Only 2 days to go!

There are only 2 days to go now until Byte Night. Isn't it great that the British weather has decided to turn really cold as well this week! With temperatures dropping below zero over night I thought it was worth putting together a little checklist of what we need to bring on friday night.

• Very warm clothes! One guy from here suggested to me that he was going to bring his skiing clothes and I think thats a great idea as they will keep you warm.
• Something to keep you off the ground. As the temperatures drop the ground will be very cold so anything to keep you off it would make sense, a deck chair, foldable camp bed anything like that will do.
• A flask with a hot drink or any other drinks that keep you warm! However please bear in mind there are no toilet facilities after midnight.
• A hat
• Some of those hand warmers that last for a couple of hours may come in useful.
• Steven Willis is kindly bringing some torches.
• Action for Children are supplying some water proof bags for your sleeping bag and some Virgin survival bags. They also have some umbrellas just in case.
• Andrew Fisk is going to bring a camping stove to brew up just in case.
• Chimfix are also supplying us with a wood burning stove for the night which will help to keep us warm. However Action for Children rightly pointed out that we need to ensure that no sleeping bags are too close to the fire etc.
• You may also want to bring your own personal entertainment, ipod etc.
• Stories - bring some ghost stories along to keep us all entertained!
• If all else fails - a sense of humour!

A warm meal will be provided before midnight and the bar is open to buy drinks.
If your partner/children etc are coming along to support you before midnight that is fine but please let me know so that I can advise Jocelyn of numbers for catering.

I think it is also worth remembering why we are doing this and that is to raise money for Action for Children. Now is the time to put that final effort in to raise some sponsorship. This is something thats really different from the sponsored walk or run and should attract plenty of support from your friends, family, customers, suppliers, people in the pub, neighbours etc. If you have not already done so please send out an email to everyone you know and make that final push to raise some money.

We also hope to get some PR on this in the papers next week too, I am going to bring a camera and a video camera so we can get some photos on the blog and I am sure our PR company will be able to get us in the papers too. As we are the first to do this in the North East I will make sure that everyone is aware of who we are and how brave you all are!

Finally I know the temperature is dropping and you may be worried as we approach friday but remember its a maximum of 8 hours in your life that you will be perhaps a little uncomfortable for and it is one of those experiences that you will look back on with pride that you were the first to do it in the North East. Well done everyone for taking part and good luck and stay warm!