Get Involved in Byte Night 2009

Did you know...

“One in four adults have been worried that a child they know or living in their area is being neglected, and over a third did not tell anyone about their concerns.”

At Bond we want to make a difference and give something back to the community. We were recently approached by Action for Children to see if we would host Byte Night 2009 in the North East, after we held a similar event last year.

Byte Night is an annual event where the business community across the UK sleep outside for one night to experience what it is like to be homeless. This year the event will take place on October 2nd - the venue will be announced soon.

Developed by Action for Children, Byte Night aims to raise money to help support children and young people who are affected by poverty, disability, abuse or neglect.

A board has now been elected which consists of several members of the Bond team, Nigel Begg from Aspire Technology Solutions, Andy Walton from Knowledge IT and Andrew Fisk from Tagish - all have been working hard to canvas volunteers and sponsors.

As this is the first official Byte Night event to be held in the region we want to make it a success. As well as offering a great networking opportunity, we want volunteers to enjoy the experience, so if there is anything you would like to see at Byte Night, please contact us.

We still have a lot to organise and it is vital that we get support from the local business community. With this in mind we would love to hear from anyone who is interested in volunteering and making a difference to children in the UK.

We are also looking for a series of sponsors to provide food and entertainment on the night, so if you, or anyone you know could help, please contact us. It is for a great cause after all!

Our first sponsor is Paul Keating of Red Boat Photography who will be the official photographer on the night.

Last year we had 11 volunteers who participated in the event. This year we are aiming to quadruple this figure and sign up a minimum of 40 volunteers – we will keep you posted on our progress.

We really want to make a big difference and we cannot do this without your help, so please get involved and help us change the course of young lives.

If you require any information or have any questions, please email bytenight@bond-solutions.com.

Please also keep checking this blog as all news will be posted here first. You can also visit Byte Night’s website at http://www.bytenight.org.uk/.

North East Byte Night 2009

We are back, even bigger and better than last year. Byte Night 2009 will be on 2nd October. Watch this space for further information or please follow us on Twitter for regular updates.

More pictures of the event

Andy Jones and Harry Broome survey their accomodation for the night.

Andy Jones, Pete Clark and Claire Glynn attempt to rain proof Pete's bed for the night whilst everyone else stands by.

We did it 3!

Some of the chill was taken out of the cold October night with our own wood burning stove provided by Mike Blakeley of Chimfix, the Wood Heating Company. Mike also provided us with logs which kept us going through the night.

Is Andrew Fisk of Tagish looking for somewhere to plug in his electric blanket?

We did it 2!

The Fishermans Lodge provided us with a hearty meal to keep us going in our efforts. Jocelyn Maxfield owner of the Fishermans Lodge who also slept rough with us is pictured (right) with Claire Glynn and Pete Clark. Can you see the spooky spectre on the left of this photo, did we have an additional uninvited guest at our sleep out in aid of Byte Night on Halloween?

I certainly seem to have been spooked by something!

We did it!

Well we did it, we spent last night under the stars, literally. There were only a few stars in the sky but there were 13 stars in the grounds of The Fishermans Lodge in Jesmond Dene. Shortly after midnight on the spookiest night of the year we retired to our "luxury" accomodation outside of The Fishermans Lodge. After a very cold week the temperature was not too bad to start with and we all thought this was going to be easier than we first thought.

For the first couple of hours we talked and enjoyed a couple of warming brews around our camp fire. Pete Clark of Bond and Claire Glynn of Atomic Web Solutions get into the spirit with the spirits on Halloween (left). Claire Jerrard of Sage enjoys a cuppa (perhaps with a drop of brandy Claire?)
It was all in aid of Action for Children and 2 brave souls from the charity braved the elements with us. Currently our efforts have raised over £3000 and we are well on our way to £4000. We would all like to thank everyone who has supported us so far, however if you would still like to sponsor us please click the following link and go to the page of the person or team you would like to support. http://www.justgiving.com/event/190924

More pictures to follow shortly, please visit again soon to share our experience.

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!