Lets all club together to help Hodgey!

[lowrisk]

Hey Guys

This thread may drone on a bit, but bear with me, it’s all good.

I am writing this thread for three reasons really:

1) To repay a debt of gratitude in some way to somebody whom I respect and who has helped me a lot since he and I began working together.
2) To help said person raise vital funds for an excellent charitable cause.
3) I am the self appointed "fund raising bitch"

Now, all of us, or many of us working within the igaming affiliate industry will be familiar with HodgeyBoy, or “The Hodge” aka Anthony Hodgetts, currently Head of Affiliates at Coral Interactive.

If any of you don’t work with Coral, then you may have worked with Anthony in the past when he was at Betfred, Stan James, Bet 365 or Victor Chandler, it’s safe to say when the man’s name is mentioned, there are very few people with a bad word to say about him, and always a funny story of some sort follows.

If the name still isn’t ringing a bell, perhaps a face will?

He can frequently be seen at many affiliate conferences, as the life and soul of the party, sporting some dance floor thumbs up action.



Or, doing his bit for the Movember charity during November, sporting a truly awesome mo.



In fact, even before and after November, he gets so into it, he even wears jumpers that contain mos!



Well, this time, Anthony is going above and beyond, by taking part in a truly grueling challenge, the 2013 London Marathon to raise money for Operation Smile, which takes place in just eight days time, on Sunday the 21st of April 2013.

If any of you aren't familiar with Operation Smile it is a non-profit childrens medical charity for children born with Cleft palates and lips, they operate in over 60 countries providing free corrective surgery, helping ensure many kids can all have a beautiful smile for life.

It is a sad fact, that even at the present time in some parts of the developing world, children are considered "frightening" or "socially unacceptable" if they are born with this, and were unfairly excluded from society, for something which a small routine operation, costing as little as £145, could resolve, and make a child smile.

Anthony has set himself a target of £3000, which if achieved could potentially allow twenty children to be able to have the freedom to smile and shine for life, quite literally putting smiles on the faces of twenty children!. At time of writing he has raised £1204.63 which is around 40% of his target. I think if all of us contributed just a small amount, or whatever we can, we could easily help him smash that target!

I think it is a truly admirable thing to do, to go through months of training leading up to the even and the significant monetary cost, i.e entry costs, flights, hotels to get to London, and crucially cost in terms of the time spent training and of course, the taking part! I struggle just running a bath never mind a marathon.

On a professional level, Anthony has always seemed the sort of manager who would help any affiliate, no matter how big or small. I recall after my very first LAC in 2012, he rang me and spent over two hours giving me extensive feedback on lowriskwinners site re-design, as well as various other suggestions and so forth, many of his suggestions shaped the very site as it is now, and for that I will remain extremely grateful to him, and respect him very much too! I also respect him for taking part in this, it is extremely tough no doubt, and is not a task any average Joe could do!

I am going to kick start this by donating £100, I think it is an excellent cause, which hopefully will give many children a smile for life which we all take for granted! The event is being carried out by a very respectable person whom I have owed a great debt of gratitude to to this day.

So, can we all club together and help him smash his target. It'd be fantastic for him to fly over to the UK, knowing he has already achieved his first target of raising £3000.

You can donate here http://www.justgiving.com/anthony-hodgetts, also if you're a UK tax payer, why not gift aid, it gives an extra 25% to the cause!

All that's left to say is RUN HODGEY RUN!!!!!

[lowrisk]

Bump Bump

[thebookiesoffers]

Nice one Ant, good on you mate

[lowrisk]

Do you think you might be able to manage a small donation Aidan?

[Marit VS]

Great post and great cause! Lowrisk - you make an awesome fund raising bitch

[Anthony-Coral]

WoW.... o_0

When Ryan told me he was going to help me raise funds I didn't expect this!

I'm really grateful for his help and for the lengths he has gone to to write his OP, although I think that he may have over-played my part in his progress It is true that the number of Brands I have worked with makes my LinkedIn page a little like playing 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon!

I'd really appreciate any donations that GPWA members can spare, if any of you are interested I'll post a little below about why I'm running the marathon and what my motivation is, so huge thanks to Ryan and for anyone reading, apologies if any of the pictures come out HuuuugE! .....

