So, the youngling is raising cash for a charity trip to India next summer. He’ll be going to the north, near the border with Tibet, where he’ll be helping out with Tibetan refugees, children, and Tibetan refugee children…
He has to raise the money himself, and we’ve been doing fairly well. We started by selling some unwanted stuff on eBay (moderately profitable, not overly time consuming, but not that reliable), we’ve done a car boot sale (moderately profitable, very time consuming, probably a one-off), and we’ve got a little cottage industry running selling decorative acrylic domes. That ones been pretty good, as it turns out that pensioners at the seaside can’t resist shiny things if they have a good back-story.
The latest idea to come from the organisers is internet fundraising. They suggested a shopping website, where visitors can click on a whole host of links to various retailers, and the fundraisee gets a cut of whatever they spend. Not a bad idea, and we might end up doing that too, but it made me think: why not cut out the middle-man and go straight to the retailer myself?
Turns out it’s pretty easy with Amazon. You just sign up for their associate programme, get approved and then add some links to your website. Like falling off a log, particularly if you happen to work with computers all the time, right? Well, maybe not. I’m not used to this blogging software, so working out where on earth I’m supposed to put things to get them appearing in the right place is making my head hurt. Doubtless some 19 year old wearing torn jeans who hasn’t his washed his hair in six months could probably do it in the dark in three seconds flat, but it’s taken me hours, and it’s still not quite how I want it. But it will have to do, because now I feel very old.