Crowdfunding rewards – help needed
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the idea of Crowd funding to raise funds to cover costs of accommodation during my Games Making shifts at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games.
Well yesterday I created my own GoFundMe page, this allows anyone to donate as little or as much as they like. I was so surprised that within just a few hours I had two small donations.
My next job though is to set some ‘rewards’, this is common practice in Crowd funding, to offer something to funders in return for their funding/donation. Offering rewards are optional but as I don’t like asking for ‘hand outs’, I want to offer some kind of reward to those that donate to my fund but I am not sure what I can offer.
I can offer five reward levels on my GoFundMe page, my idea’s are:
£5 or more – a thank you on the GoFundMe page.
£10 or more – as £5 plus mentions on Twitter and FaceBook
£25 or more – as £10 plus Ad on my blog and Sponsor a Games Maker for a year
£50 or more – as above plus hosting for a year on my server
£100 or more – as £50 plus 5 page web site design
My problem with this is with the last 3, they probably would not appeal to a large number of potential funders and they are not related to what the fund is for nor the London 2012 Olympic Games.
If anyone has any idea’s do please let me know.
New year, old memories
Happy new year to every one.
I am not sure how the subject started but over the holiday period the words ‘do you remember’ where said by someone. I recollected my first every computer. It was a Sinclair ZX 81, which I got 30 years ago this past week. It was marketed in the US as the Timex Sinclair 1000.
Sinclair ZX81
The ZX81 came with just 1kb of memory although you could get ‘expansion packs’, I had a 16kb expansion pack, that plugged into the back (yes that is kb and not mb). They didn’t have ‘proper’ keyboard but a touch key pad. Keyboards where available from third parties but they needed to be ‘hard wired’ into the computer.
My kids find it hard to accept that a computer could run on just 1kb, I told them I actually remember when a certain Mr Gates said ’640K ought to be enough for anybody’, at the time I was programming in Basic on an Amstrad 1512 (Sinclair PC5000 in US) at work and thought wow, it wont get much better than this.
Amstrad 1512
What do you remember from yesteryear that would appear unbelievable to the younger generations?
Crowd Funding
It has been suggested to me in response to myI am a Games maker post it has been suggest that I look into crowd funding. Crowd funding means that you ask many to give small amounts rather than trying to find a one or two large ‘sponsors’.
Have you used crowd funding as a way of raising money for a project of some kind? If so did you use a Crowd funding site? How successful was this method of funding?
Before I can use any of the Crown Funding sites I need to make a personal video setting out who I am and what I am doing. As a disabled person this is not something I am looking forward to but if I have to then I will. I have set my ‘target’ to about $1000, this should cover the most of my accommodation costs without needing too many funders.
If you feel you can spare $10 in the mean time then please feel free to leave a donation at Sponsor a Games Maker or if you have your own blog it would be really appreciated if you could blog about my plea.
Thanks
I am a Games maker
I am proud to confirm I am a ‘Game maker‘ for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games, I am not based at any of the sporting venues which is a bit disappointing but needless to say I am happy to have been selected.
Now it’s time to sort out accommodation but there are two problems, the first is we have not yet been told what our shifts are going to be so we have to either wait or book now for the full 2 weeks for each of the games and pay for accommodation we don’t need, the second problem is the costs. Obviously prices are determined by demand and there are going to be an awful lot of people/tourists in London during the games and this is reflected in the prices being asked. There are councils and camping clubs taking playing fields and charging £20-£30 (about $32-48 USD) per person per night.
Unfortunately this prices are making it difficult for us Games makers, if I book now for just the Olympic games (14 nights) then we need to pay out £280. If I wait until I get my shifts in a few months time then the chances of finding somewhere available will be more difficult. As I am a Games maker for the Paralympic as well then the costs could be between £400-£500, on top of that I need to get to London and back.
Do not get me wrong, I will not be pulling out or anything silly but i have created a site ‘Sponsor a Games Maker‘ in the hope that some one might be able to sponsor me by donating somewhere I can park the camper van or some other accommodation during the games.
If you know of anyone that may be able to help please give them the url above.
Thanks
Mobile network that pays you
A couple of months ago my son, Sam, bought an android phone from Carphone Warehouse with his birthday money. As he was only 14 any contract would have to be in my name and I wasn’t keen on that idea. Fortunately Carphone Warehouse sell their phones unlocked, so you can buy a PAYG phone with a top up with which ever network is offering the best price, PAYG phones are cheaper when purchased with a top up from one of the big networks.
