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    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

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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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There is a new one on the board, in fifth. Goes to show how it can change quite quickly. Need to keep voting so that we can be in with a chance of getting first!
Nine more votes and we reach the 1000 milestone.
  • Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society 1205
  • NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK 991
  • OOPSADAZY RESCUE AND SANTUARY SOCIETY 791
  • SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY 766
  • PET SAVE
 
I see that a few people have joined the mailing list already - thats great!

For those without gmail, you can still join the group without a gmail account, but you will need to open a google account. You do this with your existing email address, which doesn't have to be a google one. It is a quick and painless process.
You can sign up HERE. Then once you've got your google account, go to the group HERE and you'll be able to join the group.

It's a one time thing, so once you've signed up, you're sorted. No more fuss, and you'll get the reminders to your current email address.
 
Has anyone put together a short/thorough email I can send to appeal to family and friends?

GG

Please vote for this ME/CFS charity. It only takes a second to help them get funding.

Here is a short article all about it:
http://phoenixrising.me/archives/15930

But here is the important bit, the link to the voting page:
http://www.sharethebounty.ca/charities.php
Click "N" then "vote" next to the second one called "National ME/FM Action Network".
Enter your email address, prove you're not a robot and click vote. That's all there is to it.

You can vote once a day per. So please do it every day. It really matters.

Thanks
 
  • Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society 1868
  • NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK 1250
  • SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY 1122
  • OOPSADAZY RESCUE AND SANTUARY SOCIETY 1115
  • REACH FOR THE RAINBOW ONTARIO 1103
stb-logo.png
GG
 
Please vote for this ME/CFS charity. It only takes a second to help them get funding.

Here is a short article all about it:
http://phoenixrising.me/archives/15930

But here is the important bit, the link to the voting page:
http://www.sharethebounty.ca/charities.php
Click "N" then "vote" next to the second one called "National ME/FM Action Network".
Enter your email address, prove you're not a robot and click vote. That's all there is to it.

You can vote once a day per. So please do it every day. It really matters.

Thanks

Thanks, I will be using it!
 
Just voted - still holding in second place, other people on our heels - every vote is going to count, especially this weekend!

Huge opportunity to surge ahead at the weekend, when online voting generally dips!
 
Someone is slacking because our position in second is under threat!
  • Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society 1887
  • NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK 1333
  • REACH FOR THE RAINBOW ONTARIO 1282
  • SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY 1161
  • OOPSADAZY RESCUE AND SANTUARY SOCIETY
This is vital funding for our ME/CFS community and makes a difference to all our futures.

Please vote and remind your family and friends!
 
Just gave up second place...
  • Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society 1918
  • REACH FOR THE RAINBOW ONTARIO 1403
  • NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK 1392
  • SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY 1176
  • OOPSADAZY RESCUE AND SANTUARY SOCIETY
 
Reach for the Rainbow doubled their votes in the last 24 hours from the day before. I wonder what they are doing?
We have always been excellent weekend voters, plus ME groups in Australia will be helping soon, as their contest is ending. We need to pick up the slack over the next few days.
 
Reach for the Rainbow doubled their votes in the last 24 hours from the day before. I wonder what they are doing?
We have always been excellent weekend voters, plus ME groups in Australia will be helping soon, as their contest is ending. We need to pick up the slack over the next few days.


1,477 votes just a minute ago.
 
Just voted:

Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society 2139
REACH FOR THE RAINBOW ONTARIO 1672
NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK 1492
SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY 1293
OOPSADAZY RESCUE AND SANTUARY SOCIETY 1268

Even though I am sad to see our cause in third place right now, I am glad to see Reach For The Rainbow Ontario is in the running. This is a very small organization that provides all sorts of supportive services for children/adults with special needs. If it weren't for them, my daughter would have never been able to go to a residential camp for 2 weeks every summer which is and was the only kind of respite we have ever gotten. As much as I love animals, it would be nice if some of these contests were restricted to people only. In Ontario, our government has drastically cut services to sick people (especially the chronically ill), people with special needs to the point of unless you are in some kind of crisis state, you will languish on a waiting list or not get services at all. These charities often help supply services that the government used fund but have cut the funding to due to lack of resources. The money that is won in these contests is vital to keep some of them going so VOTE, VOTE, VOTE.
 
Reach for the Rainbow doubled their votes in the last 24 hours from the day before. I wonder what they are doing?
We have always been excellent weekend voters, plus ME groups in Australia will be helping soon, as their contest is ending. We need to pick up the slack over the next few days.

Reach for the Rainbow has a huge amount of parents that have children/adult children with special needs. They are hooked into many many services that are associated with special needs -- autism, community living, developmental services, spina bifida, March of Dimes etc., summer camps, residential programs, school programs, Children's Aid Society etc. They are a small organization and I suspect the are networking very effectively right now with the many services they are associated with because they need the money to keep going. If they can't afford to run their charity, many organizations and parents will lose a vital service.