iLIVEiGIVE has reached a tipping point and we need more people to help us move forward. We have decided that we need to become a charity and this will be another thing we have to learn about. Fortunately we have acquired some funding and will use this wisely to help promote the campaign. The demand for t-shirts has been immense and we do get a bit snowed under with requests.

What is fabulous is that we feel that we are really getting people talking. There are lots of ideas simmering in our minds, but one definite is that we will be working with Faruk Choudhury, who will soon be the first Muslim Lord Mayor of Bristol, to raise awareness of organ donation in minority ethnic groups.

We’ve had a picture of a pole dancer wearing the t-shirt, of Kimberley with her Burmese Python and of a few comedians wearing the shirt (Suzy Bennett, Ellie Taylor, Russell Kane).

Two of our followers Emily and Kevin have received transplants, and Jude donated a kidney to her sister, Jo.

Phil has kept us up to date with his training for his epic cycle ride and shared photos of hid leg waxing- ouch!

Darren and his team at Gregory Distribution in Cullompton wore the t-shirts to help promote organ donation, and we hope to do more work with the company to get the message out to more of the UK.

April was a month of hard work for Amanda and Rob in Bath. Along with Martin, Jo and Rachael they promoted organ donation wherever they could, including the university.

From the iLIVEiGIVE team, Jo and Chris were the main organisers of this event, and true to form with all events, the closer we got to the day, the more nervous everyone got. Would people turn up, would it work? The day came, and people did take part, and very competitive they were too. We had several donated prizes for the best in each category. Many thanks go to Julian and Adam for counting laps in the pool. They did get a bit hot!

Talking of hot, think of the Chili’s and have a look on our Facebook page. Yes, we have a picture of 3 members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers wearing our iLIVEiGIVE t-shirts! One of the biggest bands- ever! Our celebrity endorsement is definitely expanding.

We also helped out colleagues in Yeovil by providing our banner stand, t-shirts and leaflets at their local half marathon.

The t-shirt made its way to the Antarctic courtesy of landscape photographer Joe Cornish. We were certainly getting out there.
ITV ran an organ donation event “From the heart” and record numbers of people signed up to the organ donor register. Amazing. We felt we could use this as a springboard to carry on raising awareness after this exciting event.

We had support form local groups including Torbay youth power, and the inspirational Steve Gazzard was proud to wear the iLIVEiGIVE t-shirt whilst raising awareness of donation in Exmouth. Sadly, Steve’s daughter died before a transplant was found for her.

By now 1600 people had viewed the iLIVEiGIVE video. We felt really proud that we were getting people thinking about organ donation. More and more people were asking to get involved by wearing t-shirts, so to help the envelopes stand out we had two rubber stamps made. One with “iLIVEiGIVE’ and the other said “Warning contents may save lives”. Chris liked the second stamp so much; he had a photo taken with the message stamped on his chest.

At the end of January we linked up with Nuffield Health in Plymouth and they agreed to support us and run a mini triathlon in March.

Andrew was running late, but quickly set up and the photoshoot started. There were fancy dress items to wear, along with disguises for those wanting anonymity. During the day around 150 people took part and wore the iLIVEiGIVE t-shirt. Some people (well Chris and Huseyin) had many photos taken and Huseyin was definitely the funniest elf!

After the photoshoot, Andrew created the video. Maree had contacted Roger Hodgson from Supertramp to see if he would let us use the track “Give a little bit”. Amazingly, they said yes, and sent us the soundtrack. Andrew put everything together and we were live on YouTube. Unfortunately we were taken down after a few hours due to copyright infringement. Andrew quickly uploaded a silent version and Maree spent the early hours of the morning talking to Roger’s team in California. Everything was resolved, Andrew went on holiday and Maree had a lie down!

By the end of December we had reached 200 likes on Facebook and our video had been seen over 900 times.

We met with Andrew again and he came up with an idea to do a photoshoot in the hospital, from which he would be able to create a stop-go animation. The date was set for 17th December, and this was announced to hospital staff via email and to patients and visitors via posters in the hospital.

We also developed our own website www.iliveigive.org and Huseyin helped us improve Maree’s basic attempt!

Also, we made contact with some transplant athletes who were keen to get involved.

