Alien Times Fundraising Week 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
to
Saturday, December 6, 2008
November 30 commemorates the day in 1987 that the City of Tsukuba was born from the Village of Sakura and the Towns of Yatabe, Toyosato, and Oho. (The Town of Tsukuba merged with the rest on January 31 of the following year). Since Alien Times was also born in 1987, the Alien Times staff have chosen November 30 and the week that follows it to be ALIEN TIMES FUNDRAISING WEEK.
If you would like to donate to support the publication of Tsukuba's Original English Newsletter which has been published for and by the foreign community of Tsukuba since 1987, please choose one of the following options. You can choose the amount that you would like to donate. (As a guideline, if 20 people donate 2500 yen, we will be able to meet our target. But any amount is welcome!)
PayPal or Credit Card
Click to Donate via PayPal or Credit Card.
Furikomi
Bank: Joyo Bank (常陽銀行)
Branch: Kenkyu Gakuen Toshi Shiten (研究学園都市支店)
Account Name: THE ALIEN TIMES
Account No: 7259017 (regular account, 普通)
Cash Envelope by Mail (Genkin Kakitome)
Address: 305-0051 Ibaraki-ken, Tsukuba-shi, Ninomiya 1-6-2
Ninomiya House
Alien Times Post Box
Cash to AT Staff
If you meet up with one of the AT Editors (Mieko Ono, Shaney Crawford, Anna Hamakoji), you can hand your donation to us and we will be sure to put it directly into the bank account. (If you are not comfortable with this option, please choose one of the other options above.)
About Alien Times and the Fundraising Week
Alien Times is a free publication that has been providing information in English to Tsukuba's residents since 1987. The magazine is published once per month (except for the July/August issue) and there is a companion blog site where the articles are archived (TsukuBlog: http://blog.alientimes.org).
The printing of Alien Times is generously subsidized by the Tsukuba Expo '85 Memorial Foundation and supported by a number of local sponsors including Blomster Anna (flower shop), