When we started out and made our decision to press ahead, it seemed a huge amount of money to raise - £36,000 in the short amount of time till our booked operation date.

We had to have an early date to enable Louis (Toby's older and absolutely amazing big brother) to start secondary school in time with no time off school.

We spoke to family members, and were offered monies up front, but we decided that this was something that we really wanted to get the community involved in, raise awareness and personally I wanted to let other mums in our position know that there was a treatment (not a cure!) that could help.

With the help of others, we put together a plan of ideas and goals, set up a bank account, and pressed ahead.

The first job and probably the most important was setting up a website, this allowed everyone to view what was happening, what we were doing and also gave the campaign credibility and allowed people to communicate with us and offer help.

Ian and myself spent a few frenzied nights designing the web site, and were so proud when we finally got it out there. 

This then enabled others to contact us when they heard of our campaign, I spoke to so many mums who heard about what we were doing and this was very satisfying for us.

We made it onto the local news, were in the papers, and a firm diary was set of what was happening when.  Our life had turned into total chaos!!!  mails were coming in every few hours with ideas, donations, and messages of support.

Every weekend from Feb through to May was fully booked out with an event of some sort.  All needed preparation, organising, and lots of communications between all involved.

You can see from the events tab on our site exactly what we did,  and there were lots of other little local get together, cake bakes, pub collections ect that all added to the pot.

To get down to the nitty gritty of fund-raising does involve lots of planning,  but the what we found the most helpful advise was -

try to get together a team of helpers who are there to help at the drop of a hat - you will need them.

have a good plan of action of where you think the most effective fund-raising will come from.

ask people to run with their own events, the more they can take the pressure off you the better - you are coping with everyday life as well!!!

Try to get everything for free - get on the phone and explain what you are doing, mention the media is involved, you will be surprised what you can get!

Set aside time for securing raffle prizes, these are really good money makers - but it takes so much time to try and source them,  myself and our team spent hours/days on the phones/email trying to get quality prizes to help boost events, do not underestimate how difficult this part is - but they do make a big difference.

Remember to say thank you to everyone - although you are in a whirl wind - this is so important,  with everything that has been going on, I still think back over what we have done and think  - "did I remember to say thanks/write a letter??"   This is not through being rude, and I am sure that any empathetic person would realise that you were infact very grateful, but a card, a mention or just a "thank you" means a lot

Try to think of new things that will get your campaign out there - a balloon launch was a huge hit for us and really brought so many people together, it tooks a few weeks to organise, again everything was free, and with the help of a fab team, we sold tickets, blew up balloons and had an absolute scream in the process. (we also raised £1267!!)

Keep your website updated - this was difficult for us - at the end of the day we were exhausted, but once a week we would say what was happening, we also used face book very effectively.

Well, we reached our target, and when I think it only took twelve weeks, I count my lucky stars that we have so many fabulous friends and family members who gave so so much in such a short amount of time to help us achieve this. 
Everything is well documented and clippings, events, and photos have been taken,  we will have such a story to tell Toby when he is older about how it all happened. 

We are such lucky people having you all out there,  rooting for us, supporting us, and digging deep into your pockets to collectively help our little boy.


Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!