butterfly-light-awardThank you, Irene Waters for nominating me for the Butterfly Light Award – This is a new award and feels a bit extra special as it’s about being a positive influence or spreading ‘the light’.

As per blog hop customs, there are some rules involving forward nominations of other people – To a possible infinite number of people.

However, to me this doesn’t feel like one to be dished out like candy and I’m focusing on just five folks who have genuinely touched my heart with their kindness and who’s blogs actually aim to spread some light or have a genuine positive influence. It also gives me a long overdue opportunity to publicly recognise three people who aren’t writers or high volume bloggers but just good people.

The Butterfly Light Award, nicknamed the Disco Flutterby Award by Don Charisma is a new award and needs a little description and history:

This award was awarded to Don Charisma as a thank you from Belinda (the idiot writer) when Don Charisma helped fix her computer. That is the kind of guy Don Charisma is. A genuine gentleman who likes to help people out.

Whilst it seems I ‘must’ pass-on conditions of accepting it, I don’t wish any receiver to feel under pressure to conform to them. I am just thrilled that something has come along,  for me to recognise people doing fabulous things with real heart.

For those of you not familiar with these sort of blog awards, the custom is to link forward and back to nominating and receiving blogs as this should help fire up a bit more traffic to your well deserving site. Nothing bad will happen if you don’t!

Hopefully you might have at least one good soul to pass it on to who might otherwise be another unsung hero. I certainly value that element of it in particular.

Conditions For Accepting The Award

1. You should write an acceptance post, making sure you link back to the blogger who awarded you and thank them. You MAY NOT lump this award in with a batch of other awards.

2. You must individually name and re-award to a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 9999999 bloggers. You must let them know either personally with a comment on their blog OR a pingback

3. You should link back to Belinda’s blog either to http://idiotwriting.wordpress.com/about/ or http://idiotwriting.wordpress.com/2014/03/13/i-love-charismatic-geeks/

4. You must write a short paragraph entitled either “How I’m Spreading Light” OR “How I’m A Positive Influence”

5. Display Belinda’s lovely “Butterfly Light Award” badge on your blog.

Whilst it’s a little bit ‘squirmy’ to be so self-focused with rule 4 – A little introspection and consideration of why I’m doing what I’m doing from time to time, helps keep me focused and motivated.

So, for the Squirmy bit..

How I’m Spreading The Light

Up to the age of 34 I lived in a bit of a cocoon where bad things mostly happened to other and older people. This naivety was shattered with a terminal cancer diagnosis and I lay amidst the ruins of Pandora’s wretched Box for a good while before hunting around for Hope.

Hope isn’t a panacea but it is what you fight with when things are really tough and I simply want to help equip anyone else needing to slay their own dragons and demons with the message that if I can do it, maybe you can too. To that end, I’m busy getting the story down on paper and also encouraging a little personal memoir for self-reflection in my weekly Bite Size Memoir challenge.

 

And so without further ado, I am nominating for this award – in alphabetical order:

Norah Colvin

Norah is round the other side of the world but still manages to be exceptionally supportive to me through twitter. She remembers me at times when other friends don’t! Her blog also demonstrates her compassionate nature through sensitive discussion and resources to support parents and teachers nurture children through education – something that has always been close to my heart.

Katja Gottschalk

Katja runs a PC support company PC Harmony. I met Katja once at a networking lunch, but learning of my plight with WordPress in the early days of blogging, she did an absolute ‘Don Charisma’ by me by spending hours helping me get going in return for nothing but a thank you – because she valued what I was trying to do. I’m delighted to pass her this award, intended for unsung heroes exactly like her. She also blogs excellent PC advice for free!

Anj Handa

Anj is a hard one to ‘box’ – she gives tirelessly of her time and many attributes not only working on a whole host of community and development related projects, but also campaigning to help individuals in times of real need – illustrated by her recent attempts to prevent the ‘repatriation’ to Nigeria of Afusat Saliu – a victim of genital mutilation.

Charli Mills

I’m paying forward in anticipation of Charli’s planned new Monday posts with Tips for Writers providing the structure and forum for me to get to grips with my unwieldy manuscript! She’s already given me a few life-saving ideas and I’m feeling very positive about finding the ‘wood amongst the trees’ over the coming weeks. A total gift from the Universe Charli – Thank you!

Helen Webb

Last but by no means least! Helen her partner Rachel Lopata are close friends of mine. They love the Earth’s Oceans so much, they’ve put their money where their mouth is: Helen has taken 2 years out of paid work to establish the charity Sea Changers which aims to raise money for marine conservation charities. Helen’s blog post, World Ocean Day gives us all some quick and easy ideas for how we can all make a difference even in our busy lives. Sometimes the quiet and simple things eventually make a big difference. Please see if there’s at least one you can adopt.

❤️