Auction Items Request - Barbara Bown Medical Fund

Hi folks,

Just a bit over an hour left before the drawings start!

The raffle page is located here:

http://www.aikiweb.com/store/raffle.html

Thanks!

-- Jun

Hi everyone,

Before we get started here, I wanted to first off thank every single person who donated something for this raffle. Without your generosity, this would never have happened. Also, I want to thank everyone who bought raffle tickets; your support is very welcome and appreciated.

We sold 172 tickets at US$5 each to 49 different people for a total of $860. Paypal took $42.54 of that for credit card processing fees, so the grand total that we raised with this raffle was $817.46! As soon as the transfer from Paypal goes through, I'll be sending a check to the Barbara Bowen Medical Fund.

So, without further ado, the winners for the raffle may be seen on this webpage:

http://www.aikiweb.com/store/prizes.html

(People's last names have been truncated but you know who you are!)

Congratulations to all of the people who won!

What I'm going to do this weekend is hook up the people who donated an item with the people who won that prize. If all goes well, the winners will send their shipping address to the donating party. I'm hoping that works out!

Not to leave out the folks who didn't win anything, I'm going to be sending out some AikiWeb Aikido Temporary Tattoos to everyone who bought a ticket but didn't get a prize. Wear them with pride!

All in all, I'm glad to have seen the aikido community come together to help out one of our own in need. We can only hope that our small contribution and well-wishes help out Ms. Barbara Bowen in Texas. Let's please keep her in our thoughts as we train. And, don't forget that you can still donate to her medical fund if you wish; details are available here.

Thanks, and best regards to everyone.

-- Jun

Wow Folks!

Very nice response to the raffle! (can you hear me clapping?)

Many thanks to Jun for the hours of labor that were put into this project.

It is a very warm feeling to see all of the folks that gave, and gave.

I know that Les and Barbara will hold this in the depths of their hearts.

Thanks to you all........God Bless

Lan

As I write here, Ms Bowen sits next to me and is overwhelmed by your collective and individual generousity and love. She asks me to convey her deepest thanks and gratitude.

"your support has been a tremendously uplifting help. Thank you so much for the help. Someday I hope to be able to thank each and every one of you in person." (Barbara Bowen/Kelso)

I want to personally thank Dr. John Riggs, Jun Akiyama, Lan Powers, John Couch and numerous others,(some of whom worked very anonymously) to make this event occur. To date the Barbara Bowen Medical Fund has received approximately $1,900.00. (including the raffle) A huge majority of the contributions have come from the Martial

Arts community.

I feel strongly O'Sensei would smile to see such Ai (love-harmony) shared so unselfishly.

For the love and good thoughts and prayers and support we will always be thankful and in your debt.

Les and Barbara Kelso

Ta Ch'u Academy of the Martial Arts

Midland Texas

Jun:

Thank you so much for your effort in the auction-I know you put a lot of time and effort into it. My original intent was to elicit the help of those aikidoka able to contribute. The raffle was far beyond my expectations.

I talked with Barbara today and she hopes to actually be able to do some minor movement patterns on the mat without any rolls or falls real soon. She does not want to get too much out of touch. She still has one aneurysm that is bleeding and they plan to fix that in a couple of months. This will be a much less invasive surgery and apparently they will be able to go in through a vessel in her leg. She tells me she is doing daily occupational and speech therapy activities.

Again, thanks to Jun for all the work and to those who donated items for the auction and participated in the auction.

John Riggs

Midland TX

Hi John, Les, Barbara(!), and everyone else,

I just wanted to say, "You're all very welcome" for your thanks that you've sent my way. All I can say right now is, "It was entirely my pleasure."

I just came back from a special one-day seminar here with our chief instructor. All proceeds from it went to one of our members at our dojo who just had surgery last month. We were very touched by this student's appearance about five minutes after the seminar was over; all of us broke into a round of applause lasting for a few minutes.

Perhaps such an event could happen at your dojo? Maybe John or other senior instructors could get together for a one-day seminar with all proceeds going to Barbara's medical fund. We asked for a $50 donation for the whole day with people welcome to give less or more as their financial situation allowed. It was a great day of training and allowed all of us to feel a part of the aikido community which I believe is an important sense to have.

In any case, please let Barbara know that I would love to meet her some day. It's great to hear from John that she may be back "on the mat" in however limited a fashion. I hope by then she'll be able to throw me into a koshinage or three!

Best regards,

-- Jun

Thanks for the suggestion. We have already planned to do something in the area. I hope to get some instructors in the area to participate and also use this as a friendship seminar to build connections with local dojos since we have several styles in the region (within a couple of hours): aikikai (AAA/USAF), Tomiki, and independent.

John

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to let folks know that the e-mail messages to the winners and donators are being sent as I type this. Hopefully, the messages will arrive in your inbox soon if you donated an item or won one of the donated items. Please let me know if otherwise here.

John, the friendship seminar sounds like a great idea! I wish you all the luck and hope everything works out!

-- Jun

Hi everyone,

Just a quick note to let people know that the check for the raffle has been sent to the Barbara Bowen Medical Fund. I hope it'll be there this week!

Also, I haven't had time to send out the "consolation" prizes to folks who didn't win anything. I hope to do that this week, too...

-- Jun