#CarriesCurls: Fundraising for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity

Hello everyone!

I'm writing this post today to help raise awareness of the incredibly brave task that my role model is going to undertake. In a matter of months, the wonderful, inspiring woman that is Carrie Hope Fletcher will be cutting off 7 to 12 inches of her hair for the Little Princess Trust. The hair will be donated to go towards making wigs for children who have lost their hair due to various illnesses. Additionally, Carrie is raising money to be donated to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity. Her goal is to reach £10,000 and she is currently at £8, 487.12. This is 84% of her final target. 

(Sidenote: I am in no way being paid/asked/forced to promote this fundraising. I am doing this of my own accord and will as GOSHCC is an amazing cause and I really want Carrie to reach her fundraising target.)

I'm ridiculously proud of Carrie for doing this as her hair is so beautiful and she is very well known for her gorgeous, blonde, curly locks. I genuinely can't express how much I want Carrie to reach, and exceed, her target of £10,000 because GOSHCC is such an incredible cause. Everyone knows how important the work that GOSH do is, however, I can honestly say you really don't appreciate quite how important it is, until someone close to you is in need of their help. Recently one of my best friends was life threateningly ill and was transferred to GOSH for a week. The work they did was amazing and they helped to keep my best friend here with us today, and for that, I owe them so much. The thought that without their work, she may not be here, is so frightening. Hence why this cause is now so close to my heart, much like it is Carrie's. 

Carrie visited GOSH a few years ago and witnessed, first hand, the "amazing work" that they do. Carrie has previously helped to raise money for GOSHCC "in honour of a little girl whose parents met working on Les Miserables, however she sadly lost her battle against Nueroblastoma". Carrie would like to continue raising money for GOSHCC "so that more children get the chance to win their battles".  

A year ago, Carrie made a video on her YouTube channel 'ItsWayPastMyBedTime'  about cutting her hair called 'I'M CUTTING OFF MY HAIR' which you can (and should!) watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZzPtpKboM4 , where she explains what she is doing better than I have. I'm really worried that people (Especially the Hopefuls/Carrie's subscribers) have forgotten about this as considerable time has passed since this video. Carrie is still cutting her hair and the fundraising is still going on. 

I admit, I'm slightly miffed as to how long it's taking to raise this £10,000. I appreciate that not everyone is in the position where they are able to donate, and of course this is totally and utterly fine. However, Carrie has 585,476 subscribers meaning if everyone donated £1 it would be funded more than 55 times over. Again as I said, not everyone is able to donate but to those who are, please, please do it. It's such a worthy cause and you can help save a child's life. You could even think about it like this: 

A chocolate bar costs, on average, just short of £1. Do you really need that chocolate bar to keep you alive? You could donate that £1 to go towards keeping children alive and helping them fight their battles. 

OR

You see that £1 on the floor that you're about to pick up? Well, if you pick it up, why not donate that £1? It wasn't yours in the first place, therefore, you will not be able to miss it. However, it can make a massive difference to the lives of children who are critically ill.

If you do want to donate, there are two ways that you can go about it:

You can go to Carrie's Just Giving page by following this link: https://www.justgiving.com/carriehopefletcher/
Here you can use your credit/debit card to donate your chosen amount of money.

OR

You can text "HEHE88 £_" (insert amount of money in the blank) to 70070 to donate your chosen amount of money, by phone.

If you can't donate please, please share. Even if you can donate, please, please share. 

SHARE IT ON EVERY SOCIAL MEDIA YOU CAN THINK OF, BLOG ABOUT IT, MAKE VIDEOS ABOUT IT, TELL YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY ABOUT IT!

Every bit of publicity for this fundraising task can help make the difference on how much money will be raised. It's so, so important!

So, everyone, I encourage you to donate as this money can mean the difference between life and death for children. This money will do so much good. It will change lives, rather than you wasting it on a chocolate bar or a bag of sweets.

Thank you for taking the time to read this! And Carrie, I'm so freaking proud of you!!!

See you soon! 

Jazz xxx

Stage Door at Once 7/03/15 (Ronan Keating)

Before you scroll past, this isn’t going to be some typical fangirl post about meeting Ronan at Stage Door. 

This is a post about Stage Door etiquette and how NOT to behave. I would really appreciate you taking the time to read this as I believe some severe issues I am going to raise here should be noted by people. Especially if you act in a similar way at Stage Door. 

This post isn’t so much just to educate people, but to apologise to Ronan, too. 

Last night I Stage Doored at Once the Musical at the Phoenix Theatre, London. I was back down to London for the second time within 3 weeks to see it as I had fallen in love with the show when I saw it on 18/02/15. I missed out on the opportunity to Stage Door the previous time, so I saw an opportunity to try and meet some of the cast this time.

The show was incredible as always, it’s genuinely one of the best shows out there! I’m truly gutted that it’s finishing, hence why I was seeing it again before it closes on March 21st. 

However, this post isn’t about the show itself, this post is about what happened at Stage Door. So, here we go….

