And Blogathon 2009 is over!
I could try to sum up the things all of our staff are thinking right now, but that’d pretty much be impossible. Instead, we’ll all just tell you individually. The gist, if you’re too tired to read? The bloggers, sponsors, volunteers, and everyone else who brought Blogathon 2009 together totally rocked (and we still have until Friday to collect more pledges!). See you in 2010!
Colleen – Team Leader:
This was my favorite Blogathon experience so far – I had a great group of monitors (JL, Lindsey, Tina, Monique, and Pico), a fantastic group of admins/TLs/VCs (Sheana, Heather, Poe and RickiBeth) and got to see some of the most interesting blogs and sctichks I’ve seen to date. HUGE thanks to all of you for keeping me awake and entertained through these last 24 hours!
Heather – Administrator:
I want to thank everyone for making this such a great year! Every year I participate in the Blogathon I learn so much, whether it’s about charities or causes, finding new blogs and bloggers, or that there are some truly heinous things being hocked on TV at three in the morning. Thanks to my friends and fellow ‘thon staffers for keeping things moving and helping me stay awake, especially since it meant extra “L’s” and wrong IM windows, which both tend to be things that only present themselves when you’re getting pretty deficient in the sleep department. Speaking of sleep, go get some!
Jen – Charity Liaison:
As the charity person, I do get to work with some pretty special people. I’d like to thank Jack @ AICR, Katie @ First Book, and Chelsea @ RAINN for being so willing to work with people and in Chelsea’s case, recruit them and equip them for fabulousness. In terms of my charity, thanks be to Dawn @ Preeclampsia.Org for working with me and getting excited about what I was doing.
In terms of helping me survive this year, thanks to Feather, JL, and others who plugged my site and to Noelle who was monitoring me. The people on Blogathon chat helped me stay awake and I appreciated mokia_sindhall staying up with us though she didn’t have to. Thanks Nikki for the chat and Moira for encouraging me and keeping me going. My mommy panel deserves accolades as well as do Bri and Richard who all provided me with something about which I could blog.
Every year at this time of the ‘thon, I wonder why I beat myself into a bloody pulp doing this. I then remember that I’ve met some awesome people through the ‘thon and the friends I’ve made are so much more worth the tiredness.
Poe – Volunteer Coordinator:
I just want to put out a huge thank you to all our monitors. It’s a rough job, and I am always glad when someone steps up to do it. Going around and commenting on all the blogs, just to keep the participants going – it’s always amazing to me to see those who step up to do it. I also want to thank the bloggers themselves. You’ve done a great job this year. I am utterly impressed, as usual, with your creativity, your humor, and your sense of community. For example, many of our bloggers are on twitter this year and twittered about everything they were doing. I know of one blogger who told of having someone from the ‘Thon, whom she had not talked to at all for the entirety of the ‘Thon, respond to a twitter she made, telling her she could make it. I have not found that anywhere else, to be quite honest. I love our bloggers. (= And let us not forget the friends and families of our bloggers, the moral support behind the scenes – or on the blogs. People who did not sign up, but came to cheer on their favorite people anyway. Mokia, who missed the sign-up for the ‘Thon, came out to do some cheerleading. All of her own accord. During the really hard part of the ‘Thon. That’s the type of people we get and I am always moved by the selflessness of people like that. I guess, over all, I want to say – I wouldn’t be anywhere else. I wouldn’t do this with any other people. I thank the Higher Power every year for each and every one of the people involved with the ‘Thon. The bloggers, the monitors, the admin staff, friends, random people who find us and stay. All for a good cause. The ‘Thon for 2009 is over and I hope to see you all again for 2010.
Rickie – Team Leader:
To all the participants who made Blogathon 2009 such a success, thank you times a million! From the sponsors who donated their money to the bloggers who donated their sleep, this event truly is about you, and it succeeds only because of the passion you have for your causes. I’ve had a wonderful time taking in all the creativity that’s come out of the past 24 hours, and I can’t wait to do it again in 2010. Um, after a good night’s sleep, that is.
Sheana – Administrator:
With the blogging done and still a week left for sponsorships to come in, together we’ve raised over $40,000 – far more than I’d even imagined we’d bring in during this first year back from hiatus. Thoughout the blogathon I have been constantly amazed at the eloquence, tenacity and good humor of all of our amazing bloggers, who’ve put out some of the best content in the history of the Blogathon – and I’ve been doing it every year since ‘01! I am humbled by all the hard work you all did to raise money for your charities, by the perseverance of bloggers like Miss604 who organized local events, and by the all-around awesome stuff that came out of the Blogathon this year. And of course, all of this awesome blogging wouln’t have made as much of an impact if it weren’t for the folks sponsoring our bloggers – so a HUGE thank you to all the folks who pledged (and who still will pledge, until Friday)!
Additionally, I want to thank all of our amazing volunteers – our Charity Liaison Jen, our Volunteer Coordinator Poe, both of our fabulous Team Leaders Colleen and Rickie Beth, and our ten phenomenal monitors – Stacy, Kirasha, JudyP, Noelle, Jeff, Tina, kteachone, Sareini, MissMope, and sohorhapsody, as well as to honorary cheerleader Mokia who kept our monitors in the chat room energized and upbeat. Thanks also to the awesome folks who helped get us out on other networks like Livejournal, Facebook and Twitter – Barbara and Featherjean, I’m looking at you! Thanks go out to our super-green host Taproot (click the banner on the side to check them out), and especially to our tech guy Chad who put up with late-night emails and pre-’thon instant messages when things went awry. We <3 Taproot!
This was an amazing Blogathon, and I can't wait to see what happens next year. Oh, and save the date: Blogathon 2010 will begin at 6am PDT on July 31st, 2010!
AMH in Ohio 9:40 am on January 25, 2010 Permalink |
Doctors without borders is also a charity worth consideration.