Dude shaved me bare.

I finally have a fundraising event planned!

On Saturday 20th April 2013, at the Sacks of Potatoes pub in Birmingham, I will be getting my head shaved.   My fundraising target for the event is £100.  I would have liked to have set it higher, but it's been put together at such short notice.  Massive thanks to the manager of the Sacks, Dawn, for letting me hold the event.  I promise every strand of my hair will be cleaned off the floor!

Let us know you're coming at the Facebook event here.  If you'd like to donate pounds, you can either see me in person, or I've set up a JustGiving page should you want to donate via the interwebs.  Either way, your donation will be eligible for the Gift Aid scheme.

My fundraising planning hasn't been going as smoothly as I'd hoped: my barber doesn't do communication so well; the venue where I usually hold gigs decided they no longer allow free use for charity events; the alternative place I wanted to hold an event haven't replied to my emails and I haven't had time to phone.  If I don't get a venue in the next week, it's looking like I won't get a gig for May either. This is a pain because I was relying on gigs as the spine of my fundraising efforts, because it's the thing that I do best in the world.  In saying that, I do it best mostly because of my tendency to work through issues, so I know that ultimately it will be fine, but I'm just at that moment of frustration before the light bulb goes off over my head.  Happens all the time!

Before you all go rushing to suggest venues for my gigs, I need three things from any potentials:
1.  It's got to be free, or at least really, really cheap.  Places offering venue hire with a £300 deposit, returnable if that amount is take behind the bar, because their drinks prices are generally too expensive for anybody to want to buy any, therefore eliminating the chance of getting the deposit back.
2.  It's got to be able to cater for a ticketed event.  The money will be raised from tickets sold.  Recommending a pub for live music in a corner and shaking a bucket at people will not raise as much funds as the bands selling tickets, taking their cut from selling a certain amount, and the rest goes towards event costs and my fundraising.  I need the assurance of tickets being sold.
3.  It's got to be in Birmingham city centre, or at least really easy to get to from town.  Have you ever tried explaining to people how to get to a gig in a pub in the backstreets of Digbeth?  It's not easy.

The only place that's been any help have been my ticket printers, which would be of more help if I could actually get a venue.  So anyway, super-massive thanks to Performance Ticket Printers for their very generous offer of a discount on my ticket printing for my events.  I promise I'll get something booked!

So that's where I'm at.  I'll leave you with the song from which the title of this post came.  It's a tune.