It's just 2 days till the second ever Mental Health Blog Awards!
I am super excited. I can't wait to see you all and meet many of you for the first time. It has been a busy couple of weeks with the final few preparations happening. All the programmes have been printed, awards engraved and extra stuff prepped.
There have been a few changes with speakers, and organisational plans. But in general the event is as I had hoped, when I was sat in a Portsmouth pub planning the second Awards back in October/ November.
Since then I have been delighted by the support and positive messages people have sent and shown for the event.
One thing I haven't been able to do this year is have a charity donation (last year we donated 50% of ticket sales profits to PAPYRUS), this is partly because of rising costs and a couple of other things. Given some of the ideas I am considering for next year, that's likely to be the case again. But I really liked involving and supporting a charity as part of the Awards. As such, I am proposing a new idea for our third event in 2020. Sponsorship for the 'Blogger of the Year' award will be given to a charity for free. Charities will need to send a expression of interest and state why they would like to be involved. The exact process is to be worked out, but will be simple and short. Hopefully this can help a charity to grow their audience and awareness of their support/ provision/ resources. Plus it provides us with another opportunity to develop and sustain the mental health community.
This year we have some amazing sponsors in Instant Counselling, Human Givens, Good Mental Health Cooperative, Red Silver Mountains and MOJO Podcast. It's thanks to these individuals and teams that this years event is able to run and exist. So a huge thank you to them. Make sure to have a chat with them at the event on Saturday.
A small reminder that the Mental Health Blog Awards is a non profit project, all funds raised are invested in the event. So everyones support helps.
I would also like to say thank you to our amazing speakers, some who are speaking for the first time! I am looking forward to listening in on the sessions, learning a couple of things and picking up some top tips.
Look out for event photos and video in the near future - thanks to our Media Team of Hannah and Emma. Plus I'm sure we will all be taking our own photos too. Unfortunately theres no planned livestream, maybe next year... but I'm sure there will be some unofficial stream going somewhere haha.
See you all soon.
Ps. I have attended a couple of cool events lately, hopefully I will have time after the Awards to tell you about them. Last night's love and relationships event was amazing! #ComingSoon