The O.A.Pic Challenge

We are three students at the University of Winchester studying Event Management. For one of our modules we have to create, plan, organise and carry out an event for a client. We have decided to incorporate Age UK into our event as the sole charity, so any funds raised will be going to them. We will be organising a wedding festival in Dorset and have chosen Age UK for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is nice to remember that eldery people have been married before and are a large part of the wedding industry, as we rely on their experience. Secondly, many eldery individuals that were once married now have no-one and the number of elderly people on their own is increasing - this is a real problem - nearly 2.5 million people over 75 live alone, 1.8 million of those are women (58% of female widows are 75 or over). Thirdly, we must remember that at some point, we will all be old (unfortunately!), and we like to think that there would be someone for us at that point in our lives. To tackle the problem of loneliness among older people, Age UK has developed befriending services. The service works by assigning each older person a befriender, who provides friendly conversation and companionship on a regular basis over a long period of time. This is the main reason we would like to give to Age UK, although they provide a number of valuable services, including giving elderly essential advice and support. Initially, the money raised from this campaign will go to covering costs of the event (although hopefully we will far outreach this). During the event, there will be a number of other strategies to raise money for Age UK, including the purchase of raffle tickets (with prizes being very kind donations), and the auction of certain items and services (also being very kindly donated). We aim to raise awareness and money for our campaign by taking 'selfies' with elderly people that we know (or don't know..), showing how many elderly people there are out there, but also inforcing the fact that in this case they have someone, but in many cases that elderly person may be very lonely and have no-one. We aim to start a facebook craze and nominate friends/ family to do the same and carry on taking selfies. We wish to incorporate our 'O.A.Pic Challenge' with Age UK's #notbymyselfie campaign.Please make the selfies fun, exciting and inspirational!! Upload to facebook and carry on the trend. For every selfie you upload, please donate to our cause, every little helps, but £3 per person would be amazing! Make sure to use the hashtags below so that we can see all your photos and see how many people we have reached;#NotByMySelfie#TwosCompany#GoldenOldies