I couple of days ago I received a most unusual request from Schalk from Valve Audio. It's easier just to quote his message:
I'd like to know if it would be OK to start a thread on the forum covering the very sad and desperate issue of the little girl Carly (one of a twin). They have been on the news recently with their dad going to motorboat (with a 12 volt little motor as driving force) from Mosselbay to Cape Town to raise funds for an operation. The girls were premature babies and apparently the oxygen administered for the first few days of their lives caused little Carly to go blind. The operation has to be done before she turns five for the operation to have any chance of being a success. A critical age apparently..
I'd like to start some kind of auction for which I am willing to donate a brand new Predator which retails for R30 850. Almost like some kind of E-Bay bidding thing, with ALL proceeds to be deposited into the FUND account that has been set up for this operation. Of course, anybody else can also pitch in with a "WHITE ELEPHANT" type of thing to try and get as much as possible into this account. The understanding being that this is NOT for personal or business gain, but solely for the cause of helping this little angel in getting her ONE SHOT at seeing. She might just be capable of commenting on your excellent photography one day!
We all spend money all too easily on bells and whistles, DSTV and other comforts, drinks et al..
Maybe if we gave just a little of ourselves, we in turn might be blessed so much more.
Needless to say, I'm going to give Schalk all the support I can given his generous offer. We had some more discussions about what the best possible format is - I would think that some kind of raffle with people buying tickets might generate the most funds - and how to publicize this. While AVForums is popular, it would be great to spread the word further.
So with that background, I am posting it here to start the ball rolling and get some suggestions from you guys on how to proceed. I really can't run this all by myself but Schalk suggested - and I agree - that it's probably best for the fund raiser to be administered by somebody other than himself to maintain neutrality from the prize sponsor. Comments please? What do you think would be the best format? Also, any additional information about the girl would be useful so please link it here (I am completely out of touch with current afairs, I heard about this for the first time in Schalk's PM).
