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

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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!

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• REACH FOR THE RAINBOW ONTARIO 28107
• Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society 26163
• MOUNTAINAIRE AVIAN RESCUE SOCIETY 12834
• NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK 12736
• SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY 8288

Have we lost some votes?

I don't think so - we've got about 200 more than we had this morning.

 

We now have posters which can be printed off and used to help promote the contest.

They can be posted at doctor's offices, hospitals, libraries, natural food stores, grocery stores, etc.
Get your posters at: www.sites.google.com/site/MEFMfundraising

Please print and display these posters to get more votes!
Posters are at bottom of webpage and there are instructions how to download posters on both the website and the photo below
Please help us get more votes!

We are less than 100 votes behind 3rd place - I know we can do this!

We also have French posters and leaflets now too!

ME Awareness: Words and Pictures - created these wonderful posters and leaflets and images!

 

Come on, we can do this.

 

That daily reminder googlemail thingy is GREAT, thanks to people who have set it up and posted the link here!

 

• REACH FOR THE RAINBOW ONTARIO 29315
• Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society 27550
• MOUNTAINAIRE AVIAN RESCUE SOCIETY 13683
• NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK 13435
• SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY 8516

GG

 

I have been in contact with Reach For The Rainbow and they are not partnering with any other group. They declined to send out an email asking people to vote for us too. They did say they would revisit the idea next week and make a decision. I receive their emails and they have sent out two emails related to the contest. If the votes between first and second are close next week, they may decide to put the ME/FM Charity in their email -- we vote for them, they vote for us. I will let you know what Maggie (the contact person) says next week.

Kina

It's next week now. I hope you get a positive response from Reach For The Rainbow. We are still 191 votes behind 3rd.

 

Close - we're about 70 votes behind third place. The gap between first and second has really opened up!

• REACH FOR THE RAINBOW ONTARIO30002
• Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society27660
• MOUNTAINAIRE AVIAN RESCUE SOCIETY13737
• NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK13663
• SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY8548

 

We're in front by about 50!

• REACH FOR THE RAINBOW ONTARIO 30046
• Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society 27687
• NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK 13820
• MOUNTAINAIRE AVIAN RESCUE SOCIETY 13770
• SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY 8556

 

Just over 200 behind now after nearly 15,000 votes - weird! The gap between 1st and 2nd has closed up again. Someone has suggested that the animal rescue and avian group might be vote-sharing and if so, they'd have to choose whether they want 1st place or 2nd-with-3rd because they don't have enough voters for both. I don't know about that, but I can see it all being decided on the final day, at this rate!

Short version, we have to keep the pressure up, up, up!

New article upcoming and also being included in the PR newsletter so hopefully, a further boost to support.

• REACH FOR THE RAINBOW ONTARIO31011
• Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society29129
• MOUNTAINAIRE AVIAN RESCUE SOCIETY14676
• NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK14467
• SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY8763

 

Look forward to the new article Sasha!

There is also suspicion that they may be using automated voting software as there has been some pretty odd voting activity at times and there is certainly evidence that they are voting illegally, with one person posting on their facebook page that he had voted - all 7 of him, using different email addresses. So, its possible that they will be docked votes at the end. Either way, we need to keep up the voting ourselves.

 

• REACH FOR THE RAINBOW ONTARIO 31410
• Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society 29595
• MOUNTAINAIRE AVIAN RESCUE SOCIETY 14869
• NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK 14601
• SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY 8860

GG

 

Someone has suggested that the animal rescue and avian group might be vote-sharing and if so, they'd have to choose whether they want 1st place or 2nd-with-3rd because they don't have enough voters for both.

Voters can vote for more than one group in a day. They just cannot vote more than once for a particular group in a day. The animal rescue and avian group members could each vote for both groups every day.

We are now 235 votes behind 3rd. I hope Reach for the Rainbow agrees to join forces with us.

 

with one person posting on their facebook page that he had voted - all 7 of him, using different email addresses. So, its possible that they will be docked votes at the end. Either way, we need to keep up the votingourselves.

I hope someone has sent a screenshot to Nature's Bounty! 7 votes a day for 22 days is 154 votes and we're lagging by about 200...

A very good reminder that it ain't over even when it's over. There'll no doubt be a cleaning process before the winners are announced.

 

54 behind 3rd now.

 

• Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society 32589
• REACH FOR THE RAINBOW ONTARIO 32006
• MOUNTAINAIRE AVIAN RESCUE SOCIETY 16282
• NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK 16022
• SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY 9360

GG
PS 260 votes behind 3rd place!

 

Reach for the Rainbow staff and coordinators are now voting for us! They will hopefully very soon ask their members to vote for ME/FM Action Network too.

So please remember to also vote for Reach for the Rainbow daily. Their votes could win us 3rd and ours 1st for them.

• Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society 32616
• REACH FOR THE RAINBOW ONTARIO 32007
• MOUNTAINAIRE AVIAN RESCUE SOCIETY 16303
• NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK 16088

 

I just voted for us AND reach for the rainbow

Hope they soon do ask their members too. Seems only fair that they do the same as we are...

 

Reach for the Rainbow staff and coordinators are now voting for us!

So please remember to also vote for Reach for the Rainbow daily.

Excellent negotiating! They've got more supporters than we have so that will be a big boost.

I just voted for both of us and we're just 6 votes behind third now - let's get ourselves and that Rainbow winning!

• Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society32641
• REACH FOR THE RAINBOW ONTARIO32017
• MOUNTAINAIRE AVIAN RESCUE SOCIETY16334
• NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK16328
• SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY9380

 

• Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society 32641
• REACH FOR THE RAINBOW ONTARIO 32017
• MOUNTAINAIRE AVIAN RESCUE SOCIETY 16334
• NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK 16329

Hey 5 votes behind!!!!
Snowathlete - do we know if the RFTR lot are voting for us? Not giving my vote until I know they are

Just read Tony's post - okay I'll start voting for them tomorrow. Brilliant news.

 

Beavering away in the background - today at this point in time 16,332.