Time to Share

We all lead busy, hectic lives these days.  Time is short.  I have often felt helpless in the past that I could not make more of a difference to the lives of  people who are suffering or in need.  Well now thanks to yet another inspired idea by Sally Whittle.  We all can.  I am thrilled to be involved in this amazing campaign. 

Do you love the idea of supporting a charity through your blogging ?  Have an hour or so to spare ?  Then read on :



Time to Share: Bloggers sharing their time with good causes



Bloggers represent a powerful and influential online community, and the British parent blogging community is one of the most active around.



The Tots100 ( http://www.tots100.co.uk/ )  is a network of 2,500 UK parent blogs, which have a combined audience of more than 2m readers. These blogs write about everything from pregnancy and raising children to careers and crafts. The blogging community is also enormously supportive of charities and good causes, with high-profile campaigns by the likes of Unicef and Save the Children being written about and shared on social networks by hundreds of parent blogs.



This year, the Tots100 is inviting its members to share their time with good causes. The Time to Share programme will match UK parent blogs with charities in need of volunteers. During March 2012, we’ll be providing our members to share their time with local charities, lending a hand with everything from planting trees to walking dogs and visiting schools.



The project aims to:

- Give bloggers, and their audience, a real insight into the work being done by charities across the UK, and the vital role played by volunteers. We hope that the programme will inspire more people to get involved in volunteering in their communities

- Give charities the opportunity to raise awareness of their work by connecting with influential bloggers – research suggests that content on blogs is much more influential than magazines or television, and Tots100 bloggers are highly active on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook

- Provide blogs and charities with a platform to promote volunteering on the Tots100 website, with all posts and projects promoted across our network

The Tots100 is keen to hear from charities across the UK who would be interested in connecting with bloggers, and providing volunteering opportunities to bloggers during March 2012. Interested charities can register their interest online at:

https://blogcamp.wufoo.eu/forms/time-to-share/


Parent bloggers who would like to volunteer an hour or more of their time can register their interest in the programme online at:

https://blogcamp.wufoo.eu/forms/time-to-share-for-bloggers/

Tots100 Christmas Party weekend at Butlins

When it comes to holidays I admit I was a SNOB. Butlins ! no not for me.  All that Hi De Hi and organised activities for hundreds of people.  

How wrong was I ! All this time my family and I have been missing out.

This weekend I had the opportunity to take the family to Butlins Bognor Regis and to drive there in a brand spanking new Kia Cee'd car (more on this later) all thanks to the totally hugable   Sally Whittle. Sally organised the bloggers Tots100 Christmas party weekend for an unmissable price of just £100 for two days in the Ocean Hotel for a family of five. Over the years I have stayed in some amazing hotels including Disney hotels in Florida and the Ocean hotel more than holds its own.

You are met by cheerful, red coated staff as you drive into the complex. The ocean has its own car park with ample car parking, although at the weekend its probably best to arrive as early as you can. You can't officially check into your room until 12 noon, but you can still take advantage of all the facilities if you arrive early.

Although I was there for the Tots100 bloggers Christmas Party I thought it was just too good a deal to pass up for the family, so we arrived on Friday to make the most of the weekend.

The Ocean Hotel

The Lobby

Truly a room with a view - our balcony view

How thrilled were we when we saw all the space we had in the family rooms

The children's twin bedroom was funky and perfect, even had its own tv !

You can have coloured disco lights that change colour above and under your bed and in the bathroom or if you prefer just normal white ones.  Guess which were a hit with us.  Lying in the bath watching the bubbles change colour kept me amused for hours !

The boys were desperate to get to the Splash Water world but sadly when we popped over there at 4.30 it was just closing.  I will say this was one of the only disappointing things about the complex.  The opening and closing times.  Most shops, activities, Splash Waterworld etc don't open until 10 am.  Now if you have  children, which the majority of people I would imagine do have, you need activities  available from about 8am and certainly breakfast.  There were long queues for the hotel restaurants first thing, so I would highly recommend you take your own breakfast cereals, fruit etc and remember to take bowls and spoons.  saves lots of money and hanging around.

Most of the activities on site are included in the price, which really helps, but you do need to plan and book early.  Most of the popular events get booked up quickly.  We still managed to fit in lots of fun stuff.  The funfair, the playpark, the beach, The splash waterworld was the biggest hit, lots of great water slides and plenty of space to play.  Slightly over cautious on height restrictions for smaller children but apart from that it was the biggest hit of the weekend for the boys.

Lots of great shows and entertainment

Bjjorn the Bear was a massive hit and a real wonder to see .

So much to see and do we can highly recommend you book a break at Butlins.  Thank you so much to Sally for the opportunity and to all the amazing staff at Butlins for making our weekend so fab!

Onto the point of the weekend, about 35 bloggers met up in the afternoon for coffee, cake, mince pies and a little highly competitive, fighting and present stealing (yes I mean you Mrs Shoe Blogger ) , sorry I mean tree decorating competition.    Our team didn't win, even though we decorated our tree in reds and silver and made many references to Billy Butlin.  Hey ho, those judges had NO TASTE !  Sorry for lack of pictures, I forgot my camera, but you can see our teams and trees on the TOTS100 facebook page  

The evening kicked off in bar Rosso with lovely cocktails and trying desperately to put faces to blog names ! Then onto Turners Restaurant for dinner.  I sat with the totally gorgeous Kate who blogs at WitWitWoo  Wendy from InsideTheWendyHouse  and her equally lovely sister Paula from QwertyMum   a lovely evening of laughs and some unease when I tweeted about the stroppy waiter to then find Butlins are so hot on twitter the restaurant manager came out to tell us the waiter had been told to cheer up !  I was mortified, so much so I went into the kitchens to give him a big hug, visions of him being sacked running through my head.  Oh dear, wine and twitter Nooooooooo !

We had a wonderful evening and it was so lovely to sit and chat with these lovely ladies.  Once again, many thanks Sally for all your hard work, you put on a great event.

We were also really fortunate to be offered a Kia Cee'd for the weekend.  It arrived promptly at 9.30 am on Friday morning, brand spanking new, sparkly clean and delivered by the nicest smiley man ever ! After a quick familiarisation and packing of the boot we were off. 

 What a dream of a car to drive, after years of driving a petrol guzzling old banger this was heaven on earth.  A diesel car, it was delivered to us with 3/4 tank of diesel and when we handed it back on Monday morning after a 320 mile round trip it still had a 1/4 tank !  amazing fuel consumption.  Really made my husband and I see how cost effective this car would be for us as a family.  It was spacious and felt like real quality inside.  Not at all what I expected.  You really feel like you are driving a luxury car.  There are all sorts of extras take a look at the specification  We were totally blown away by this car and if we could afford a new one we would seriously go back to this one.

Thank you so much to Kia UK for the opportunity to drive this car, we loved it.