14th May

14th May is drawing ever closer! For those who don't know or who have forgotten this is the awards and presentations ceremony day, there is the chance to win up to £750 and £250 runners up prize. The day consists of lunch, then a dragons den style awards pitch which will involve two people from our group pitching our idea against others. The day concludes with an awards ceremony where we will hopefully win!

Frankie Fortune Wins!

There you go, our new mascot is now called Frankie Fortune. Thank you so much for the people out there who voted {22 in total} as this would never have been possible. With only a couple of weeks to the big day, we're sure that Frankie Fortune will give us good luck!

Delay!

Bad news! We have decided to delay the buying of our animation {we don't know its name yet so keep voting} because if we don't get the top three prizes {£750} in the award ceremony, which is on 14th May, we may not be able to afford it. We would like to buy all the three motions of the animation {walking, coming alive and running} for only £75! Hope for the best!
Here is the link for Toons 4 biz (http://www.toons4biz.com)

New Jingle

We are currently recording a new jingle for the campaign. If you have heard the previous jingle (at the bottom of the blog), well, if you thought that one was cheesy, this one will be worse! We will try and get it on to the blog but we may not be able to. Fingers crossed...

New Look Blog has been completed!

What do you think of the blog? We have changed the title bar, however we might wait for Luke to come back from holiday and then he could (if we asked him kindly) design a banner with the mascot peeping over the bottom (using the english one).

New Look Blogger

We are currently making a new title bar for our blog so that we can get rid of the american style mascot and put the new english one in! Please feel free to comment on what you think of the new look. This make take a while so please, have patience.

Toons 4 Biz

We have contacted Stephanie from Toons 4 biz (http://www.toons4biz.com/) and she is willing to create us an animation of the rolled note for video which we will send to Heather later next week. She said that she would discount the price for the animation as we are students, which is very kind of her. Thanks Stephanie!

Videos

Heather has sent us an email regarding the videos and animations we should send to her about our Get Cash Keep Cash campaign. She says a video on us four working on the project or perhaps an animation of our mascot. We'll get to work on what our video should be on straight away.

Keyrings

I have just been researching some keyring printers on the internet. I have contacted Plastics Direct (http://www.plastics-direct.co.uk/) and have asked them for a quote on how much some keyrings would cost with the campaign logo on.

The Demo of the Proper Website

As you may have read previously in our blog, Tony, from Ice Maiden Design, (http://www.icemaidendesign.com/), has set up a demo of the proper Get Ca$h Keep Ca$h website (http://79.170.40.53/getcashkeepcash.co.uk/newsite/index.php?content=3). When we get back to school, every lunchtime we will add or write up some more on the website so that it has a bit more 'flesh'. This has given us some great foundations to work on. Thank you!

Mentor or Work Experience?

When Heather e-mailed us about getting things for the video, one of the questions she asked us was would we like a mentor or work experience. The team decided to go for a mentor. We will get as much paraphernailia of Get Ca$h Keep Ca$h to Heather ASAP! We are also making a short video about the Campaign, which might involve some magic...

Dragon's Den

When we go back to school from our easter break, we start to write some notes and a possible script. We are doing this early so that we don't have time to do it later as we will be revising for summer exams! Won't we? We will cover everything that we have put in our blog and then extras. We have decided that Luke and Henry will do the pitch to the Change it judges

The Motion Monkey

When we had the idea of incorporating the Trading Game, which all of the team experienced on the Your Turn programme in 2007, we needed someone to make the game. After research, we found the Motion Monkey (http://www.themotionmonkey.co.uk/) they design 'flash' games for websites. I contacted Simon from The Motion Monkey asking for some guidance on the price of the average game for a website. He has emailed us back and has given us a quote, he said that cost would start at £1000 and will go up from there to around £2000. However, he said that they can work around our budget. This has given the team some vital information about the necessity of having a game considering our budget. During the meeting with Tony from Ice Maiden Design (http://www.icemaidendesign.com/) he mentioned the 'need to have' and the 'nice to have'. I think that we have discovewred that a game which will cost over £1000 is a 'nice to have'. However if our campaign is more successful, we will certainly consider the Motion Monkey in the future.

Logos for the Mascot

Names for the New Mascot

Here are some long awaited names for the British Mascot. I know that they are cheesy but have sympathy...

1. Simon Sterling
2. Peter the Pound
3. Charlie Cash
4. Norbert the Note
5. Donny Dosh

There are some more out there!!!

Printing

After deciding to have T-shirts printed with the mascot on and to have some freebies so that people will remember us. We need to find a printer. Well, I have found one! It is called PDS print (http://pdsprint.com/). They can do 5000 A5 leaflets with our design on, for just £99! This is a quote from their website, "We use environmentally friendly vegetable based inks rather than oil based; the paper we use is Chlorine free and FSC accredited." . In case you are wondering what FSC accredited stands for, it is the Forest Stewardship Council and they offer the verification of forest management and timber products.

A Big Step Forward for the Proper Website!

Hi again, we have just received an e-mail from Tony, from Ice Maiden Design, (http://www.icemaidendesign.com/), he has given us the image of our mascot (with the pound sign on instead of the dollar sign). Which we still need names for! He has also given us a link for a demo of the proper website,http://79.170.40.53/getcashkeepcash.co.uk/newsite/index.php?content=3. It is very good and once again, we are very grateful for all the work and time Tony has set aside for us, Thanks again Tony! (Check out the pound sign!!)

Ideas for the English Mascot Name

We need new ideas for a name for the name of the English Mascot please!!!

The Mascot is Saved

Great News! The Mascot is saved! I have just had a telephone conversation with Tony, from Ice Maiden Design, and he has said that we can change the mascot so that he has a pound sign on him instead of a dollar sign, another step forward for the campaign!

Fund Raising

Luke and I, who are both magicians, have decided that we would do shows of magic raising money for the campaign. Luke and I can't wait for another performance and we will hopefully make some DVDs of us performing Magic around Newcastle, hopefully.

Another Contact!

After hours of research on the web, I found a business who are willing to design us a mascot, if we come in the top three in the Change it Awards. The business is called Artwork by Eleanor (http://www.artworkbyeleanor.co.uk/) and they take commisions. I have e-mailed Eleanor herself and hopefully we can get a reply and discuss what we want the mascot to look like. Ice Maiden Design designed Artwork by Eleanor so there is a coincidence! Here is some of the Artwork By Eleanor:

Possible Other Mascots

Good Mascot?

After the meeting with Tony, from Ice Maiden Design, he discovered our mascot, Dennis. After discussion, we then came to the conclusion that the Mascot is too 'American' with him being a dollar etc. I am currently researching to find a different mascot such as a pound or a penny.

A Website Meeting

I had another meeting with Tony from Ice Maiden Deisgn and once again, received some very useful and important information about the future Get Ca$h Keep Ca$h website. The team here at Get Ca$h Keep Ca$h are very grateful to Tony for the help and advice he has given us. However, we will organise a meeting with Tony where all the members of Get Ca$h Keep Ca$h are there so that the information us crystal clear in everyone's heads. You can visit Ice Maiden Deisgn at http://www.icemaidendesign.com/