We then started searching for the best payg sim only deal we could find, he’s only 14 so talking isn’t high on his priorities but texting (SMS) and internet is. I found a company called GiffGaff which operates on the O2 network. First off their call and text prices are far better than the major networks, calls costing just 10p compared to 20p-25p on major PAYG providers and SMS just 6p compared to the major networks generally charging between 10p-12p a text.
The call costs aren’t the best bits, the best bits are the optional GoodyBags which you can buy with your balance. These range from £5 to £25 and last a month. Sam uses the £10 Goodybag, this gives you 250 minutes talk time and unlimited texts and internet, what else could a teenager ever want?
It gets better though, GiffGaff reward you. If you give a friend a sim card or if they order one online and they activate it with a £10 top up, they receive an additional £5 credit for free, giving them £15 credit for their first £10, note no free credit is given if they sign up directly at the site without going through a users link. They also give you 500 points for the referal and twice a year they total your points and convert them to money, 1 point=1p so your 500 referal points become £5. This is great as we unlocked an old phone for our youngest son, Chris. It doesn’t have internet and would only be used now and again. This time we topped up £10, the free £5 was instantly added to our balance giving us £15, we have bought the £5 goodybag which gives him 60 minutes call time and 300 texts, in addition to that, for every minute someone calls him, a minute is added to his allowance.
if you take part in the GiffGaff community forum you can also earn points, in September some how I earned 1036 points (£10.36), this and any more I earn before the end of November, plus the 500 referal points from Chris’s sim, will be paid out in December, either by paypal or onto your PAYG balance.
Oh and as long as you top up your phone by £10 every three months you get free GiffGaff to GiffGaff calls and texts.
To summarise, by the end of November we will have spent £30 on credit/goodybags for Sam, we have 1536 points which converts to £15.36 that will be added to his balance in December. If no other points are earned before the end of November then it means Sam would have got 4.5 months of free text and internet + 250 minutes of calls/month for just £6.67 a month.
Chris’s account hasn’t referred any users yet but did get his £5 free credit, giving us 3 months for the price of 2 for him.
Tesco currently have a very basic unlocked mobile for £9.99, we are going to get one just to stick a GiffGaff sim in so the kids can phone/text us for free without eating into their allowance.
What a f’ing week
I know its been 2 months since my last post but no one reads this blog any way so it doesn’t really matter.
Things are tight at the moment but we are managing, until that is once again Google pull their ads from bookmarkcenter.com, They had informed me about a week before that one of the pages contained a link to adult material and was in breach of their terms so I duly deleted the page, added offending words to long list of bad words which meant the same term would not exist again on the site. I heard nothing within the 3 days they give to resolve the reported problem so as has happened before I felt I had done what was asked of me. Then a week after the first email came the ‘Google AdSense ad serving has been disabled to your site’ email, giving the same url as being the one breaking their terms. I checked and hey that url still does NOT exist. They have obviously NOT checked it again.
OK Adsense is not a big earner these days but it does vary between $60 to $100 each month from the one site which does help to pay for my server. For this reason I have moved the search scripts to http://urluda.com/search and will continue to do so as long as it earns us a few dollars a month to help pay the hosting.
Today, to really piss me off, godaddy renewed 5centpixels.com, it was on auto renew which is fine but they auto renewed it for 3 years and charged me as such. When did I say auto renew for 3 years? I don’t ever recall selecting that option. So word of warning all those using Godaddy for domain registrations, check how long they are going to renew your domain for.
OK rant over for now
Disgusted and ashamed to be english
I thought about posting about the recent riots that have been happening around England but had held of until now but after watching recent news bulletins I am getting more and more disgusted by what’s going on and the reactions of some people.
First I was not surprised to hear statements early on by some so called ‘respected people of the community’ who claimed these riots have kicked off due to ‘poor relations between the police and the black youth’. Well what a lot of bollox, many of the rioters arn’t even black and if that was the cause why the f**k are they looting every bloody store they see. Even the Poundshop.
Then we saw the sickening scenes when a young Malaysian lad whom had been knocked to the floor being robbed in broad day light. Thankfully it’s been reported that the police know at least one of the perpetrators. Lets hope they do and catch him.
Today on the news we see thugs saying that the riots should go on because the immigrants are ‘taking our jobs’, oh please, I am sick of hearing this excuse. What about all the expats that have taken jobs in other countries, or is that alright for us to take their jobs?
That was followed by an interview of a young mum with 3 young kids all stood in track suits out side a shopping centre when another gentleman said he thought the riots was down to the parents and the way they bring up their kids, this mum AND her kids then got verbal and blamed people like him.
I must admit I do think its the parents and they way they bring up the kids (or not). The sad thing is the parents are my generation, it’s my generation that have let their kids do what they like.
