Hi everyone,

Just a quick introduction, we are Muddy Footprint and if you'd like to learn a little about our work please take a look at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

We have several projects running at the moment and some big plans to make real!

John

Welcome to the forum, Berni (moderator) has several years of experience and has done sterling work with several establishments in Bulgaria, so may be a good source of reference, should you need any help.

I wish you every success, but if your post on another forum, will not be repeated here? people will help as and when they can.

Quote :

Well folks, it truly saddens me to carry out this action however under the circumstances I believe I have no option but to do so.

I am left to wonder at the mentality of the membership of BiB if 70+ people can read the Post about the new website for our Charity at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and for just 2 people to even bother to reply and acknowledge it.

Our website analytics tells us the origin of page views and many came from BG indicating that many members actually visited the site but somehow were not sufficiently moved by what they saw to click the button and make a small donation to help us.

In contrast, Kiril's daughter is just 7 years of age, she saw the website video yesterday and Kiril tells me she could not stop crying at what she saw.

Bulgaria is a beautiful country as those of us who are privileged to live here know, and yet knowing both the beauty and the deprivation, Members apparently will not lift a finger to help us in any way to help others far less fortunate.

So we may read BiB posts now and again, but I doubt we will ever be posting again.

So Goodbye. John

or you may have already shot yourself in the foot john !
as your attitude to those members , yes including me . was...not nice to say the least

Whilst I admire the sentiment involved in helping children, I have to agree with you VG.

I am not on this site as often as I know I should, but for someone to come on to this site and expect an immediate response is asking a lot, also a lot of us already do our bit, to help our communities, helping the areas is very important to me and I am sure everybody else on this site, last time I was in Bulgaria which was in March I went to a market stall as I needed a clean tee shirt nothing special it went from 4lev to 8lev as soon as I spoke in English, yes I admit I still bought it but will perhaps miss them next time.
we have all seen people set up charities but we really need to help in a group and as for the person saying he can tell which site the click came from I can tell you that I would not click onto another site from here as that is not me, so any search I would do would not show me as a member of this site, also if he is so hot headed, maybe he is not the right person to do this.
every time a rock star donates they always do a song and say the royalties from this song is for that charity but it would also be really nice to see them dig into there big massive pockets too.
yes we should all try a bit harder but we really can not be soft either we have to look on it and give it merit where merit is due.

just had a look at there site, and it is similar, to hands of hope in Romania, all good causes and I wish them well.
but we all have to agree that money is not always the answer, as if they start to put their hand out as much as you want to help you find your doing it all the time and then we start seeing the begging I am not saying this is the case but people who have visited BG more than once and visited some of the villagers will know what they are showing are toilets that are just holes in the ground and outside kitchens that is a Bulgarian home, it is also very odd that on there meet the team page it does not mention the last names of the people that run the show this bit alone would concern me. but again I am sure that maybe an over site. will follow what they do and I think I will put it on my next list to visit them when back over as they are about 150klms from my home.

G'day Paddy...nice to see you on here again.

Regarding this particular thread, my thoughts are pretty much the same as yours...I've always had a deep distrust of people who appear out of nowhere asking for money (donations) and trying to play on my heartstrings. I'm not talking about forum members, or people who are generally known to many of us...the ones I refer to are the strangers who make ONE post and then throw a "hissy fit" when they don't get the response they expected.

We all know that many of our members already contribute greatly to their respective communities and do the best they can...cold hard cash is not always the best answer!!!

My village neighbours know the score (after nearly 11 years)...ask for help, or advice, and it will be done without a moments hesitation...ask for money and it's a very different story!!

And just in case anyone is wondering....my village has a healthy population of Roma people and they have learned that I treat EVERYONE the same, regardless!

As VG stated in her post...he shot himself in the foot. For now, I will stick to supporting Berni and Dougie.

yes Bazz, I do have a lot of willingness to support groups, but they need to be better at asking not telling.

Fame is an amazing thing!

We don't push people for cash, we just tell people about what we're doing locally and if anyone wants to go to help [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and join in great, if not great!

This policy seems to be working very well.

Without intending to jerk any tears, we finally managed to get little Ilian to hospital for his operation. We found him some weeks ago with a massive hernia between his legs that was so large that he could not run and play or even wear trousers so he had to wear dresses.

Apart from this his very life was in danger because if the hernia should twist he would die, but despite this his mother was terrified of authority and so she ran away with Ilian 3 times when the car went to collect them for hospital... and of course he had no documents!!

When we were finally able to take him for his examination the surgeon said he had a chest infection and so everything was put back a week and Muddy Footprint bought all the medication to make him well enough for his operation.

We are so very grateful to everyone who helped us with this. Ilian was discharged when the surgeon saw him running up and down the ward...a whole new experience for him...now he can run and play like other children.

