow

Cool, 100 pledged!

Transaction ending *****7834B

Beasty

Kuva wrote: »

Think it needs to be IBAN now?

Fortunately I have a spare one in my back pocket:
IBAN: IE45BOFI90008465748028
BIC: BOFIIE2D

DeV's Inside leg measurement doubles up as his PIN: 28.75 :pac:

heroics

How do I donate again? Can’t see a button in first post using chrome on iPhone.

Found it in PayPal history ðŸ˜€. 20€ transaction ending 46075511