Breast Cancer Campaign - Donation Made

Hi Everyone.
Thank you for your support in the last 6 weeks, by way of your purchases from Filofax UK via Philofaxy we managed to earn nearly £81 in commission. I've just made a donation to Breast Cancer Campaign with this money and added a donation of my own:

Dear Mr Morton

Thank you very much for your generous donation of £100.00 to Breast Cancer Campaign. You have also allowed us to claim Gift Aid which will add an extra 28p to every £1 you have donated, for which we are most grateful.

Thanks to research, more women than ever before are beating breast cancer and your gift is vital to our continued success.

Thank you once again for being one of the people whose generosity is bringing us closer to beating breast cancer.

With kind regards,


Arlene Wilkie
Director of Research and Policy

P.S.
Have you made a New Year’s resolution to get fit? Then why not join one of Breast Cancer Campaign’s brilliant challenges and have fun and fundraise at the same time! We have a challenge to suit everyone – check out our events and sign up today!

Again thank you for your support. I will do a similar charity donation in a few months time. 

Regards
Steve

Web Finds and News Update

The last one of January, where did the month disappear to... I know was in UK for over two weeks, but it's just disappeared. I have now just about caught up and I'm getting my own systems in to place for the new year properly.

I'm still happily using the A4 as my desk diary/planner, which is working great, the bigger space is even more critical now, because out of the blue our business here in France has taken off, not through the lack of trying. My wife Alison (she of the hand!) and I are property search consultants with our company Loire Thouet Property Search. So the space in my A4 gives me plenty of room to plan out appointments with agents for viewings and visits to towns. I have the job as 'wheel man' and 'shutter-man' with my camera! Also my ability to see a potentially beautiful house out of what most people would see as a pile of stones! My good sense of direction helps us find our way around some of the leafy lanes too!

My pocket Chameleon continues to do sterling work as my carry around Filofax planner, in a way it duplicates some of the functions of the A4 but in a lot smaller package, it is also my wallet too. I keep looking at other bags to carry my Pocket in as well as my other stuff, but I've not found anything that can compare for ruggedness of my ex-CD Walkman shoulder bag.

Today I re-jigged my Finsbury Personal Slimline as my Photography notebook. Essential when you are taking photos of say 20 different houses over 3-4 days, which one was the one in walking distance of the village bakery.... I am also keeping it as a general notebook and my central point for To-Do lists now too. Although I will most probably move these around between organisers as required.

I'm also using a normal Finsbury Personal as my journal to record some of the detail of life in general on more or less day to day basis, although I often miss days. I should be better at this stuff I know!

So some great posts from the interwebs over the weekend:

• My Filofax Family - I just loved the way Lucy 'posed' all of her collection for this 'photo shoot' I can see me 'copying' some of these ideas in future posts, when the weather warms up, I will venture out beyond our Ikea coffee table which serves as the usual background for most of the pictures you see!
• And these are a few of my favourite things - Dottie K shows off her latest Filofax and how she has customised her phone to match it.  
• Still working on it - Danish GTD is promising some photos of his rearranged set up, show them some support and we look forward to the seeing the pictures. 
• Random radio jottings and other gubbins - OK not a Filofax blog, but one about radio shows in UK of yesterday year. The author is a friend of ours here in France and he has a friend in UK who I know is a Philofaxy reader... take a look and show some support.

Coming up on Philofaxy soon... a quiz which I know you will find fun and might frustrate you at the same time... I'm still writing the questions, but it is shaping up nicely... watch this space as they say..

Have a good week.

Discussion Forum

There has been a huge response in the comments to the last FFAF (60+ comments) and there has been requests before for a discussion forum to be attached to Philofaxy.

So I've done some initial investigations in to this, but before we dive headlong in to having a Forum in addition to the blog, let me first of all layout as I see it, the the upside and the downside of having a discussion forum attached to the blog.

1. It is possible that the discussion forum would dilute the comments we get on posts on the blog. 
2. The Philofaxy discussion forum would possibly duplicate the discussion group already in place on the Flickr Group.
3. The Philofaxy discussion forum would be yet another site to visit, maintain, read etc to keep up to date with all the latest news. 
4. The Philofaxy discussion forum would be separated in to different categories which would focus the discussion on particular topics (see picture below)
5. Before you could post on the Philofaxy discussion forum you would have to register with a Username and Password, although 'Guests' would be able to read the Forum. There would not be an easy way of tying the log in to say OpenID or your Google account, it would be completely separate, just as your Skype Account is separate.
6. There is a risk of spam associated with the Forum, that we currently don't see with the comments. The Philofaxy discussion forum would therefore need some form of moderation and moderators would need to be appointed. 
7. There would occasionally be duplication on the blog and the forum, for instance announcements about Sales Offers, Roundtable events, Meet ups etc. But the normal blog posts about using your Filofax, or reviews etc should remain on the blog as they are now. 

That all said I do have extensive experience of running Forums on-line so once set up, it's well within my skill base to run the thing. It's just that I've had some bad experiences in running a Forum in the past, hence my caution.

I am also cautious about forcing something on you the readers that might upset the excellent community spirit that we have built up over the last couple of years or more. I'm not predicting that would change, but in a way I'm seeking your approval/support before we add this extra facility.

So here is what it might look like:

 

Click on the picture to see a full size version of it. The photos section would in fact be just a redirection link to the Philofaxy Flickr Group, I see no point in reinventing that site when it's already working very well. 

All the Categories/Sections can be renamed/amended/reordered and descriptions added, although I think it's fairly straight forward? 

Depending on the response to this idea, if people are mixed in their views I would be happy to put it to a vote on the site to decide on the addition. Or may be a trial of a discussion forum for say a couple of months to see how well it is received, what problems or benefits we gain etc?

Discuss......

Date for your Filofax - Sunday 6 Feb 2011

We are going to run another conference roundtable voice chat using Skype.

I'm sure we are gradually getting to know each other's voices, but I will make a point of going 'around the table' to get everyone to introduce themselves this time.

So...When, Where, What, Who and How?

When? - Sunday 6 February from 12am (US East Coast time), 5pm London time, 6 pm Paris time etc.

Where? - an on-line chat using Skype.

What do I need? - just a micro-phone and a free Skype account.

Who - All of you... connect up with Philofaxy and we will attempt to get as many of us linked in to the audio conference as possible.

How -

1. Connect to Philofaxy by firstly searching for Philofaxy in Skype, I will then add you as a contact.
2. Then  'Start Chat',  I will then add you in to the chat room. 
3. Then if you request it, I can add you to the audio conference as well. But if you just want to chat via keyboard that's fine. That way it's slightly less hectic for me! 

Come and join in the fun, even if you only pop in to say hello...

As with previous round-tables there will also be a parallel text chat room going at the same time as the voice conference.

If you need any assistance setting up Skype, please pop a comment in this post and I will try and help you get one line. Skype is free for computer to computer calls....

Hope to be chatting with you next Sunday.

Free for All Friday No. 115

The inspiration for this Friday's Free for All comes from longtime reader Kerowyn, who is on a quest for a Personal Filofax that lies flat for ease of reading and writing. Of course, almost any Filofax will lie flat with enough wear, and A5s are more likely to lie flat by dint of size, but have any of you found a Personal that is designed to lie flat out of the box?

As always, feel free also to expound on any other topics that are on your mind.