It is never good business to accuse your clients of having gone doolally but in this instance I feel the comment might well be justified.

What is this client doing to justify such slanderous accusations?

Well Vinny O'Neil is cycling from Lands End to John O'Groats over 8 days from 4^th June. 'No celebrity style relays', Vinny states in a recent e-mail promoting the trip, just 100 miles a day from one end to the other. And all of this in aid of Help For Heroes.

Help for Heroes raises money to support members of the Armed Forces who have been wounded in the service of their country. Not only does the charity do some truly spectacular work in the field of rehabilitation but they can also boast that every penny raised goes towards the projects being supported. On their website they even boast that for every £1 raised they donate £1.10 to the worthy causes.

'Help For Heroes is the charity that does exactly what it says on the tin.

As far as we know, Help For Heroes is the only charity that can say it is 110% effective - we can guarantee that for every £1 donated, £1.10 will go directly to helping wounded service men and women. So, we do exactly what we say on the tin – your donations go directly to supporting the wounded boys and girls.

How we do this?

We do of course have running costs but these are kept as low as possible, and the costs we do have? Well those are covered by the sale of our fantastic Help For Heroes merchandise, every T-shirt, mug, wrist band and calendar sold ensures that the money you donate goes to the men and women who need it, not office bills!

In fact, thanks to the range of challenges we hold through the year and our H4H shop last year we actually made more than we needed to run the charity. So, of course, the rest goes to the wounded - making your one pound stretch an extra ten pence'.

An impressive feat both so far as the charity is concerned for the money it utilises and for those who are attempting this mammoth bike ride.

To support Vinny in this challenge please visit:

http://www.justgiving.com/vinny-end-to-end

The One Stop Baby Guides

One of our clients, the idea behind "The One Stop Baby Guides", has entered this business start up into a competition to win £50,000 to help the business and needs some support.

We at CL&Co are fully behind this idea and as a result have agreed to post the following on to our blog:

It costs nothing and will take only about a minute of your time - so I really hope you won't mind me asking.

You can look at the link below which will give you the general idea -

https://www.takeonesmallstep.co.uk/Entry/View/3890

You then "Back the Idea" by following the instruction on the link.

The number of people you get backing the idea influences the judges' choices.

If we are lucky enough to be shortlisted, the voting from that shortlist begins on June 7th, so if we make it - we will post another request for support after then.

The business, in summary, is as follows:

A set of three DVDs - titled "The One Stop Baby Guides"

newborn babies (0-1 year);
toddlers (1-3 years);
pre-schoolers (3-5 years).

Each will be divided into four chapters:

1 - Emergency First Aid (presented by St John ambulance);
2 - Everyday Care (presented by midwives and paediatricians);
3 - Breastfeeding, formula feeding and weaning (presented by midwives and nutritionists);
4 - Playing and Learning (presented by teachers and psychologists).

Each DVD will be in English but with an extensive language menu, including many UK minority languages - such as Punjabi, Hindi, Arabic, Polish and French. This will enable new Mums who might have trouble communicating with their Midwife or GP, to get practical and basic help.

We are also making a first aid DVD and kit for infants and toddlers, in partnership with St John ambulance.

The idea has been taken up very enthusiastically by John Lewis, and we are currently in negotiations with them - so this is very exciting.

If we won the competition from Barclay's, it would put us in a fantastic position with respect to our approaches to other potential investors.

So - thank you for reading - please "Back our Idea" by following the link above - and we will post here again on June 7th if we reach the next round. Fingers crossed!