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My son Nathan is now 4 years old and when was born he had a cleft lip and palate


Thanks to the NHS, within 3 months he'd had the first of three operations to repair the cleft...



and now he's fine, but it's not really about Nathan...

I wanted to do something for other children exactly like Nathan but who didn't have access to any kind of NHS, purely because of the geography of their birth.

Its about so much more than making a cosmetic improvement; A cleft lip or palate is the third most common birth defect in the world, 1 in 10 will die before their first birthday. in the most severe cases, a cleft can leave a child unable to eat, speak or breath properly - let alone smile. Often these children will face a life of exclusion, discrimination and even abuse with no chance to fulfil their potential.

In the UK these children will be treated for free before they are one but in the poorest parts of the world the surgery can either be too expensive or unavailable.

Operation Smile is an international charity that travels to the poorest parts of the world to perform facial reconstruction surgery that is often life-saving and is always transformative.

They also promote sustainability by training local volunteers and professionals to offer the necessary support and follow up care and even help train local surgeons to be able to carry out the operations themselves in the future.

Now here's one of those videos...


So that's it, that's why I'm running the London marathon next week... If any of you have got this far and are interested in supporting me you can go to http://www.justgiving.com/anthony-hodgetts or click the link in my signature below where you'll be able to find out more as well as make a secure donation by either bank transfer or paypal

[lowrisk]

Thumbs up for the donation Marit

[lowrisk]

Aidan, just noticed you have donated, Thanks, you're quite literally making Children smile and giving them a much better quality of life too!

[baldidiot]

Good on you mate - best of luck for the race

[lowrisk]

The donations are coming in wonderfully, I love charity, everybody clubbing together for a good cause - It's great. - Edging closer and closer to his target

[AE-Martyn]

Hodgey, I just got hard nipples reading this. You're doing an awesome thing and if I wasn't as fat, lazy and without crap knees I'd be right there with you.

Best of luck for the race and I hope you hit the target. x

[Anthony-Coral]

:{to : )

Cleft to Smile

This video was published last week about Operation Smile in India and it says a lot about why I'm raising money

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5uuuxxSn0g

[dapbet]

Anthony
Good luck with the run - great cause to support

dave
www.freebets.com

[Anthony-Coral]

And if that wasn't enough......

Here's a picture of Francisco to pull at your heart strings,

"...he was born into poverty in Brazil, his parents struggled to understand his condition, they simply couldn't fathom why he had to endure so much suffering whilst they were powerless to help. When they learned about Operation Smile they travelled for 5 hours to the Medical Centre in the hope that Operation Smile could help him...., and they did



<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hodgeyboy74/8660542538/" title="Francisco by HodgeyBoy, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8116/8660542538_a85fe546bd.jpg" width="449" height="500" alt="Francisco"></a>

[clarar]

Wow, this is beautiful and an amazing cause to support.

Best of lucks on the race!

[Anthony-Coral]

LAST FEW DAYS HAVE BEEN UNBELIEVABLE!

Can't believe I've actually broken the £2,000 barrier with your help...

the amount of support you've all given me is incredible, I am so grateful to you all and especially to Ryan @ LowRiskWinner for getting this thread up for me

You Guys ALL Rock! \m/(><)\m/

[GamTrak]

Wishing you the best of luck in your goal Anthony! Wish I could give much more.

[lowrisk]

It doesn't matter how little or how big your donation is my friend, every little bit helps towards the target!

[lowrisk]

Hodgey now needs just £951.85 to reach his target, we truly can do this guys. If you haven't yet donated, I beg you, it is for a brilliant cause and it will be extremely well utilized to assist Children and allowing them to have a great quality of life and a future they so rightly deserve.

If you haven't donated yet, the links here http://www.justgiving.com/anthony-hodgetts

[Anthony-Coral]

What a day!

Received £400 in donations today with a combination of money raised from a raffle at the Gibraltar offices of Coral and the guys at Gala, all boosted by Nicky Senyard and the amazing guys at Income Access!

This means I have less than £500 to go to reach my target of £3,000!

It's been an amazing week and I never thought I'd get anywhere close to raising this much money. Thanks to all of you for the amazing support you have given me.