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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We have 232 votes Is there a reminder list so people can be emailed daily about voting?

Excellent question!

helen41 - can you help?

BTW, remember we've got a thread especially for help:

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

 

I VOTED TODAY TOO.

still in second, 447 votes. All the rest in the top five are animal charities, so we are doing superb but need to keep it up. If we slack off any day then we lose, so keep voting and post here when you do!

 

Yup, we're up against puppies and whatnot, always a tough one - we may not be as cute but we can be more persistent!

 

First is achievable, but we've got to up our game a bit.

Remind your friends and family to vote today! Send them an email and ask them to reply once they've done it.

Tell your friends at church about it. Text your friends. Going to the doctor today? Tell him/her about it too - they may as well do something useful for you while you're there...

Got kids? Ask them to vote and to tell their friends by text, facebook, twiter, school, clubs etc.

Reply here once you've done something to get more votes, so that other people are encouraged to dig in!

 

We're closing up on first place again, after nearly 9,000 votes in the contest altogether:

• Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society606
• NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK527
• OOPSADAZY RESCUE AND SANTUARY SOCIETY352
• SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY339
• MANITOBA WILDLIFE REHABILITATION ORGANIZATION INC.300

Incidentally, Canada is between 4 and 8 hours behind the UK, depending which province. Alberta (where the 1st place charity is located) is 7 hours behind so they're about to get up for the day and get a load of local support so let's keep piling on the votes...

 

Now at 531, in second place.

 

Done. 619.

 

Excellent question!

helen41 - can you help?

/

We have discussed getting a signup list for reminders through PR, but we haven't done it yet, as far as I know. SpecialK has been looking into it, I believe

 

We're holding our own against Alberta...

• Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society725
• NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK630
• REACH FOR THE RAINBOW ONTARIO432
• OOPSADAZY RESCUE AND SANTUARY SOCIETY419
• SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY

Yikes, that rainbow thing wasn't there earlier...

Remember, guys, at the weekends, daily voting tends to fall off so we've got to remember to vote while these other charities' supporters forget!

 

We have discussed getting a signup list for reminders through PR, but we haven't done it yet, as far as I know. SpecialK has been looking into it, I believe

Thanks, Helen.

There's some sort of daily reminder function bundled in with Windows, I think - we've got someone looking into that but I'm not sure about the timeline so if anybody knows about it, now's the time!

I expect this thread will be pretty visible at least for the first couple of weeks but it's a long contest and it could even end up being won on the basis of who remembers to vote at the weekends. So reminders are good.

 

I was149 and then it allowed me to put in my husband's email address, he was 155.

I did not read the T & C's, I hope that they both will count. If anyone knows how many emails can come from one IP address, we may be able to get our family's permission and just put in their email addresses every day??
By the way - we are still in second place in the middle of the day - yahoo

"There is a limit of one (1) Voter Registration per person/email address permitted during the Voting Period.".
It is restricted to per person, not per household, so your husband can vote, as long as he has his own email address.
When it is per person, I think generally you are very safe with 4 or 5 votes from the same IP address. That is an average size family after all.
I think they start to question things when 100 votes come from the same IP address.
I have myself, my husband and my daughter all voting from the same IP.

 

We have discussed getting a signup list for reminders through PR, but we haven't done it yet, as far as I know. SpecialK has been looking into it, I believe

No, I'm not involved with creating a signup list for reminders on this contest. I am involved with a long-term project that will alert the ME/CFS Community of Contests like this through an email alert system and they will have an option at that point to receive daily reminders. But this is a big project and won't be done anytime in the near-term. Thanks!

 

"There is a limit of one (1) Voter Registration per person/email address permitted during the Voting Period.".
It is restricted to per person, not per household, so your husband can vote, as long as he has his own email address.
When it is per person, I think generally you are very safe with 4 or 5 votes from the same IP address. That is an average size family after all.
I think they start to question things when 100 votes come from the same IP address.
I have myself, my husband and my daughter all voting from the same IP.

Thanks for the clarification Helen, glad to know that we can both vote!!

 

As a temporary measure, I've set up a google group called me cfs charity competitions voting reminder service

You can join this group by clicking here and joining. It only takes a few clicks and you dont need to have google/gmail to join - any email address will do.

MAKE SURE YOU CHANGE "Don't sent email updates" TO "Send me an email for every new message (less than one per day)" OTHERWISE YOU WILL NOT GET THE REMINDER!

Once joined you dont need to do anything. You will get a reminder each day for the remainder of this competiton with a link to the site and a reminder of the instructions.

 

Wow, that's impressive, snowathlete!

 

I'll be voting daily. I've got the site on a tab beside my usual daily bookmarks so I can't miss it when I open the computer. I've shared this around Facebook, and a couple of friends and family members have passed it around to their friends too (and of course, I have my husband and family voting as well). I think we have a good shot at this one!

 

Still holding our own in second place - well done, everybody!

• Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society907
• NATIONAL ME/FM ACTION NETWORK737
• OOPSADAZY RESCUE AND SANTUARY SOCIETY595
• REACH FOR THE RAINBOW ONTARIO506
• SENIOR ANIMALS IN NEED TODAY SOCIETY

It's my bedtime! I wonder what the leaderboard will look like tomorrow morning.

 

As a temporary measure, I've set up a google group called me cfs charity competitions voting reminder service

You can join this group by clicking here and joining. It only takes a few clicks and you dont need to have google/gmail to join - any email address will do.

MAKE SURE YOU CHANGE "Don't sent email updates" TO "Send me an email for every new message (less than one per day)" OTHERWISE YOU WILL NOT GET THE REMINDER!

Once joined you dont need to do anything. You will get a reminder each day for the remainder of this competiton with a link to the site and a reminder of the instructions.

that is terrific! I have posted the link to your post in the fundraising group as well. I was actually googling today, trying to teach my non-technical brain how to send group emails. I failed. Bless you for taking this on!

 

http://www.sharethebounty.ca/

Thanks, 2nd place with 797 votes.

1st Place: Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society 1012 votes.

3rd place OOPSADAZY RESCUE AND SANTUARY SOCIETY with 679 votes.

GG

 

Has anyone put together a short/thorough email I can send to appeal to family and friends?

GG