So, I apologise for the dick heads that are ruining our cities at the moment and hope that it comes to an end soon and all those involved get what they deserve.
Game Maker / London 2012 volunteer selection event
Yes today I went to a ‘Game maker‘ selection event for the 2012 London Olympics. Yes, I am one of the 240,000 people whom applied to volunteer at the games in 2012 and I am one of the 100,000 who was asked to attend a Selection Event. I am being considered for a role within the Accreditation team.
The event was taking place at Warwick University which is about an hour and a half drive, fortunately I was able to arrange a mid day interview so to give me enough time either side for school runs etc.
I was a bit pissed initially as the map I was given showed car park 8 near to the venue and stated cost of £0.80 parking for up to two hours but when I got to car park 8 there was a sign up asking us to use car park 6, but no directions on how to get there and then when I found car park 6 the payment machine said minimum payment of £1.50. OK good job i had a couple of pound in my pocket. I inserted 2 pound coins and pushed the button and out comes my ticket and no change. When I checked my ticket it did say I had paid £2 for parking. OUCH!!!
I got to the hall with a few minutes to spare, I was checked in and my ID was checked etc and photo taken. I was then invited to view the ‘exhibition area’ for a few minutes and then we (group of about 18 of us) would be shown a video before being interviewed. The exhibition area was small, a few tv screens showing various related films and some info boards, there was also a couple of Olyimpic staff to discuss what the roles where that we are being considered for.
After the short video we was each interviewed individually, a nice young lady called Emma interviewed me, the interview lasted about 20 minutes and then we left. We now have to wait until the end of the year before we are told if we were successful.
If successful the role will be involved in issuing and authenticating security passes to everyone involved in the games, there are three quarters of a million of these passes to be issued.
I have bee asked why I am volunteering, my answer is it’s a once in a life time opportunity. Why do people have a problem with volunteering?
Coupons bloody coupons
A few months ago things where slow and I heard about one of our national supermarkets doing a ‘double the difference’ price promise. The way it worked if your shopping would have been cheaper in another store then they would give you double the difference. So if your shop cost £100 but at the competetor store just £90 then you would get a £20 voucher. This was based on your total shop rather than individual items. As people began doing 2 shops in the one store, ie normal shop followed by a shop for goods known to be cheaper at the other store, guaranteeing a voucher back. This worked really well on products that the other store had on offer.
Anyway this deal came to an end when the supermarket realised their offer was too good and costing them a fortune. We then started looking for normal coupons, now bare in mined, in the USA some stores double coupon amounts and accept as many coupons as you can find. Here in the UK it doesn’t work the same, stores do not double the values EVER, and if you go armed with more than a couple you become ‘mr unpopular’ but hey do we care?
We have enough dishwasher powder to last us until the end of the year and hasn’t cost us a penny, hand wash and shower gel is again stocked up to see in 2012 and cost nothing.
Tracey is currently stocking up on deoderant, full cost is £2, store has 2 for 1 offer and we have fist full of £1 vouchers (one per item) which means they are costing nothing.
We are now buying items at less than half price and starting to sell them on ebay. We don’t make great amounts but heck while things a quiet it gives us something to do.
Quidco, are they stuggling?
I have been registered with a UK Cashback site Quidco for some time now but must admit I am not a big user. As well as cashback from online sites they also of an in-store option. They have you credit card number (no other details) and any purchase made with it in selected stores earns you cashback. Great, and generally it has been OK but not since December 2010.
My last payment from Quidco was back in March for a transaction that took place at the beginning of December, but since then I have transactions in big stores such as B&Q, Debenhams, and Sports Direct, all big name stores. These transactions are dated as far back as December 10th (Sports Direct), December 20th (Debenhams) and Jan 9th (B&Q).
I know the amount of the cashback due is minute, no more than £15 in total but that is not the point. If Quidco can’t pay the small amounts what hope is there of paying larger cash backs.
I sent them an email 2 weeks ago why I am still waiting for cashback on 6 month old transactions, I also asked if it was true that Quidco is struggling to make payments.
Within 24 hours I received a response from my email with what looks to me to be a standard response, ‘I am sorry to tell you that there is a slight delay with your cashback from in-store transactions due to their affiliate network being behind with their processing‘
I could believe that if we was talking about just one store but we’re not, we are talking about more than one big store. I have left it two weeks and still no change on the status of any of the transactions so I have today sent them another email stating that I do not think taking 7 months to process payments can be considered a ‘slight delay’ and asking for an update.
In the mean time I have chosen to use Topcash for any cashback transactions as from what I have read they appear to be the best site at the moment although they don’t appear to have an ‘in store’ option.