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I got friends, family and best if all - people I didn't know from the internet and all around the world - to contribute towards the fund, to take their 50p (and only 50p - I had to give back people money who gave me more!) and wrote up the whole story here on my pages as each day went by, The Contributors Where I could, I would take a photo or get a picture of every contributor. Everyone got a contributor number, and they were recorded on the website along with anything they had to say or wanted me to plug. What started out as a simple record of contributors which I updated occasionally, rapidly turned into a daily 'blog' of what I'd been up to that day, even if it was nothing to do with 50p collecting, or iPods. To read the story pages about all of the contributors, then you should start here at the beginning, or follow the numbered links here to the contributor pages.
The Tunes I would obtain a copy of their chosen song, and mark their name & contributor number in the tag/title, as a permanent reminder of the people that helped me purchase it. I also discovered a whole load of new music this way. There is also now a complete list of all the tunes that people have chosen, which are going on the iPod.
I also recorded where in the world everyone came from, how they paid, and at once strange time even what star sign people were.
The Highlights There were some particular moments which for one reason or another stood out from anything else that happened along the way, and shall thus to me be long remembered as a highlight of the whole thing.
At one point during the collecting process, I came across this template for an iPod which you print out on paper, cut up, and fold into shape ... inspired ! You can customise it with whatever text you like - go makes yours today!
Some people gave me 50p, some people gave me 50p from them and another from their brother / sister / pet cat ... Some people though, just couldn't stop themselves from continually telling their friends and family about what I was doing and encouraging them to send me 50p's - and I didn't even ask them to! Whilst I'm grateful to everyone who contributed, there are some people who deserve a special mention for going beyond the call of duty on this one, and I'm calling them my 'Gold Coin' contributors.
After John Lewis had originally turned me down for filming permission (and for me to be allowed to pay in 50p's), I discovered that Richer Sounds had recently started selling the 20Gb model for the price of the 15Gb model! So it was an obvious choice, and I roped in contributor Andy (#297) to bring along his DV camera and film me buying it. This footage along with more that I shot additionally afterwards I've turned into a 4 minute 'pop-video' style movie clip!
Happened on Saturday 13th November. After I'd had the iPod a couple of months and I'd got most of the songs, I thought I'd see if I could get as many people together in one room at the same time that had contributed. So I invited everyone that I still had an email address for, and the iParty took place! People brought their iPods, we played contributors music all night, and had the rather marvellous iColour competition running all evening too!
When I actually got round to buying the iPod, Richer Sounds - nice enough as they were to let me video record me buying it, would not let me pay in 50 pence pieces, so unfortunately I had to use credit card. This meant I had a big jar of 50p's left lying around! Instead of just depositing them into my bank account, I had fun spending them in smaller chunks over the next few weeks.
For a short while, people carried on sending me 50p's after I'd got to the target, so that they could have a song on my iPod, but I've not stop accepting donations towards the 'cause'. The list of post-500 list of contributors here, and stopped when I got to 525.
Website of the Day mention It got mentioned on Radio 2's website of the day, after I'd finished :: The original 50 pence index page is here
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The
iParty
So
what did you do with all the 50p's then?
