Neil Shearing’s Internet Marketing Strategies

This blog is proudly supporting Paul Smithson (creator of the excellent XSitePro software) on his 10Km charity run in September.

As someone who has worked for the charity Cancer Research UK as a Ph.D. student, I feel able to thank Paul on behalf of the scientists researching cancer and trying to find cures for the various forms of cancer. Without fundraising, I wouldn’t have been able to do my Ph.D. and make my small contribution to the body of work on breast cancer.

Here’s what Paul sent to his lists a few hours ago…

—
It’s Paul Smithson here from XSitePro.

I’m writing to you today about something that’s completely unrelated to internet marketing or computer software, but it’s something I’d REALLY appreciate your support with.

Let me tell you why …

Three years ago I had a massive wake up call.

I’d had a small spot on my stomach for several months. I went to see the doctor about it and he said it was just an ingrowing mosquito bite and was nothing to worry about.

A few months later I went back to see the same doctor and he agreed to perform the minor operation to remove it. When I say minor operation I mean really minor. A quick local anesthetic and then whoosh, he sliced it off with a scalpel.

As far as I was concerned that was the end of that, but unfortunately it wasn’t.

Five weeks later I was preparing to fly to Memphis when I received a phone call from the doctor. I was asked to go to see them IMMEDIATELY. Normally you’re lucky if you can get an appointment for the following day, but they wanted me in there and then - no messing around.

On arriving at the surgery I was ushered into the Doctors office where he sat me down. I knew something was wrong by the look on his face.

“Paul, I’m sorry to tell you but you’ve got cancer”

Silence.

“And it’s serious. Really serious”.

You can imagine what was going through my mind.

I told him about my business trip to Memphis and that I was flying in two days. He told me there was no way I could go as I needed an operation as soon as possible.

I drove home in a trance and spent the rest of the day trying to find out everything I could about skin cancer. Trust me, if you’ve ever had anything like this happen to you, the last thing you want to do is look it up on the Internet.

A few days later I went into hospital where they performed two operations and then spent the next few weeks on tenterhooks waiting for the biopsy to be completed.

Finally, I got the phone call I had been waiting for and dreading at the same time.

I’m pleased to say it was GREAT news.

They’d caught the cancer early enough and the prognosis was excellent.

You can imagine how relieved I was.

One minute you’re thinking you’ve got a death sentence hanging over you and the next you’ve been given a clean bill of health.

So, I’m pleased to say that you’ll have to put up with me for many many more years to come (I hope).

Unfortunately, not everyone is as lucky as I was and that’s what prompted me to do this 10km run next month. Cancer research is so important that I wanted to do anything I could to help.

And that’s where you come in.

On September 16 I’m doing a run to raise money for cancer research. It’s a 10km run, which for me is the furthest I’ve run for twenty odd years. I’ve been in training for the past couple of months and don’t have a clue how I’m going to make it round (it’s rather a hilly course), but I’m absolutely determined to do it.

I’m e-mailing all the XSitePro users, and anyone else I can think of, and asking if you’d be kind enough to sponsor me on this run. It doesn’t matter whether it’s $5 or $1000, £1 or £100, or 10 euros or 10,000 euros, whatever you can give will be very much appreciated.

Rather than you giving the money to me and then me handing it over to the Cancer Research charity, they’ve set me up a special page, so that the money goes straight into their bank account.

Here’s the link.

http://www.10ksponsorme.org/paulsmithson

You’ll notice that the amounts are listed as pounds rather than dollars. That’s because it’s Cancer Research UK, but to give you a quick idea of the dollar/pound conversion rate all you need to do is double it. Here’s a quick ready reckoner for US$.

£5 = $10
£10 = $20
£50 = $100
£250 = $500
£500 = $1000

The charge on your credit card will go through as your normal currency.

And remember, it doesn’t matter what the amount is, absolutely anything will be very much appreciated.

I really do hope you can help me with this.

Thanks so much,

Paul
—

Good luck with the 10K run Paul!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007 at 4:23 pm and is filed under Current posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.