Action Planning, painting and marketing

So many meetings yesterday- all very useful. Started the day with Emma-Jane Cross, Chief Executive of Beatbullying, who shared her experiences of starting up a charity from scratch. BB have since won lots of charity awards and are getting bigger and bigger. She gave me the benefit of her wisdom with 3 golden pearls of advice - what she wish she had known before. 1. The benefit of getting a fundraiser on board early on - even a fundraiser on commission. 2. Get a good mentor from the start. And 3. Create a 3-year plan.

In the second meeting of the day I secured pro-bono marketing work from Holrick Rodgers. Many thanks to him for his collaboration with us. Although he will take a global look at the organisation and put together a full marketing plan, the priorities are to make the most of our imminently getting our company registration number by preparing a logo, business cards and letterheads. Watch this space to see what comes next.

The rest of the I spent gloss painting my mum's windows, until 11pm no less. She wanted me to 'prioritise' the painting, so I had to squeeze it all in. Now we're working on choosing colours for the walls. It's never ending, but at least is a diversion from the phone and laptop.

It's full steam ahead for the garage sale we're having this Sunday in West Dulwich, SE21. All proceeds going to Abene Karantaa. I've been out delivering a flyer on it this morning in Dulwich village and got good feedback from the people I spoke to in the street. I hope to get a good turn out on the day. We'll see what the weather is like - fingers crossed.

I'm dashing out the house now for a friend's leaving do.