Tuesday, 28 June 2011

Balsal Heath Carnival

Gota another one under my belt.

We as Mougal Fish and Chip shop (my dads old chip shop on Ladypool Road) usually held a stall at the Balsal Heath Carnival in Pickwick Park every year and it was always a success. I have managed to bag a stall there again this year and will be doing what we do best... sell samosas, pakoras, chaat, drinks, and of course have a mandatory mehendi stall on the side! We have had lots and lots of ideas on this one, including having a barbecue and selling seikh kebab hotdogs cakes, etc but it all gets a bit out of hand if you try to do too much.

So thats this saturday. I hope the weather is really good and the turnout is amazing because I we will need to sell lots and lots!

On another note, I am now quite busy preparing a presentation for Yarnfield School for next Mondays assembly. I want it to be quite interactive and exciting. I will put together a powerpoint of pictures, maps and diagrams, and also have some props. I would like some audience participation but will have to think of how this will work out.

I still need to get more people to make sponsorships though. The events are working out ok but individual sponsorships are quite slow at the moment. Maybe this will pick up in Ramadan but I need to get a few more events in. Samosa Sale round 2 coming up!

Friday, 24 June 2011

Lots more planning.

Did a whole lot more planning today. It was quite constructive. After the overwhelming success of the samosa sale, I have had lots of encouragement to do another. I have been quite apprehensive, not because of putting the effort in as I loved doing the first one, but because I don't want people to think that I am taking the Mick. However, lots have said that they would love to have some more of the samosas so I have decided to do another one just before the kids break up. Second or third week of July. I have also got underway with planing for Yarnfield schools charity event and will try to get Greet on board. With SIL Shaz F, we might organise the summer féte for the school or get a charity event on. I think I will also contact Al-Furqan and maybe Al-Ameen the very local Islamic schools. I also have to contact Pickwick park fair organisers and see if I can get a few stalls there. We have lots of ideas such as food stalls, obstacle courses, name the bear, goal shooting, basketball shooting and henna patterns.
So lots more fundraising to be done!




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Thursday, 23 June 2011

@AlanHinkes

Very happy. Alan Hinkes, Britains most accomplished mountaineer who has climbed all 14 of the 8000 metre peaks in the world and the seven summits and everything else gave me some advice in climbing Kilimanjaro today! He Is also following me on twitter now which for me is amazing!
So now if I follow his advise, I can't possibly go wrong. Just condition, condition, condition. You can't really prepare for the altitude part bar being healthy but you have to condition your body for the fatigue.
Anyway, back to Arabic study.


Alan Hinkes. A legend.

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Tuesday, 21 June 2011

The samosa sale

It's been a long long day. Yesterday I bought the last few things I needed for the samosa sale: cups and tissues. I also created some "this way" signs... ok, actually I just got the original poster and plastered a great big "this way" plastered on it... it wasn't that exciting.

Unfortunately for me, Tuesday is not a very flexible day as I have to drop Ismail to school so I was at Work for 0930 at the earliest. Once in the office, my list of 'to do's' was quite long. Printing off stuff, compiling the emails to go out, taking everything downstairs, setting up the display, etc etc. At 1020 I get the call that the samosas have arrived. So I just had to dash downstairs, get the guys to load a trolly too small to hold 8 boxes of samosas and take it to the basement rest area ( no it's not a toilet... it has tables and chairs for people to have their lunch there). Paid them. Unloaded all but two boxes, took them to 4th floor and lo the selling began. I had to ask Paul to dash downstairs to get started on things there whilst I printed posters and got the rest of the stuff down.


I had to nick some plastic gloves from the first aid room too which was a bit cheeky but better then being unhygienic!
They sold, and sold and sold. It was non stop for an hour whilst me Paul and Will fought the crowds, Abrar helped with stuff on the 4th floor and putting up the displays etc. People were so generous. There was lots of encouragement for the climb, lots of extra donations a d great general banter. I really really enjoyed myself. Took me right back to the chip shop days!


Anyway at around 1230 we were left with around 11 samosas at which point the lift opens and out come Anne, Phil and Jules! Anne bought the remaining samosas and all was packed up (sorry the picture's a little blurred). An absolutely sterling job by all the team whom I cannot thank enough.


I made a clean £405 in total today which I am totally blown away by.

Lots have asked for a repeat event but I'm a bit apprehensive because I don't want it to seem like I'm milking my colleagues at the Council. However, if they decide they're game for another one... Bring it on!!
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Monday, 20 June 2011

All set and ready for the samosa sale

Most of the prep that I need doing is now done for my samosa sale. I've just bought cups and tissues etc. Tomorrow at 10.30 800 samosas will turn up at A gate at work and I'll have to shift them. I really hope they all sell. I'll try to sort a display out as well to tell people a bit more about what I'm doing. I guess I left out a lot of detail from the poster. Paul, Will, Saaied and maybe Amjid have very very kindly agreed to help me. I can't really do it without them so I will have to owe them.

On another front, I have finally got myself a foam roller. A what? A foam roller... "what the hell you gonna do with one of those?"
Well, this is no ordinary foam roller. It's about 2 feet long and 15cm in diameter. My iliotibial band (ITB) which runs from my hip to my knee has been playing up recently which has pulled my patellar (knee cap) out of alignment. It's causing me all sorts of problems and walking on it is particularly bad. So apparently the way to sort it is to put the roller on the floor and roll up and down on it. Sounds weird. I'll post a picture! For now, here's my foam roller in the picture. Please pray that my sosa sale goes to plan.

Oh. I also found out today that there are 12 of us going on the trek. I text Adnaan today wondering whether the 'team' was going to get together before the trek. He said we would meet at the end of July. I hope that doesnt clash with my Arabic exams.

I also hit the 20% Mark on my fundraising so it's steadily moving forward.

Please encourage family and friends to sponsor me in this noble cause.

It's no fun blogging on an iPhone




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Monday, 13 June 2011

Wasim has just been over to help me create a fantastic poster for my samosa sale at work next week. This is looking pretty amazing! Good friends.... especially those that are amazing at the ole photoshop stuff! Cheers Wasim!

The BIG samosa sale!

The sponsors have started coming in and I have just arranged my first major fundraising event. The Great Big Samosa Sale at Lancaster Circus!

It's gonna be BIG and its very very ambitious but with the grace of god inshallah, I will sell all 800 samosas. Yes, I could live to regret this but 800 samosas is what I have ordered and I intend on selling every last one of them.

I'm hoping that it'll raise me around £300 which is a very good jump forward but I'm slightly worried that I might end up with 2-300 unsold samosas. I wonder how I'll offload them.

After this, I will really start badgering people to go onto my justgiving page and make a donation.

I also spoke to dad yesterday about getting Molvi Gulaam Rasool to help me raise some money. He is one helluva superstar molvi when it comes to raising money. I now need to pluck up some more courage and get As-Suffa involved, park fairs involved and Mosaic involved.

I've also got to start walking a bit more too so I might just walk home today...