Posts filed under ‘Announcement’
Hug a Cowboy Quilt
If you’ve been following us on Facebook, you know that our grand prize this year is the Hug A Cowboy Quilt–handmade by Michelle Baker. This quilt is a colorful, western themed lap quilt about 6 foot square. We call it “Hug a Cowboy” because of the hunky cowboys at the center.
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| From Unleash Your Story |
Here’s a look at the whole quilt.
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| From Unleash Your Story |
I love the creative way Michelle adds to the Western theme with her quilting detail. Notice how the the quilting pattern loops around in a manner reminiscent of a lariat. Also–note the hat, boot and cactus detailing in each corner of the center box.
Here’s a close-up of the boot.
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| From Unleash Your Story |
You can look at the full album for more close-up detail of this quilt. You’d pay hundreds of dollars for a handmade quilt of this quality. Only one lucky participant will get to take this beauty home and curl up with these cowboys and a good book on a cold winter’s night. Will it be you?
Last year’s top money earner brought in over $1,000. You can do it.
Do you have a favorite spot you like to curl up with a good book?
We have lift-off!
I’m waiting for an official report, but it looks like we have a few hundred dollars on our way to $23,000 as we start our campaign. Thanks to all of you have signed up to participate!
Remember our special incentive to get the event going on a fast start–every participant who brings in 15 donors during the first week will receive a $25 Barnes & Noble Gift Certificate. They must be 15 unique donors (not multiple donations from the same person) and each donation must be for $5 or more.
We will have special incentives for different things each week, including reading and writing totals. The top reader (highest number of pages) and top writer (highest number of words) this week will each receive a $5 Amazon Gifts Certificate. So–take a few minutes today and send out 15 or more e-mails to friends and family, asking them to support your goal. Then get started reading and writing up a storm.
Good luck to everyone in making your goals. And remember–your participation in this event helps the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation‘s efforts to find better treatments and a cure for cystic fibrosis.
Countdown to launch
If you’re wondering about the daily struggle of living with cystic fibrosis, here is another blog for you to check out. I’m going to add some of these CF blogs I’ve found to our list of links. I hope reading something about the reality a person with CF faces every day will inspire you to work a bit harder to reach your goals in the next few weeks.
And speaking of inspiration, we have a great line-up of guest bloggers who will be talking about reading and writing. Writers include, aspiring author Jessica Scott who is currently serving with the U.S. Army in Iraq where she has managed to keep writing. New York Times bestselling author, Angie Fox will talk about writing with young children in the house.
We also have some super-readers lined up. Besides our Pacesetter, Michelle Buonfiglio, we also have Smart Bitch Sarah from Smart Bitches Trashy Books and Super Librarian Wendy Crutcher.
Wendy Crutcher’s post will appear tomorrow, August 27. Please stay tuned. To be sure you don’t miss any of these wonderful posts, we have two options for you. Look on the sidebar to the right for links to “Subscribe to Unleash Your Story Make a Difference by E-mail” or subscribe to the RSS feed.
Hope you’re about ready to start writing, reading or both. Launch is just five days away!
Talking UYS at H2H
Michell Buonfiglio, our Pacesetter Reader/Blogger is the host of Barnes & Noble’s Romance Reader blog, “Heart to Heart” (H2H). Today she has posted about our Unleash Your Story event. Check it out.
Michelle Buonfiglio sets a goal!
Our 2009 Pacesetter reader, Michelle Buonfiglio, has announced her reading and writing goals. Drum roll, please!
Michelle plans to read 10,00 pages and write 10,000 words in blogs and comments.
Readers and bloggers? Are you up to the challenge? Who can keep up with our pacesetter?
Each reader and blogger who meets the challenge and matches Michelle’s pages or word count will receive a $10 B&N gift card.
Bonus–if you match Michelle’s pages or word count and raise at least $250, you will receive a $25 B&N gift card. These prizes are in addition to any other UYS prizes for which you are eligible. (Visit our Prizes Page to see the prizes we are offering).
Visit Michelle’s Pacesetter page to learn more about the driving force behind her obsession for reading and writing about romance. And don’t forget to follow Michelle at RomanceBuytheBook.com and Barnes & Noble’s new “Heart to Heart” (H2H) romance fiction blog.
Moving right along
Official countdown–16 days to go until August 31. Registrations are starting to roll in. We have our first team to register–The Pencak Bookmarks have a reading goal of 7, 750 pages and a donation goal of $640. Check out their donation page. It looks like a real family affair.
Our teams come in all shapes and sizes. Small teams can compete with big teams because we use amount per member when calculating for most prizes. So–pages read per member or words written per member or (most important) $$ earned per member.
Last year all kinds of different people banned together to form teams: critique groups, members of the same writing organization as well as people who blog together and their readers. Teams could be folks who work together or live in the same town. Those who have never met in person, but only know each other online, any group of humans who want to read or write for a great cause. And yes–you can even mix readers and writers on your team.
It’s easy to form a team. Follow the steps on the registration page. The team leader registers with CFF first, selecting “Team Leader” when that option comes up. Next, send e-mails to your friends with the link to your team page. Who will you invite to join your team?
Registration open
See that new button on our menu bar? Click on the word “register” and you will see our new registration page. Follow the instructions and get started. Any questions? E-mail us at info at unleashyourstory dot com (that is: info @ unleashyourstory.com without the spaces).
The event starts officially the week of August 30. (Our weeks run from Monday to Sunday, but we goofed and put August 30 on some of our flyers, so you can start Sunday August 30). Your reading and writing progress cannot start before August 30, but you can feel free to start inviting team members and donors now. All donations raised between now and the start of the event count toward your first week as well as your total numbers.
Writers At Play
Writers At Play is hosting Unleash Your Story today. Come on over and chat about our event!
Guest bloggers
We’ve lined up an array of guests lined up to provide words of encouragement, advice and inspiration for readers and writers Unleashing their Stories for Cystic Fibrosis. Watch this space each Tuesday and Thursday starting August 25th and going right through our event.
Some of the bloggers you can expect to see here, include: Super librarian, Wendy Crutcher, bestselling author Angie Fox and Smart Bitch Sarah from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.
Hope you’re warming up those typing/page-turning fingers because the fun is about to begin!
One month to go!
Our event starts Monday August 31, which puts us one month from launch.
I’ve had a few questions regarding registration and team formation. The answer is–hang on–registration will start soon! The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is currently working on our new event site. The site should be up and running by August 15. The moment it is ready, we will post it here and on our Facebook page. We’ll also send out an e-mail to our list of participants from last year.
Registration is easy. You’ll go to the event page on the CFF.org website and fill out the form. It is okay to use your pen name, if you have one. You can choose to register as an individual, or as a team. Once a team page is established, team members can go to that team page to join.
To get ready for the big day, you can start lining up your team now, then let them know when you’ve established your team page.
Other things you can do to get ready:
- Set your reading or writing goal for the month.
- Set your donation goal.
- Start making a list of folks you will e-mail to ask for donations.
- Remember, there is no set amount per donor and donations are not set to your goal. Instead people give what they can afford. For example–we aren’t asking people to donate 5 cents a word, instead they should donate a flat rate, such as $25 (or $5, $10 or $100, whatever they can afford).
It will only take 920 donors at $25 each to get us to our $23,000 goal.
One month to go until we start Unleashing!
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