Debbie, whilst walking on the beach one day, had stumbled across a drum band and had arranged for them to drum up interest for us outside of Primark. They were late, but after frantic phone calls they turned up and were great. We had the high street covered with iLIVEiGIVE t-shirt wearers giving out leaflets. We were able to answer queries for people about organ donation, so all in all a good start. Half of the iLIVEiGIVE t-shirt team were busy in and around Plainmoor, visiting local pubs and giving out leaflets. The football fans started to arrive and more leaflets were given out. There was also some TV coverage from Spotlight.

The moment came for the teams to warm up, and this was the time they were going to wear our iLIVEiGIVE t-shirts. We had originally only asked Torquay United, but both managers were happy for their teams to wear the t-shirts, so United and Argyle came onto the pitch wearing the shirts. It was quite an emotional moment. It really felt that our journey to raise awareness about organ donation had started. Lottie, our “covergirl” unfortunately couldn’t make the afternoon as she had just had some surgery, but she did appear in the match programme.

Debbie worked hard producing press releases and this increased our media exposure and some radio interviews followed.
We were elated and exhausted after the launch. But there was no rest, Facebook and Twitter needed to be attended to. We now had pictures of people having fun whilst wearing the shirts – fantastic!

We made contact with some amazing people who had very personal reasons why they supported organ donation. T-shirts were quickly sent and action shots of the t-shirt were duly shared for all our friends and followers to see.

The arrival of the t-shirts definitely caused excitement. Everybody seemed keen to get their hands on one. Was it because they were free, or because people liked the logo, or really wanted to promote organ donation? Whatever the reason, they were popular!

The t-shirts. So, we had the design, we just had to find someone to produce them. A quick google search and a few quotes later, we found a fantastic screen printer in Torquay (www.etees.co.uk). We visited the printshop on a few occasions to try on the t-shirts and ask some questions. This was a real working environment and the smell of the inks made us all feel a bit dizzy! Our initial t-shirt choice couldn’t be sourced so Paul from etees found us an alternative, and produced a special shirt for Lottie.

Lottie’s party was delightful. It was the first time Maree had met with Chris and Julie (Lottie’s parents) and it certainly wasn’t going to be the last time! The afternoon had media coverage and this was something we were also pretty naïve about. What a big learning curve we had to climb.

We had decided that the iLIVEiGIVE campaign was going to launch in September, so bearing in mind everyone seems to be on holiday in August we had to get everything sorted for iLIVEiGIVE day on  8th September. We met with Ian Broadfoot who was the Chief Executive of Torbay Town Centres Company Ltd, who was happy for us to contact the local traders and with Tim Herbert, the media manager for Torquay United.  The aim was to launch iLIVEiGIVE in the town centre and then follow this with a presence at the local derby match between Torquay and Plymouth at Plainmoor.

Just needed a small army of people to help out!

Towards the end of the month, we received this message via the hospital’s “contact us” page.

“Our daughter, Lottie Bryon-Edmond is 1 year old next month, a miracle as she had a liver transplant when still 2 weeks premature. She has been followed by the press ever since as we are engaged in organ donation awareness campaigning and on the 7th July we are launching a record about her and organ donation in Torquay. As this is at the start of organ donation awareness week and Torbay Hospital are doing a fantastic job in the same arena, we wondered whether you or a representative of the hospital could attend the function. We have the BBC and various papers from here and Birmingham attending along with our local MP (hopefully) oh and the Mayor has been invited but no news back there yet. We would really appreciate any support you can give us.”

Well, how could we refuse? It really felt that things were coming together.

Facebook was not new, but Twitter was a real unknown. At the end of March, Maree went to a talk given by Steve Wheeler who is an Associate Professor of learning technologies at the University of Plymouth. He talked about the power of social media and was an expert! Maree felt that this was fate and set off tracking him down. They had a phone conversation on 21st May and our social media strategy was born.

To do this a staff art competition was designed to link with the Transplant Week theme “Pass it on”, but more was needed.

It was decided that we would get advice from a graphic designer to help plan our campaign. The designer we contacted was Andrew Nadolski (www.nadolski.com). We met with Andrew, and gave him our brief. We were so lucky and he really “got it” and came up with some great ideas, including the iLIVEiGIVE logo and t-shirt design.