My First Pennies!

I have raised my first 20 pounds for Breast Cancer Care! I am so chuffed.

My Carrot cakes went down a storm on Monday, flying off the shelves by 11:30 in the morning. I had some very positive comments, 2 requests for the recipie and many dissapointed faces when I came in empty handed the next day.

Therefore, spurred on by this sucess I knocked up a new batch of Chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese icing and bought them into work to take to my old department (I have moved levels at work) to taste test on them. These went down equally as well. What's more when I counted up the pennies in my collection tin and worked out what I was getting per cake (market research on pricing you see), despite being different cakes and different groups of people the average pence per cupcake was exactly the same to the nearest penny. Incredible! and I can report it was a very generous amount of pence at that.

I have also had some really enthusiastic feedback about my fundraising and offers of things for my stall and help with the fundraising effort. I am quite touched. I think the bringing cakes to work has plenty of legs in it still and so for the next few weeks I have my little baking projects to focuss on.

Ballons, badges and cupcakes.

My Parcel of goodies arrived on Friday. It contains pink balloons and a Breast Cancer Care banner along with some pink ribbon pins and a collection tin. I am ready to fundraise!


I have also had another bash at cupcakes.



Todays attempt is carrot cake with a cream cheese icing and little rolled-and-cut-out icing ribbons. I am much happier with how they are starting to look and after making 20 I am starting to see which ones look the best. I need to perfect how to get enough mixture in the case to give a nice big cake but without them growing like volcanoes in the middle. Some of them I chopped off (and greedily ate) the peaks in the middle so I could ice them flat, others I just left nice and big. I am going to take them in and try them out at work and so will be interested to see which go down the best.... do I go for visual perfection or rough and ready!



I also went and did " Market Research Part 2". I went along to Gargrave Flea Market in the village hall to see if I should hold a stall there. I think it could work. I have to pay a small fee to rent a table but they said they had around 300 people walk through the door on a good week, with Easter Sunday which I am planning for usually doing very well. They have craft stalls and general bric-a-brac so my ideas could fit in nicely. I sussed out that the village hall sells slices of cake for 60p (quite small peices too) but they wouldn't mind me doing a cake stall for charity.

Practice makes perfect!

hmmmmm... I think I am going to need to practice my cupcake baking skills.

On Wednesday I made a victoria sponge and some cupcakes. After a very successful first attempt the previous week (with free range eggs that my mum's chickens had laid), this week my cake was a bit of a flop. To make matters worse I sent it into work with James to share round. Doh! oh well not much of it came home so I guess it couldn't have tasted that bad.



I have had a first bash at the icing of cupcakes (I only made a handful of cakes). This needs a lot of perfecting and I am going to look into rolling out thick icing to loop over into pink ribbons rather than icing them. But as this is the first time I have really ever iced anything you have to start somewhere.

However, it has convinced me that I need to practice this skill. Especially if I am to be making them for the WI!

I have decided that my work collegues would be excellent candidates as taste testers over the coming weeks. Plus if I leave some in the kitchens at work with a collection tin and a note about my fundraising it will start to get the word out. Killing two birds with one stone.

I have contacted Breast Cancer Care and I have a fundraising pack coming to me which I am quite excitedly awaiting the arrival of. This will contain collections tins, banners, balloons, posters and pins. Everything a budding fundraiser could need.

I have also got a second event lined up in the next village. I can have a stall on Easter weekend at Gargrave flea market. Woo hoo! I am therefore going to be going to do "Market Research Phase 2" on Sunday to check out what goes on at these events and whether I will be able to make some money for the charity this way (I would have to hire this table for a small fee).

Feeling the pinch.

Owch..... my 2nd annual mammogram is now complete. I went earlier this week to get "evil" and "good" boob squeezed into impossible shapes no breast should be squeezed into. Just when you think the nurse can contract 2 plates together no further... oh, there you go a little tighter still. Combine that with needing to stand with your feet here, face your body here, relax you shoulder here and hold the other boob out of the way (;-D) here. All in all it's a bit of a giggle!

I go into clinic in a couple of weeks to find out the results.

Market Research

This morning I have been out doing some market research and schmoozing with the coffee morning crowd. It's been a very productive morning and I am all fired up and excited.

Last week I contacted the lady who organizes the village coffee mornings..... who contacted a lady from the WI who would be running a coffee morning in April..... who put it before the WI committee.... who decided to let me have a stall at their fundraiser coffee morning. Woo Hoo!

So I am going to be able to do a special Breast Cancer Care cake stall (I am thinking pink ribbon cupcakes and pink ribbon cookies). I had quite a great response from all the ladies I chatted to. I spoke to the lady on the cake stall to find out the best sellers and prices. I chatted to the lady on the hand-made card stall, who offered to make some cards for me to put out on my stall to sell too.

So step 1 has been taken and now I have to refine my stall ideas.

That time of year again.

My annual mammogram and check up appointments have arrived. So I will have to be popping in and out of work a couple of times over the next few weeks to go to these. Hopefully they should all be pretty straight forward; I am not expecting any nasty shocks - but then no-one ever does I guess.

Work is going really well. I am still doing 4 days a week, with Wednesday as my day-off. I am actually pushing myself quite hard and doing quite long days which actually feel really good and I am feeling really motivated about it all.

I am also getting back into exercising. What with the cruise and then Christmas it has all fallen by the wayside. But I am going to try to get out walking most days with some swims and Pilates thrown in for good measure. Saturday's should start working out really well. I can drop James off by the canal in Gargrave for his long training runs and then go off to the swimming pool to be finished for when James runs to meet me in Skipton. I am working myself up to getting back on the bike alongside him (I might have to look at alternative routes other than the canal for this first).

Happy New Year!

Well, it's 2009 now so I had better get started on my new fundraising challenge for this year.

The first steps have been taken. James has started his training and this morning he went for a long-ish training run along the canal. I went too, only this time I was simply a spectator and was in charge of taking a photo of him "in training" so he could set up a a running blog and a fundraising JustGiving site (links to the left).

Now I have to start thinking about the other part of our challenge; fundraising parties and other things. I have a few ideas in mind to start researching and throwing myself into for the new year. James and I are going to throw a big party (pink theme and date to be announced shortly). I quite like the idea of organising some kind of small-ish pink champagne and pampering event. Also, after the success of my macmillan cake making frenzie last year, I have made a contact in the local village coffee morning organising committe and I am thinking a mammoth pink cup-cake baking effort could be on the cards. So first things first I will have to take myself off to a coffee morning one Saturday and find out how these things work. I am also going to get in touch with breast cancer care to get some pink fundraising accessories and collection tins to complement any events I might do.

So I plan to put my best foot forward alongside James and match his effort in this fundraising work.