Wednesday 27 March 2013

A night at the Oscar's


A new addition to this blog has been a long time coming.

That doesn't mean that the work hasn't been going on behind the scenes. Lots has been happening & that's all about to become evident starting today. We are launching our Twitter campaign on a bigger scale to make a real go of this. The original concept of Oscar's Flag was to use football, a game that unites so many, to raise awareness for The Oscar Knox Appeal further afield.

For those of you new to this blog, you can read a bit more about "Wee Oscar" here

http://oscarknox.blogspot.co.uk/p/oscars-story.html




Shaun O'Neill,a member of Team Oscar is due to start his epic cycle, taking Oscar's flag to EVERY single Premier League ground,beginning at St James's Park,Newcastle at 7.30 am on Good Friday (29th March) You can read about how the cycle came to be here

http://oscarsflag.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/oscars-flag-ii-another-epic-journey.html



Following this blog, I will be updating a full itinerary of (approximate) dates & times of each ground Shaun will be at, so please get along & support the flag.

Shaun's going to be writing a blog on this page each day, detailing exactly what he's going through. There will, undoubtedly,be trials & tribulations along the way, but various members of Team Oscar will be there along the way,offering support. I will update regularly as to how Shaun's itinerary evolves along the way,but if you're on Twitter,follow the story with regular live updates at
https://twitter.com/oscarsflag



So what's with all the secrecy around everything else? Well, we had planned a few other challenges for the flag to take part in to try & start raising hard cash for the Oscar Knox Appeal. The 7 games in 7 countries challenge was always designed to raise awareness for Oscar,but the justgiving link
was set up as an afterthought for those who felt compelled to donate to us directly,rather than through Oscar's blog. When that link was set up,we vowed to carry on the work afterwards to raise as much money as possible. Shaunscycle4Oscar was designed to give us something fresh to promote,to really kickstart the fundraising again & Shaun's own justgiving page has seen tremendous success. Shaun's own fundraising efforts have honestly been even more impressive than the 1200+ mile cycle attempt. The guy deserves true recognition for,not just what he's about to go through,but also the amount of work he's put into our other efforts.




Shaun's Cycle isn't the only reason we've decided to up our efforts now.

On Monday, a fantastic Press conference was called to make a special announcement. Here's the wee man himself in action

http://www.u.tv/sport/First-City-Hall-fight-night-for-Oscar/fb5c1c03-8140-44c4-99ac-5ddee6654668


Oscar's parents have decided that they need to take a step back from fundraising,in order to spend more time as a family. I think this as a fantastic idea,as I can only imagine everything what they've been through in the last few years. Trying to live an everyday life,with going to work & taking care of 2 children is hard enough for anyone, but with Oscar's illness,it becomes unimaginable. Regular hospital visits, the family being separated for long periods,as well as trying to allow Oscar as normal a life as possible would make it very difficult, but the sheer volume of fundraising in his name is unprecedented. As fantastic as that is, it does mean a lot of commitments for the family & time spent dealing with this. I don't mean to put words in anyone's mouth, but it must be exhausting trying to juggle everything.Most of Oscar's,& certainly Izzy,his little sister's, has been spent,not only in hospitals, but also in the media spotlight, & they deserve to spend some time together as a normal family.


With this in mind, we've decided to draw a finish line in front of our own campaign.

We had planned a series of small fundraising events dotted around Manchester, along with other challenges (not on the scale of the first one,& definitely nowhere near Shaun's effort, but fun targets nonetheless), leading throughout the summer to a big finale, but we've decided to just go for it. One night in Chorlton Irish club, with live music & a football memorabilia auction, as well as some other great items that have been generously donated, taking place on May 24th, 10 days after Oscar's big fight night. One chance to raise as much money as we possibly can. Ticket information will be announced soon,as well as full details of what we're doing on the night. It's very short notice, but we think this is the best way to raise as much money as possible,& as much awareness as possible, whilst simultaneously allowing the spotlight to come off the Knox family.



Organising this event is now a challenge in itself, but that doesn't mean those other challenges I mentioned are going away either. We now just have to jump into organising them in a lot less time. Full details will be announced as to what's next for Oscar's Flag once Shaun has successfully completed his epic cycle4Oscar, of which I have no doubt he will. That deserves undivided attention for the next 2 weeks,so that's what's instore for the foreseeable future,along with full details of the fundraising efforts & the main event

Any suggestions to ways to further our fundraising are always welcome, or if you want to get involved & help out with Oscar's Flag,  feel free to use the comments section below

Thanks for reading

Baz


PS Best of luck Shaun.

 On yer bike






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