I'm a firm believer in charitable giving and I'll tell you why: I believe in being good. I believe in morals and principles that surpass a need for basis in religious dogma. I believe we are all human beings and we all deserve a good, safe life and the best chances to have it. I believe in trying to make the world better in whatever small way you can. I'm trying to raise children that share that belief and will go out in to their world on their terms and hopefully carry on the same legacy of helping and giving.
I'd love to be able to dedicate more time to actual volunteering work, because as we all know the most precious of gifts is your time and perhaps when the kiddos are older that is exactly what I will do. For now my options are limited in that regard. So we donate. One of the most unique wedding presents we got was a pre-paid subscription donation thing to adopt a polar bear. Which was awesome, and the money got funneled back into the organization that cared for them and their habitat. As for Aaron and I personally, we tend to favour child-focused charities and health charities. We do NOT give to any charity that is backed, or operated by a church or religious group, and we try to research our chosen charities to be sure that the majority of their revenue actually goes to their chosen beneficiaries. We sponsor a no-longer-so-little boy in Bangladesh where Aaron spent several years of his childhood, and we give to a charity supporting children in third world countries, and for one off choices we usually opt for Water Aid and Amnesty International, the latter of which has an awesome 84% of its revenue going towards its cause.

If you want to check out and find some good charities to support, or want to do some research into the charities you already support, here are two decent sites for doing that. The first even shows you what percentage of their income actually goes towards their mission, too.

http://www.aliveandgiving.com
http://www.charitynavigator.org

Today, though, I want to talk to you about a cause a little closer to my heart personally. Giving to charity is all well and good, and I think it is often very easy to forget when you live on the side of the donator how much it means. I don't think we ever really think about what it means for the people on the other side of the transaction. I don't think we do or -can- really connect with that. So let me tell you why this cause is so dear to me.

A few years ago when I was still working full time in the Out-of-School club we had within our flock of 24 kids a little girl called Ellie. Now Ellie has princess ringlet blond hair and a wickedly mischievous little grin. Now before the year started we were told that Ellie was joining us this year and that she had some medical issues and would require someone to be with her or close by around the clock while she was in the premises, and I will hands up admit that the idea of the extra work was not warmly welcomed. But that was forgotten almost immediately when I met Ellie.

She didn't have a diagnosis at the time, and I cannot imagine how heartbreaking that was for her parents, to know that something was wrong and not to know what it was and therefore how to fight it. The unknown issue was affecting her muscles, it was making her a little wobbly when she walked and her strength and coordination were not brilliant but she could still walk, and talk even if her speech was sometimes a little slurred. But whatever it was that they were trying to diagnose it was progressive, and in the few short years I was there, Ellie went from walking around with only slight aid to being fully wheelchair bound. From having strained speech to no speech. But you know what didn't change?

Ellie.

She didn't need speech to make you laugh, she could be just as cheeky and funny without words as she ever was with them, and she was. She was bright, cheeky, funny and stubborn as old boots about getting her way, regardless of what new chair or bike or wheel chair she had it never stood in her way. We'd get her outside in her special bike and you couldn't push her fast enough for love nor money, she steered it like a madwoman and found crashing it hilarious. Particularly if it was into people’s feet.
There is another side to this too. A side that I think gets overlooked even MORE. The caregivers of these awesome people suffering awful things. Their families and friends that are there around the clock providing the care and shouldering the extra mountains of responsibility and stress. Ellie's family, her mother, father and brother have been an unspoken source of inspiration for me since I have known them. And I don't know them well, I can't lay claim to that, all I know if that when they dropped her off and picked her up every day they were always friendly, always smiling. Always trying. Always fighting. I've never met nicer people and not only that, but generous people, regardless of the unimaginable strain they were under so constantly, they would always turn up with cakes and buns for our parties, wine at Christmas and drop off heaps and piles of resources throughout the year for the center, tissues, loo roll stuff that always helped us out. Despite their own troubles they always kept their chins up and they always helped others. They have my admiration and my respect. I am not sure I could do what they do with such grace and dignity.
Eventually they reached a diagnosis; H-ABC, an incredibly rare brain disorder, and Ellie was the 22nd person in the world diagnosed with it. It is caused by a genetic mutation and causes a break-down in brain function primarily in the area's that deal with motor skills and coordination, it progressively reducing movement to next to nothing, including movement of the vocal chords, and muscles for swallowing. Ellie, for all her eight years has soldiered through brain surgery, feeding tubes and all too many hospital stays. H-ABC usually affects children in infancy or early childhood. It's progressive, it is debilitating, and it is awful.

Knowing Ellie and her family even in the small way I did both warmed my heart and broke it in equal and constant measure. They deserve better, they deserve everything we can do for them.
So here is what we are doing.

Aaron and I rounded up all of the spare copies of all of his books that we could find in the house, author copies are not for resale, but we asked Black Library if we could make the exception to that considering the circumstance and they agreed to let us sell them for this cause, so a big shout out of thanks to the ever-lovely folks at BL. So with that in mind I researched into running a raffle online, I wanted to keep it online as I know so many of you that might be interested live all over the world, but it turns out that there is a minefield of licensees and legalities involved with raffles so instead we are going to Ebay auction them off, and ALL of the proceeds (Save the P+P obviously) will be going to Ellie's Fund. Complete with copies of all the transactions to be sure everything is above board and accounted for.

Ellies Fund splits its revenue between two sources, the research into H-ABC and how to fight and combat this horrific and rare brain disorder, and Horizon West Hospice, which is a local hospice charity that funds and runs the hospices that offer children like Ellie and their families so much invaluable support and care.

|If you want to donate to Ellie's fund and you aren't all that interested in Warhammer, you can always just add a personal donation on her MyDonate page here: https://mydonate.bt.com/events/elliesresearchfund

And if you'd like to keep up with news and developments you can check out her Facebook groups and show your support here: https://www.facebook.com/EllieNichollsPage/info/?tab=page_info

So without further adieu the list of books we will be selling is below. All these books will be signed by Aaron, of course. If you would like a dedication or message you can leave us a note with the Ebay sale and we'll try and make that happen. I will be posting the auctions on Tuesday December the 1st and they will be live for a full week. You can catch a reminder about the auctions going live on any or all of the social media links at the top of this page as well as both Aaron and my personal pages.

Thank you in advance and remember it's for an awesome cause!

Betrayer (Hardback) x5.
Armageddon x2.
Helsreach x1.
Night Lords Omnibus x1.
The First Heretic x2.
Master of the First / The Long Night (CD) x2.
Blood Reaver x2.
Blood and Fire (Hardback) x2.
Prince of Crows (Hardback) x2.
Aurelian (Hardback) x2.
The Imperial Truth (Hardback) x2.
Ragnar Blackmane (Hardback) x1.
Honour Imperialis (with Cadian Blood) x2.