1-4-1 Campaign..my Christmas Campaign.

Friends. Friends of Friends. Strangers.

Christmas egh? Christ it's expensive.  The parties. The food. The alcohol. The presents. It's just spend spend spend.  And things are just so expensive. I mean what can you buy for just a few quid anymore?  Well...here's a few things.

£3 could pay for two days of therapeutic milk for a child so severely malnourished they cannot even eat.

£4 Answers a child's call for help on ChildLine.

£7 a month covers the cost of medicine to treat 68 people for Malaria in a country like Sudan.

£10 a month - or about 33p a day - provides an emergency dressing kit containing sterile equipment, dressings and bandages to help people affected by conflict in a country like Somalia

£20 a month in a country like the Democratic Republic of Congo pays to test 80 people for deadly tuberculosis (TB) every month.

£40 could pay for 16 mosquito nets to protect survivors from disease.

£44.67 could provide a course of PEP treatment to help ensure that a woman who has been raped does not contract HIV/AIDS.

£80.34 could cover the cost of three day's cholera treatment for a patient.

£134 would pay for a measles vaccination for 1500 children. Protecting them from a disease that kills over 190,000 children each year.

I want to cut to the chase.  This Christmas I'm going to be spending a lot of money on myself, on my friends and on my family, but i've decided that this should be at least the one month of the year that I give to others too.  So this Christmas i'm going to be giving 1% of what I earn in December to Charity. 1%. That still leaves me 99% to cover everything else I need. And frankly it's nothing. But it's a start.

Everyone can afford this. But as the statistics show above, no matter how little your 1% is it will make an enormous difference to someone somewhere in the world. 

So i'm giving my 1%. But that's 99% short, so i'm challenging you to as well.  You can give to any charity you like.  All i'm asking is that:

A) You commit to giving (at least) 1% of whatever you earn in December to the charity of your choice.

B) Once you've made this commitment you also commit to getting at least 1 other person to do it as well.   

If you want to do this, you can either add your name to a comment below, or email me at sambaconsam (at) yahoo.co.uk and i'll update this blog piece. You'll do the donation yourself, this is just a public commitment, though if you want to tell me the Charity you are giving to i'll include it in the list.  Also, you're welcome to include the money you're giving if you like. It's up to you, though i'm running it on the honour system (i take it if you say you're doing it I believe you).

To get to 100% by the 1st, we need at least 4 people a day to commit .  At 00:00 on the first of January 2011, for the first time ever the abbreviated (UK) version of the date will be 1/1/11.  Or four 1s...

So it's 1% for (4) 1 person.  By the start of the 1st Jan (four 1s). And if you sign up, you  need to get someone else to join you; 1 commitment for (4) 1 more.  Hence the name…

And please. Tell people. You can share via facebook on the right hand side of this page, or please Tweet about it, verbally tell friends (if you know people who can't message me themselves, say; someone with no internet access - if they commit you can tell me their names and i'll still stick it up), email the link to people...all sorts of ways. But get the word out and make a difference this Christmas.

The List

1) Sam Bacon - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 8/12/10

2) Lizzie Walley - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 8/12/10
3) James Rudyk - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 8/12/10
4) Asher Diaz - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 8/12/10 - I'm giving to the National Center for Transgender Equality 
5) Courtney Fisher - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 8/12/10
6) Alan Hopkins - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 8/12/10
7) James Green - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 8/12/10
8) Tom Scholes-Fogg - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 8/12/10
9) Grace Fletcher-Hackwood - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 8/12/10
10) Bev Craig - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 8/12/10
11) Claire Margaret Genevieve Spencer - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 8/12/10
12) Ms Cushion - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 8/12/10
13) Kenny Beer -   'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 8/12/10
14) Ben Leland -  'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 8/12/10
15) Hetty Wood -  'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 8/12/10
16) Mike McCabe -  'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 8/12/10
17) Ryan Standlee -  'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 8/12/10
18) Kyle Martyn-Clark -  'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 8/12/10 - I'm giving to the RSPCA
19) Hannah Merrick -  'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 9/12/10
20) Alex Dunn -  'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 9/12/10
21) Deborah Burgess  -  'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 9/12/10
22) Anna Joy-Rickard -  'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 10/12/10
23) Alex Baker - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 11/12/10
24) Charlotte Mole-Morgan - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 11/12/10
25) Brian Centrone - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 11/12/10
26) Malcolm Beer - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 12/12/10
27) Richard Fletcher - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 12/12/10
28) Adrian Prandle - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 12/12/10
29) Lucy Hoang - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 12/12/10
30) Marie-Norelle Loewe - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 12/12/10
31) Claire French - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 12/12/10
32) @jettzworld - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 12/12/10
33) Matthew Britton - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 12/12/10
34) Dani Charlton - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 12/12/10
35) Jessica Ferguson - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity' 13/12/10 - I'm giving to St Jude's Children Hospital
36) Shullie H Porter - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity'17/12/10 - I'm giving to CRISIS http://www.crisis.org.uk 
37) Pamela Walley - 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity'17/12/10
38) Kayleigh Carr 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity'17/12/10
39) Sarah Bridges 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity'17/12/10
40) Dani Frisby 'I commit to giving at least 1% of my 2010 December income to charity'17/12/10

'The time is now' - my weekend: my contradictions pt 1

Last weekend I headed off to Londinium for a somewhat typical Sam weekend: busy, with lots of travelling, and with many various, distinct (and in someways contradictory) things going on.

