I mentioned yesterday that the official Blogathon website was open for registration. If you’d like to participate in this year’s blogathon either as a blogger or a sponsor, please head on over now to sign up for an account.

This year’s Blogathon will begin at 0600 Pacific Time, which is 2100 Malaysian Time, on July 28th, 2007. It will last for 24-straight-hours, and blogathoners are expected to publish a blog post every (approximate) 30 minutes. Posts CANNOT be written or drafted before the Blogathon, and they definitely CANNOT be scheduled to publish automagically.

Which means that there won’t be time for proper meals, so I guess I’ll just stock up on lots of chocolate and banana cakes and lots of biscuits and coffee to pull me through :)

However, we are allowed to make a list of what we will blog about throughout the Blogathon, and I will let you know as soon as I’ve got my list finalized. But just so you know, I’ll be posting on a specific theme, i.e. Eden Handicap Service Centre as well as some disabilities-related issues, but that’s all I’m saying because that’s all I have planned! Hhahaa :D

Now, there are a couple of ways in which you can sponsor me:

1. The “official” way — register for a sponsor’s account at the Official Blogathon website and select an appropriate currency from the drop-down menu, then pledge an amount. Any amount at all! At the end of the Blogathon, you will be sent an email with specific instructions on how you should go about delivering your pledges to Eden Handicap. You will be given a choice to sponsor me on a per hour basis or in a lump sum. If you chose to sponsor me RM5 per hour, at the end of the Blogathon, you will be sent an email with instructions to donate RM120 to Eden handicap (well, unless I crash and drop out after a few hours!).
2. The “casual” way — if, for any special reasons, you do not want to sign up for a sponsor’s account to pledge your contribution, you may also send your donations directly to Eden Handicap (of course I will provide you with Eden Handicap’s bank account information).
3. The “international” way — if, by any chance, any foreigners (non-Malaysians) would like to make a contribution to Eden Handicap, you may send me your donations via PayPal (this is my PayPal email), and I will pay Eden Handicap the equivalent amount in Malaysian Ringgit.

Now, the reason sponsors are “encouraged” to donate via the “official” method is that at the end of the 24 hours, the amount of money pledged for each organization will be summed — to see which bloggers got the most pledges. I don’t really see this as “important” because what is important to me is that:

• I have managed to reach out to the public and spread the awareness on the plight of people with disabilities, and
• you can donate all year round, e.g. when your next pay-cheque comes in, not necessarily within the 24-Blogathon-hours :)

HOWEVER.. If you chose to donate via the “casual” method, we would have no indication whatsoever on how well-received the Blogathon had been. We needed some statistics (or benchmark) to know how much we’ve been of help to Eden Handicap and we needed this information in order to perform better next year. So I’d appreciate it very much if you would choose to donate to Eden Handicap via the “official” method :)

Over the next few days, I will share with you some suggestions on how you can support/sponsor me in kinds (instead of cash).

More on the Blogathon 2007 series:

• I’m going solo this Blogathon!
• Blogathon is now open for registration!
• How to sponsor me in kinds instead of cash
• Some Blogathon badges