$500 from me to Red Cross. I know they've had criticism about the stuff hitting the ground, but they are always among the first on the scene, and that takes preparation..

 

Folks,

Life has seen me a little tight for time to spend any real time in the RX8 forums, let a lone take part in active postings within threads.

I am sorry that I seemed to drop out of sight. I will be back, but with a 5 month old new boy in our family, our 3.4 year old daughter, family life, and day to day business, well you get the picture.

Rest assured that 2005 will see me back here with lots of projects to share, and hopefully some solid postings.

Anyway - To the point..

First, I wish to pass on my personal thanks for getting behind on aussie's efforts ..

The internet is a powerful tool, and as an individual, my capacity to make a difference through a cash donation just didn't feel as though it was going to measure up.

So I started using my network of contacts, personal, professional, family, associates etc, and that included many of you who like me are Mazda RX8 enthusiasts.

The aim, make it so darn easy for those of us online to donate just $10 to a one of a short list of relief efforts I researched, that it was too easy to do as it were.

The method, provide the basic information on how to donate via the web, phone, or in person, to those efforts who appeared to be making the most direct effect, through an easy to read web page, via the one medium I could easily control, my search engine project, and then email as many contacts as I could legitemately email without breaking my personal moral boundaries, and ask that they in turn forward and or post the information on and on and one..

My mail out has reached around $139,000+ contacts, including webmasters who actively interact with WebSearch.COM.AU - who have in turn forwarded it and linked it from their pages etc - so the reach so far is esimated to be more than half a million if not double that when postings like Rob's are taken into effect.

Goal, get at least 1% of 1% of those contacts do donate just $10 each, and in days raise at least a million dollars for the tsunami relief effort.

Status, so far, I've heard as evidenced by this forum thread alone, that the average donation so far is AUD$100, with many throwing in more, from $200, $500, to one email back to me of a $10,000 company and $4,000 personal donation!

As it stands, a quick audit of WebSearch.COM.AU's web cluster's logs shows that there's been an almost exponential growth of traffic to the tsunami page and it doesn't seem to be slowing, so I'm certain that my plan is on track, and back of the envelope math seems to be that we may help raise much much more than I even dreamed.

I can only help that I can keep the momentum up, and with a request to around 3,900 of one of my companies resellers to support the effort, we should have 99% of Australia's web design firms and their clients, web sites, and partners getting the message out as well, which should give another massive kick in the pants to the effort yet again.

So thankyou for getting behind this effort, and for exceeding my hopes and faith in people, and please do forward the following URL:

http://www.WebSearch.com.au/tsunami.html

to all and any you have contact with by email etc, and ask that they donate at least $10 as not one of us would miss what we probably spend on average for lunch each day - and it all does add up, and it adds up quickly.

I also hope you have all enjoyed a wonderful xmas break, and a safe happy new years eve, and that 2005 is all and more that you hope it to be.

A final note, do not let this disaster consume you, the media does awful things with information like disasters, and we are constantly pummeled by all senses with endless floods of regurgetated data.

Just remember that 2004 saw such tragedy as 40,000+ killed in a single quake in Turkey, and almost nobody I know remebers that just months later. It's important to get on with your lives, live them to the full, and not feel guilty for doing so, part of being a decent human is to be human, and that means just being you, its' that simple. Live like today is the last day you have, because doing so means that if it were, you'd have no regrets, and if it's not, then it would have been a good day.

Remeber that the cost of lunch from a million folk could be tens of millions of dollars, and that would go a long way to clean water, food, and urgent tools and resources for people now almost have nothing.

Many thanks,

Dez

---
Dez Blanchfield

 

No, Thank you, Dez.

 

Way to go Dez!

Cheers,
Hymee.

 

$500.00 fr my wife and I just went to Unicef. The service staff at Greater Union Gold Class are also donating their tips and as a result more people are putting $ into the collection and they are averaging $200 - $300 daily. It is also heart warming to read that there was also an anonymous donation of $500,000.00 given to Unicef.

 

I wont even go there with LOCK and LOADS comment on Isreal and the Jews...


Dez great to see you back mate Hope business is still great and always growing! Should meet up soon.

Just donated $200 for a GOOD cause.

Regards
Phillip

 

More power to you Dez!
This is close to home for us Aussies and it is great to see that we are willing to help our nearest neighbours.
$200 to Care Aust - CAREAUST #22290
$260 to Worldvision - Ref #145471

We spend more on fancy "bits" for our much loved RX8s ... don't we?? :O

Cheers,

Tonym.