I had an early start on the Saturday to make sure I wasn't late to the Young Fabian AGM.  After standing for election to the YF exec a couple of weeks ago (and failing to get on) i'd felt a little unsure about heading to this, and as with any AGM, there was some element of business procedure.  Thankfully though the majority of time was spent having a very open group discussion about what the focus should be for the society this year, and I was really encouraged by the attendance, the energy, the enthusiasm and the ideas that the group was coming up with.  Hopefully the exec will now be able to translate the ideas and enthusiasm to a full programme of events and activities for the year.

After some lunch we headed to the Fabian AGM, where before the business of the Senior AGM there was a debate entitled, "A New Generation for Change? So What Needs to Change?" With Saddiq Khan MP, Laurie Penny, Stella Creasy MP and Chaired by Sunder Katwala.  To be honest I was quite looking forward to this, as a general topic I thought it seemed great and it had a great panel.  Saddiq not only ran Ed M's campaign but is clearly one of the brightest young(ish) lights on the Labour front bench.  Stella is a really inspiring figure to me; her age, all she's achieved in her career so far, and just the general manner and aggression (in a good way) with which she has conducted herself since she's entered parliament have all given me hope that with her in it, the future of our party could really be something special.  And last but not least we had Laurie Penny completing the panel.  Now I don't agree with everything Laurie writes, but she's a young left wing writer with a lot to say that does make sense and certainly echos a lot of other young left wingers views, and she has an increasing public prominence, so I (and presumably the organizers) hoped for a refreshing and unorthodox take on the issues and challenges facing the left from her.  So given the range of talent on the panel, why was it that I came away from the discussion feeling underwhelmed and disappointed?

Maybe it stems from the same issues I have when looking at the line up and agenda for the Fabian new year conference.  I can't help but feel that on the left we're having the same conversations we've been having for nearly a year now (if not longer tbh); yet in that time we've gone from being in government to opposition, experienced the countries first coalition and changed our party leader.  Yet the 'big' questions for the left still seem to be around the same themes rotating around the same answers.  I didn't feel that I really heard anything at the AGM discussion that I haven't already read/heard and thought about since at least last January, let alone May.

Now don't get me wrong, I think that Ed Milliband's campaign had some genuinely new ideas and his style of leadership thus far does seem to break from the Brown/Blair era in a refreshing way.  Considered and deliberate choices that are more explicitly about the long game are a nice change from the somewhat reactionary feel that Brown's premiership often had. In addition, Ed has also been (to me at least) successful in not appearing as crafted and slick as Blair (something that was entirely right for Blair's time, but which would certainly be wrong for now).  Also, political parties are worse then oil tankers in terms of how quickly one can turn them; it would be churlish and short sighted to blame Ed for the problems facing Labour and the wider movement on the Left at the moment because he simply hasn't had time to make and impact or a difference to a large enough degree.

So if it's not the leader, what's the problem? To be honest i'm not entirely sure.  I guess I just have a worry inside that i'm starting to feel the same way I felt after the banking crisis and then the expenses scandal; that we have a huge opportunity and mandate to change the way we do things for the better and for forever, yet it appears that moment may be passing us by.

Maybe the reason why we keep having the same discussions (or subtle variations thereof) is because the same problems keep staring us in the face; the problems aren't changing and neither are the solutions - we just aren't implementing them.  We learned 2 years ago about the innovative and amazing things Obama did in the states in terms of building a consensus movement that wasn't simply based on political affiliation but based on common goals and a joint endeavour. Yet at the last election only a handful of particularly self-motivated candidates (see: Gisela Stuart MP as probably the best example) tried to learn any of these lessons in any significant way.  Sure, David made it a key plank of his leadership campaign, which was a truly truly great think.  But why is it disconnected to what the wider party is doing? Why isn't it a core fundamental part of our thinking and our ethos.  The training should be available (well in fact, any training for anything would be lovely) for all party members as it speaks so directly to our purpose of building support from across society to speak with united strength as one voice.  The heart of Labour is community organising, so it's just ridiculous that it's currently some kind of fashionable tack on.

We keep hearing for calls for members to have more of a say in the party, for people to be able to build a true and lasting movement in their communities rather than just an electoral machine every four years.  Yet the opportunities for 99% of members (if they can figure out how to access their local constituency or ward party) are limited to handing out leaflets and making phone calls when someone in their area wants to get elected.  That is still the sum total of the experience to 'make a difference' that the Labour party offers to most of it's members.  To get further than that require an incredible amount of hard work, perseverance and, to be brutal, often insider knowledge or connections.  It shouldn't be that hard to use your skills and abilities effectively for a cause you believe in.

So I guess for me, that's the big question for the left.  It's not 'what do we do/how do we reform/what will work' it's when will we start to make the changes we know we need and how will we do it.  Ed, you've got a big job ahead of you....

ideas in the bath

So in the spirit of Archimedes (though without the nudity...ok alright then, just a little bit) earlier this evening I was in a lovely warm bath and inspiration struck.

Yep, I decided to restart a blog. Now ok, yes, it isn't a solution to the UK deficit or a way to maintain global economic power structure and profit whilst also solving world hunger, but it was a fairly exciting moment for me.

So hi. Welcome to Sam's blog 2.0. Or 3.0 if I can really do a good job (in that it jumps two and becomes an even better product of an advanced age...).

If you're reading this on the blogger site - don't. Read it here. It's much prettier and the only place i'll be bothering to mess about with layout and such. Frankly blogger can be hard work and just doesn't do much aesthetically for me. However it does have a pretty great 'sign up' feature which will email you every time i post a new blog. Marvellous egh? So do sign up.

So what to expect? Political opinion, music love and adoration, random musings and probably gaps in updates. So pretty much the online version of being my friend and getting emails from me really....you lucky (virtual..) people...

Much love to you all and to those that follow in your mighty footsteps...
s=)x