After the show finished, I proceeded to go to the back of theatre towards stage door. Just general Stage Door procedure. I was surprised to find that there were already quite a considerable amount of people there, considering the show had only just finished. There was a car there waiting for Ronan and people were crowding they way to the car. These people were of the ages of late 20’s to approximately 40 years of age (This is relevant to the story). I stood towards the back of the crowd and waited quietly for him to come out. 

As he came out, people went mental. Mental is actually an understatement. They swarmed him. They were pushing forward at him and crushing him. Truthfully, I have never seen anything that horrendous at any Stage Door. I stood back as I was severely overwhelmed and shocked by how these women were acting.

 They were taking photos of him, again, taking photos of the actor/actress is a normal Stage Door procedure, but not when you have the flash on and are forcing the camera in their face. Absolutely disgusting behaviour. You could see by his face he was totally disorientated by it. 

They were continuing to push things at him for him to sign, whilst closing in on him even more, crushing him further. People were totally blocking his way to the car, baring in mind, the path to his car was only something like 2 meters long. Appalling. This one women was forcing herself at Ronan trying to have photos and as he tried to get in the car away from the hell that had broken loose, I thought she was going to get in the car in front of him as she was hanging onto him. She was a grown woman. They were all GROWN WOMEN. Where are their senses? Their Stage Door etiquette? Their respect? Their manners in general? I’m a 14 year old girl and I know how to act at Stage Door. I know what I shouldn’t do and how I shouldn’t act. After all, Ronan and any other actor/actress are only human beings, too. I’m not denying them of being incredible people, but seriously, how would you like it if people acted like that towards you? You’d hate it. So do they. 

Acting like animals at Stage Door isn’t going to impress the person you are there to see. It will make them dislike you. They are people too, not some kind of toy! What really angers me is the fact that a teenage girl knows how to act but grown women don’t. It got to the point that I ended up shouting “FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, JUST LET HIM GET IN THE CAR, IDIOTS” at them. Not something I wanted to do, but I wanted to help him get away and that’s the only thing I could do at the time, was to try and get the people to see how shameful and vulgar they were acting. Ronan hasn’t been too well lately, either.

As for blocking his way to the car, obnoxious behaviour. Think about it for a minute, after you had crushed him and forced flashing cameras in his face, he isn’t going to want to stay and chat to you, is he? If you had been respectful, waited your turn and acted decently, he would have stayed to speak to you. Ronan is a lovely guy and wouldn’t have jumped in the car and sped away if you had been courteous to him (Unless he had to be somewhere, which is understandable). 

After he got away, I waited to see Jill (Winternitz) who plays ‘Girl’ in the show. I spoke to Jill for a bit and asked her if she would apologise to Ronan for me, on behalf of the idiots that caused the commotion. Jill is a very lovely woman and she is an incredible actress and has a terrific voice. I also chatted to Fiona (Bruce), who plays Baruska, for a while and she was really nice too.

Here is my advice if you are planning on visiting any Stage Door anytime soon:

1) Respect the actor/actress - Treat them as you would wish to be treated, don’t act like hooligans. No shoving things at them to sign/ forcing cameras in their faces. (Especially with the flash on - That is a definite no!)

2) Remember your manners - Simple courtesy is needed everywhere, not just Stage Door.

3) They are humans too! - No grabbing/pushing/pulling, that is horrific behaviour and they could get hurt.

4) Other fans are just as worthy as you are - You deserve no more time with that actor/actress than anyone else does. Do not interrupt them if they are speaking with/signing something for/having a photo with another fan. What gives you the right to cut their time short with that actor/actress. They are just a big as fan as you.

5) Take a step back - Don’t crowd the actor/actress. Stand back and allow them to either come to you or for you to say a quiet “Hello” and then walk to them. Crowding leads to crushing, which can lead to serious injuries for both the actor/actress in question and the fans, too.

6) They have busy lives - If they have to rush off somewhere, then so be it. They have jam-packed lives and may need to be somewhere. You have to understand that going to Stage Door isn’t a guarantee of meeting them. Unfortunately, its a game of chance/luck. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s okay to be disappointed if they have to rush off, but don’t block their way. It’s childish and won’t make them stay. It will make them want to get out of there even quicker than usual.

Apologies if this advice seems harsh, but, it’s reality. They are humans, not toys. Behaviour needs to be addressed and people need to sort out the way they act. Simple as that. I would really appreciate it if you could reblog and share this post. Thank you for reading.

And if Ronan ever does see this, all I can say is sorry. I am eternally sorry for the way you were treated. I hope you weren’t hurt in anyway and that you were okay. I’m truly appalled by the behaviour of those women. I wish I could have helped you in someway. I want you to know, not all of your supporters are of that level of idiocy. All my love to you and I hope that you are okay after it. xxx   

(I posted this on my Tumblr a while back before I had this blog and got a lot of feedback about this post. I had some incredible things said to me about it and it turns out that even Ronan himself read this post.)

See you soon, Jazz xxx