We received 17 bin bags of clothes from the UK and BG and took them to our new Centre for sorting...some of it still has labels on.

As well as this we now have a famous DJ who plugs us on his shows and that has led to donations from as far afield the US of A!

He is planning a live broadcast with live bands in our local town to help raise funds for the projects we currently have on the drawing board, one of these is the European Computer Driving Licence, a basic IT training programme that enables students to gain a internationally recognised IT qualification which will help them get a job.

Our new Centre has an IT suite fitted with desks, 15 desktop computers and screens just waiting for us to get started with the ECDL!

We also got a call from the CEO of Holcim, who has pledged cement for our redevelopment projects...so cooking with gas...exciting times thank you!

John

paddy wrote:

just had a look at there site, and it is similar, to hands of hope in Romania, all good causes and I wish them well.
but we all have to agree that money is not always the answer, as if they start to put their hand out as much as you want to help you find your doing it all the time and then we start seeing the begging I am not saying this is the case but people who have visited BG more than once and visited some of the villagers will know what they are showing are toilets that are just holes in the ground and outside kitchens that is a Bulgarian home, it is also very odd that on there meet the team page it does not mention the last names of the people that run the show this bit alone would concern me. but again I am sure that maybe an over site. will follow what they do and I think I will put it on my next list to visit them when back over as they are about 150klms from my home.  

Good point Paddy, I'll get the web guy to look into it.

John

varnagirl wrote:

or you may have already shot yourself in the foot john !
as your attitude to those members , yes including me . was...not nice to say the least

I really do not want to rehash the past but my point was simply this and it had nothing to do with the Charity.

What finally got to me was an observation I have made many times before to try to get some life and vigour back into that forum (NOT THIS ONE!) because the same few faithfuls put up posts, perhaps 50 people would read them and 3 would actually comment although the post may have been simply inviting people for a view on a certain topic, so not rocket science, and it seemed to me that under those circumstances if those faithful few stopped posting...there would be no forum...simples!

I wanted people to realise this and then make the effort to do their bit to make it as interesting and lively as possible by sharing their views... so my attitude, what attitude?? I just told the truth as I saw it.

Simply pointing out the obvious...givers and takers

John

muddyfootprint wrote:

varnagirl wrote:

or you may have already shot yourself in the foot john !
as your attitude to those members , yes including me . was...not nice to say the least

I really do not want to rehash the past but my point was simply this and it had nothing to do with the Charity.

What finally got to me was an observation I have made many times before to try to get some life and vigour back into that forum (NOT THIS ONE!) because the same few faithfuls put up posts, perhaps 50 people would read them and 3 would actually comment although the post may have been simply inviting people for a view on a certain topic, so not rocket science, and it seemed to me that under those circumstances if those faithful few stopped posting...there would be no forum...simples!

I wanted people to realise this and then make the effort to do their bit to make it as interesting and lively as possible by sharing their views... so my attitude, what attitude?? I just told the truth as I saw it.

Simply pointing out the obvious...givers and takers

John

No , I bet you dont
Ive followed your posts on that forum from the first day you joined...if I had not.. I could believe the rest of this  post..but  .
as for you attitude  yes . your attitude , it  was an Insult to all the members
a lot that had bent over backwards to help you when needed
givers and takers , thats right !!!
carry on . I shant comment anymore

this post was much better, and good luck, with updating your charity website, as personally I would not help fund any charity that does not disclose the peoples names as it looks like they are hiding something, even if they are not.
also attitude, yes I agree with most of the people on this forum that your attitude is totally wrong, however I have and still am their when it comes to attitude, I am constantly re- writing stuff because I really want to say things that I think need to be said, but then I re-write it so the people read it and don't think I am a T*** and I think in this case that's how you have come over, perhaps a quarterly news letter might help, all in all best of luck and when I am over I will try my best to visit your charity and see what your doing.

paddy wrote:

this post was much better, and good luck, with updating your charity website, as personally I would not help fund any charity that does not disclose the peoples names as it looks like they are hiding something, even if they are not.
also attitude, yes I agree with most of the people on this forum that your attitude is totally wrong, however I have and still am their when it comes to attitude, I am constantly re- writing stuff because I really want to say things that I think need to be said, but then I re-write it so the people read it and don't think I am a T*** and I think in this case that's how you have come over, perhaps a quarterly news letter might help, all in all best of luck and when I am over I will try my best to visit your charity and see what your doing.

Thanks Paddy... on the subject of names published, we do of course have our oh so hard won Charity Reg No which is 177017725.

As well as this we learned we could not approach either EU funders or Governments with just that Reg No, so off we went to Montana again and another 450 lev spent to get full Charity status which included police checks...previously we were apparently a Charity 'Foundation!'

Yee haa!

John