So yes, I’m not that child who, as it happens, was also called Oliver. There have been a few posts, most recently Simon’s suggesting that there should be a whip-around of some sort for me. No need. My hotel stay is now being paid for by Microsoft Ireland and I am hugely grateful. A big thank you to Clare Dillon for making the no-strings attached offer. But have I told you how I’d prefer all my readers to use Internet Explorer to view my site and … 😉 Nope, Microsoft just like us bloggers so they have asked for nothing in return, like many other people who have kindly offered to paypal me money and so forth. Thank you everyone.
Just to be clear, my transparency post was not me with cap in hand, more me just being upfront with costs and what it takes to run an event like this. I have talked to other people who look like they are going to run some other interesting award events and hopefully my post helped them out.
Thanks for all the offers of financial assitance but I should be ok. However the best thing to do to help me is just tell as many friends of yours about the event and if you personally know people in the press, try and encourage them to do a story on blogging. You could also try and get more people to blog especially if you think their voice would bring something new and different to the community.
Speaking of sponsors, I’m toying with the idea that I’ll only accept sponsorship next year from companies that have a blog or employees that blog. That’ll make things interesting. 😉