I rarely talk about personal things on my blog. People may have noticed that over the last 4 years I have almost never mentioned anything related to family or friends, and I did that for a reason. I chose to seperate my blog ‘persona’, if you will, from my own interactions in the ‘real’ world.
It is something which I believe works, I don’t think people lack an understanding of my personality from not hearing about family/relationships/friendships – though I don’t discount bloggers who take a different line.
The reason for my bringing this up now is that a cousin of mine (yes I have alot of cousins – due to large Catholic families on both sides), was playing rugby last year, and I believe while in a scrum, my cousin Victor was seriously injured. He is about the same age as myself, but since he lives in Longford and I live in Cork, and I come from a big-ass-Catholic-massive family, I haven’t met him in more than 10 years.
I do have fond memories as a child of going ‘blagardin’ in fields in Longford during my heyday in the ’80’s, this along with my brother and parallel cousin (we were the ‘townies’), and visiting those strange folk such as Victor who lived on farms, out in what I considered then, the middle of nowhere.
And how on earth could people live way out there anyways- there was just, like, nothing to do. Such were our urban views anyway.
I was always felt like such a weak-ass townie to Victor because I got hayfever.
Yes I was even allergic to the countryside.
So Victor, a man of a similar age to myself, related to me on my mother’s side is now very seriously injured, paralysed largely from the neck down. Effective quadriplegia. He appeared on the news today to talk about it, his Rugby club, Longford RFC, are going to extraordinary lengths to fund raise for his care and rehabilitation. This is no mean feat. 250 fundraisers will be at the Ireland match this Saturday to collect money for my cousin Victor. The injury has been described as one of the worst sports injuries ever sustained in Ireland.
You can watch the RTE news report here.
The Irish Independent today reported briefly Victor’s story, where he was pictured with Keith Wood, Gordon D’Arcy and Simon Easterby. (Pic not published but the story is there)
I don’t have alot of money by any means, and I don’t have a huge readership, but I want to help in some way.
I would like to ask that any of my readers who feel they want to contribute to this fund to either use the handy Paypal button below or on my sidebar:
(I am the account holder, but I will disclose any and all amounts donated publicly, and pass any funds donated directly to the Trust Fund, I stake my 4 years as a blogger as my worth), or if you don’t want to use PayPal, lodge money, of whatever amount, however small, to this account:
Ulster Bank, Longford (a/c no 54437094, sort code 98 60 30).
A website has been setup with some more information.
I would ask that any of the Irish bloggers specifically, who read this blog to link to this story and send traffic to it in order to maximise any donations made to Victor. If any bloggers have any specific ideas on technology related to people suffering from this type of condition then please leave a comment or get in touch. Donations of hardware or software, since alot of my readers are tech people, would also fit in. But it is at your discretion entirely, all suggestions are welcome.
This post will be the first for a some days, and I will place a permanent link to this post in my sidebar.
Update:
Total raised 4 Victor on blog awards night: €275.20
Total raised in Paypal: €75 €100
Overall total thus far: €375.20
Thank you all!
Comments
14 responses to “On fundraising for relatives in need”
the personal/political conversation…
Two posts have gone up on Irish blogs in the last few minutes that have different themes but in fact are inter-related. Damien is looking for a number of helpers for the blog awards on Saturday, hes specifically looking for……
Paypal seems to be temporarily down, Gav.
Yea so I see, it looks like a temporary Paypal glitch, try again later though…
[…] Gavin tells of his connection to Victor Connell who was on the news this evening because there is a big push on to collect money for his rehabilitation. Victor got hurt playing rugby so obviously I can relate. I wish him the best and I really hope that they manage to collect a lot for him up at the match on Sunday. I’m sure even the Scots will contribute! […]
Will link to your post and the website for Victor, Gavin.
Hi Gavin, I linked your post too.
[…] Gavin tells of his connection to Victor Connell who was on the news this evening because there is a big push on to collect money for his rehabilitation. Victor got hurt playing rugby so obviously I can relate. I wish him the best and I really hope that they manage to collect a lot for him up at the match on Sunday. I’m sure even the Scots will contribute! […]
I’ll link it up tomorrow Gavin
Hey Gavin, just gave you and Victor a writeup on http://dublin.metblogs.com, hope the fund-raising continues to go as well as it has been!
Gavin, hope the fundraising’s going well. I’ve put a link to the website on my blog.
Linked from me too Gavin 🙂
R
[…] Following in a similar trend as Disillusioned Lefty, I want to make as many people as I can aware of Gavin’s request for help as I can. As a new site I don’t receive very many hits a day, but I hope that those that do visit here will pass the link on and give whatever they can. Paypal or Money Transfer. […]
[…] I recently read about Gavin Sheridan’s cousin who was injured in a rugby accident (Gavin is another Irish blogger) and while I was at the Irish Blog Awards I mentioned to a few prominent members of the audience that maybe we could use blogging’s new found popularity and leverage it for a good cause. […]
Gavin – I’m collecting a bunch of unusual fundraising stories and would be interested to include a summary of how you helped your cousin. Would that be OK?
I found it inspiring that you wanted to raise something to help a family member who was in trouble – and also that people dug into their pockets to help you too!