Hello there; maybe you’ve known about FirstSigns (previously LifeSIGNS) for years now, or maybe you’ve just found our website and Message Board. Either way, I hope you can see how much love and energy have been poured into our work.

Running a website for seven years isn’t free of cost – financially, physically and emotionally – and the amount of work that goes into writing all our articles and producing our factsheets and stuff is extraordinary. Add the time spent travelling up and down the country to meet with health care professionals and train them in SI Awareness and you come to the conclusion that running our voluntary organisation is a full-time job – but we don’t get paid.

Working alongside Jules for the last year has been great; Jules takes the stress out of my life by managing so much of the administrative burden of running a popular organisation. We receive so may emails from organisations around the world, and of course we like to reply to all our members’ queries too.

Time for Change

I’ve travelled so far, met so many people, trained literally thousands of health care professionals and I’ve received tens of thousands of emails over the years. I’ve loved meeting so many passionate and talented members and volunteers, and I truly believe that our organisation has had a huge impact on the country, and has touched people worldwide. Our information is spread around schools, colleges, universities, prisons, health centres, counselling centres, youth groups and churches. Everywhere and anywhere we can help people talk about self-injury in a respectful and responsible manner.

But it’s time for a change. I’ve worked with dozens of volunteer Directors over the

years, and I’ve helped them take responsibility for our organisation and shape our future, but I’ve always had a hand in everything we do. I hope you don’t mind if I admit that it’s been hard work; even when I’m on holiday, I check my mails and take phone calls from the press! It’s time I took a step back and regained some perspective. I need a break from the day-to-day running of FirstSigns!

So I’m taking a step back and Jules becomes the Managing Director of FirstSigns. For a time, I’ll be away from the organisation to allow me to take a rest from what has become a major part of my life. It’s time I had some space to think about other things in my life, like my relationships, hobbies and career. I’ll remain involved withFirstSigns, so don’t assume I’m ‘leaving’ – I’m not, but I am no longer available to everybody. Everything from now on must go through Jules. As I say, I am not leaving – I remain as the Chair of the organisation, and so I’m on hand for major meetings, and Jules and I are in touch often, and besides, we’re friends now and we’re always talking to one another.

I want Jules to have the best experience; I want her to enjoy her time as Managing Director and find some brilliant people to work with. We couldn’t run our Message Board without our fantastic, loyal team of Message Board Moderators, who I know will understand my announcement and continue to support Jules; and I hope all our members will support her too. I hope and expect Jules to take FirstSigns wherever she feels is best for our organisation and members, and every decision Jules makes has my full support, so be prepared for some subtle changes throughout the year – Jules gets to make strategic and operational decisions now, not me.

I want to help ensure Jules has the resources necessary to run our organisation; we use loads of online tools to ensure we reach people with our information. Jules will look after our Facebook Group and Page, our Blog, our Bebo page, our MySpace, our Twitter account, and all the management tools we use like our calendar and the various databases we use. Running our social networking sites alone can be very time consuming, so don’t be surprised if Jules starts recruiting for help from our dear members shortly!

But I want to do more for Jules and FirstSigns. I need your help in making sure that FirstSigns has enough money to run effectively, so I’m running a fundraising month!

Help Me Raise Funds for FirstSigns

Whatever you donate in January, I’ll double!*

Donate £1 through PayPal and I’ll match it, making £2.

Imagine if 100 members donate a little cash each this month – some of you might donate 50p – and that’s great because I’ll make it into a pound. Some of you will donate £5, and I’ll match that and make it a tenner.

By the end of January, perhaps you guys will have donated £200? I’ll match that, and FirstSigns will receive £400. That should help Jules do everything she wants to do, like getting the Wristbands and Keyrings sorted in time for Self-Injury Awareness Day (SIAD: 1^st March).

So don’t delay, donate to FirstSigns now from our donations page – just follow the PayPal instructions and remember you don’t have to have a PayPal account do donate through PayPal – debit and credit cards work just fine. If you’d prefer to donate by cheque, then please do contact Jules for details.

Jules will keep you all updated via our blog and I can’t wait to find what our grand total is!

So, thank you for your continued support, it’s been a long seven years for some of us, but I know so many of us have made fantastic progress with our struggle with SI – you guys are my inspiration! You know Jules well enough already to trust that FirstSigns will go from strength to strength – we’re always always growing.

Wedge

*Yes, this is on top of my monthly donation to FirstSigns, when I give 1% of my earnings (in ‘real-life’ I’m a writer and editor for a large regional company).