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Vote from Any Country for ME/FM Charity to Win $20,000!

View the Post on the Blog

by Sasha


Image by www.facebook.com/MEAwarenessPics


The first thing to say about this: you don’t need Facebook!

The second thing: you don’t have to be in Canada to vote!

The third thing... well, time to give you the details...

Nature’s Bounty, a long-established manufacturer of vitamins and food supplements, is running an online voting contest for Canadian charities. The National ME/FM Action Network has entered.

The Action Network is probably best-known internationally for spearheading the development of the Canadian Consensus Criteria.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of rigorous diagnostic criteria in this disease: we all owe the Action Network a debt for this contribution to diagnosis and research. The Network also hosted the 2011 IACFS/ME Conference in Ottawa. But as well as these international achievements, for the past twenty years the Action Network has supported patients through advocacy, education, information, and promoting research. It’s the main charity for the 750,000 people in Canada with ME or FM.

So it’s well worth supporting the Action Network in the contest. The top three winners will get $20,000, $10,000 and $5,000 respectively. Of the remaining charities, three will be chosen at random to each win $5,000. US dollars and Canadian dollars are worth the same: $20,000 is about £13,000 or 15,000 Euros. That would be a considerable boost to any national ME/FM charity.

Voting opens on Tuesday, 26 February, and continues with one vote allowed per day until Friday, 29 March.

At the time of writing, voting instructions have not appeared but if you go to the Nature's Bounty contest webpage, all should become clear on the day.

There’s a big push behind the Action Network for this contest: a team of supporters has already been posting widely on the net to drum up support. Let’s help them win.

Got any questions? We’ve got a thread for that! The competition looks straightforward but the first post in this thread will be updated with instructions and help if any problems emerge.

Have you heard about other contests? Many, many small prize contests are announced in local papers, on the radio, and so on. If you notice any, please message helen41 so that she and the fundraising team can look into them. Every dollar helps!
View the Post on the Blog
 
OK, they’re open for business and I’ve just been the first voter! :)

Very pleased to say that voting is very, very easy.

Go to this page:

http://www.sharethebounty.ca/charities.php

Click on ‘N’ to find the National ME/FM Action Network – it’s the second on the list of charities beginning with ‘N’.

Click on the ‘vote’ button next to it.

Enter your email address, do the Captcha thing that proves you’re not a robot, tick that you accept the T&Cs, don’t tick the thing saying you want to be kept updated on stuff from Nature’s Bounty, hit the ‘vote’ button, that’s it.

Until tomorrow!

Don’t forget we have a thread on this for support and instruction – I’m just getting my info in early because I’m in the UK and everyone else will still be asleep for a bit...

http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...0-voting-contest-help-faqs-and-updates.21764/

Interestingly there are already some charities with votes even though it must be 5am in Canada. Here’s the leaderboard:

· Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society 15
· MANITOBA WILDLIFE REHABILITATION ORGANIZATION INC. 11
· SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY 8
· WILD ROSE HUMANE SOCIETY 5
· ASPERGER MANITOBA INC. 3

As so often happens in these contests, charities for animals can get a lot of votes! Disease-specific charities need to work hard to overtake them but we can do it.

Come on Europe and Oz! Let’s get some votes in before Canada wakes up and see if we can get onto the leaderboard - it might help us get attention and extra votes.

And please help yourselves to my new signature. :cool:
 
And with that third vote, we're on the leaderboard!

  • Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society 15
  • MANITOBA WILDLIFE REHABILITATION ORGANIZATION INC. 11
  • SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY 8
  • WILD ROSE HUMANE SOCIETY 5
  • NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK 3
 
Look at us go! :)
  • Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society15
  • MANITOBA WILDLIFE REHABILITATION ORGANIZATION INC.11
  • SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY8
  • WILD ROSE HUMANE SOCIETY5
  • NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK4

 
Now they have 5!
I really thing this is achievable. Great article, makes it all so easy and we're on it right at the start! I've taken your signature too - thats really gonna help me remember, and hopefully help others notice too. Thanks Sasha!
 
And another. I promise not to do this forever but it's exciting to see us going up the board at the beginning! We're the only one of these guys who's moving. The rest must have exhausted their support in this time zone! It's only 6:30 am in Canada now - it will be interesting to see what happens when they wake up.

  • Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society15
  • MANITOBA WILDLIFE REHABILITATION ORGANIZATION INC.11
  • SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY8
  • NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK5
  • WILD ROSE HUMANE SOCIETY
 
Every vote has come from Phoenix Rising so far - I'm proud of us! :thumbsup:

Let's all of us get the Action Network up the charts so when our Canadian friends wake up this morning they can have a big smile on their faces! :)
 
We're in third place now:

  • Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society15
  • MANITOBA WILDLIFE REHABILITATION ORGANIZATION INC.12
  • NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK8
  • SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY8
  • WILD ROSE HUMANE SOCIETY5

:):):)
 
If we can storm the board today, a lot of supporters of other charities will be discouraged and the less committed ones won't come back to do their daily voting. :devil:

Mark is sending out the PR email newsletter any minute if he hasn't already and this is the lead item so I hope we'll get more votes from that. :)
 
I have had a hiccup :(

When trying to vote, I filled in the two security words...

but then there is no 'enter' button so I cant gp forward from that page.
Hi golden - just under the tickboxes for T&Cs and getting mailings, can you see a 'vote' button just under there? It's a little hard to see - it's pale purple on a dark purple ground with 'vote' in white letters.

Edit: a cleverer person than me could provide a screenshot... :whistle:
 
I've just strained my eyesight and read the rules and regs about the runner-up prizes (for those charities not in the top three at the end). The more votes your charity got, the more chances it has in the random draw for three more cash prizes - it's as though each vote is a ticket that gets thrown into a barrel and they shake them all up and draw three out.

We've got every reason to vote like crazy - we get multiple shots at this! :)
 
Alright I have voted, an early morning for me (from Canada) 8:42 a.m. Thank-you for making it so easy. Now to get busy sharing the link. Thanks for everyones support around the world! Great big gentle hugs, Lynn
 
Second place! Go, go, go!

  • H.I.A. HARMONY IN ACTION WINDSOR47
  • NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK28
  • Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society26
  • MANITOBA WILDLIFE REHABILITATION ORGANIZATION INC.25
  • Autism Dog Services Inc.24
 
Alright I have voted, an early morning for me (from Canada) 8:42 a.m. Thank-you for making it so easy. Now to get busy sharing the link. Thanks for everyones support around the world! Great big gentle hugs, Lynn
Hi everyone, I have been sending out links via Facebook, one thing to make things easier I have also linked Phoenix Rising but the link comes up with this

http://phoenixrising.me/archives/15930

Is there anyway to change the links name so it reflects what we are doing and usually a picture with the link. I find many people like that better. People are more likely to click the link this way. Thanks everyone for all of this write up and all your hard work!


http://www.sharethebounty.ca/charities.php#
 
Hi everyone, I have been sending out links via Facebook, one thing to make things easier I have also linked Phoenix Rising but the link comes up with this

http://phoenixrising.me/archives/15930

Is there anyway to change the links name so it reflects what we are doing and usually a picture with the link. I find many people like that better. People are more likely to click the link this way. Thanks everyone for all of this write up and all your hard work!

Mark - don't we have some sort of FB version or something? o_O