I ripped this shamelessly off AFP, but thought that it’s SUCH a good cause it needed to be spread.
“It has been suggested in several places that sf fans should attempt to
‘Match It For Pratchett’ – if half a million of his fans donated a
pound we could match his generous donation to the Alzheimer’s Society.
I think it’s a great idea.
You can go here to donate:
http://www.alzheimers-research.org.uk/ "
-originally posted by Colette Reap, on alt.fan.pratchett
If we can hit this bullseye, all the dominos will fall like a house of cards…checkmate!
~Zapp Brannigan
Edited by pat 9:38am, 18 Mar 2008
New site!
http://www.matchitforpratchett.org/
WOOHOO!
Edit by Pat: Before donating via this site, read all the posts below.
If we can hit this bullseye, all the dominos will fall like a house of cards…checkmate!
~Zapp Brannigan
Edited by pat 9:17am, 20 Mar 2008
Bonzai, you can make the links clickable if you surround some text with double quotes, followed by a colon then the full link
i.e this (without spaces) “Match it for Pratchett!” : http://www.matchitforpratchett.org => Match it for Pratchett!
You can’t kill me because I’ve got magic aarrghh!
Edited by molokov 8:15am, 17 Mar 2008
Damn! I keep forgetting to do that, lol.
Cheers.
If we can hit this bullseye, all the dominos will fall like a house of cards…checkmate!
~Zapp Brannigan
Just a quick note that you may want to hold off on donating through the ‘Match it for Pratchett’ site at this point. There’s been some concerns raised as it was not done with Terry’s permission… while I’m sure it’s done with good intentions, you may want to be aware of that.
Terry’s view is recorded on the Discworld Stamps forum
i.e. the Match it for Pratchett site is unofficial, and you should probably donate direct to the Alzheimer’s Research Trust – although it does appear the person running the MifP website is passing on the money they are receiving.
You can’t kill me because I’ve got magic aarrghh!
Information about Match It For Pratchett:
Match It For Pratchett is a campaign to raise money for research into Alzheimer’s by matching Terry Pratchett’s donation to the UK Alzheimer’s Research Trust. It is not a charity in and of itself; it collects no money. If you go to www.matchitforpratchett.org and click on the PayPal link to donate, your money will go directly to the UK Alzheimer’s Research Trust and nowhere else.
But it is not necessary to donate at the site to be part of Match It For Pratchett. When you donate directly to the Trust, you can add a note saying that you are donating in honour of Terry Pratchett.
In two weeks, the Match It For Pratchett campaign has generated £50,000 in donations. Andrew Scheuber at the Alzheimer’s Research Trust is keeping us posted with a tally of how much is coming in.
I hope this clears up any confusion or uncertainty as to who is getting your money if you donate at the site.
Cadigan – I think everyone feels the Match It For Pratchett site is sending the money to the right place, there was just the issues around it being done without Terry’s permission.
Edited 1:05pm, 3 Apr 2008
Hi—
Let me explain how Match It For Pratchett started.
On 13 March, I posted this on my Livejournal (http://fastfwd.livejournal.com/316828.html, if you want to read it for yourself):
“Today, it was announced that Terry Pratchett has donated half a million pounds to Alzheimer’s research. Hearing that, it occurred to me that if half a million of us all donated a pound to Alzheimer’s research, we could match his donation and make it an even million.
So whaddaya say, guys? It’s a pound. That’s about 2 bucks US dollars, give or take a couple of (US) pennies. You can spare that much. Go here [www.alzheimers-research.org.uk] and make your donation. Tell them it’s in honour of Terry Pratchett.
Let’s do it!"
I posted the same thing in a fan group called anonymous_claire on Livejournal. Word spread. A fan in Edinburgh came up with the phrase “Match It For Pratchett.” The next thing I knew, there was a website and a t-shirt, and I was getting excited emails from the UK Alzheimer’s Research Trust telling me that donations were coming in at an unprecedented rate. Conventions put out collection buckets. People put things up for auction on eBay, pledging the proceeds to the UK Alzheimer’s Research Trust—one of these people is George RR Martin.
The website was put up by a fan named Chris Tregenza who wanted to help. He added a PayPal “tip jar” meant for small donations from people who might have trouble donating directly to the Alzheimer’s Research Trust at the website—some people don’t have credit cards, or don’t want to give their credit card information and prefer to use PayPal. It was connected to his own account at the time and he forwarded any money collected to the Trust. All at once, however, he found he had several thousand dollars. He quickly contacted the Trust and set things up so that the PayPal link sent donations directly to them and not to his account first. So actually, it is thanks to Chris Tregenza that you can now donate directly to the UK Alzheimer’s Research Trust via PayPal, as previously there was no way to do that.
I made the suggestion in the first place out of admiration for Terry’s generosity. He didn’t just make a stirring speech ask people to contribute to research for Alzheimer’s, he dug deep into his own pocket. As they say in the US, he put his money where his mouth is.
But I never claimed to be doing anything with Terry Pratchett’s official endorsement or encouragement, nor did anyone else involved. I would be very foolish to make false claims. My name is probably unfamiliar to you but I am also a UK writer. I’ve won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for best novel published in the UK twice, and Terry and I have served together on the jury for the Richard Evans Award. Falsely claiming to represent Terry Pratchett in any capacity would be professional suicide for me and I have no desire to do that!
Best wishes,
Pat Cadigan
Edited 7:57pm, 3 Apr 2008
Fear not, it wont stop us donating :) It was just confusion over what is and isn’t an official fundraising campaign.
If we can hit this bullseye, all the dominos will fall like a house of cards…checkmate!
~Zapp Brannigan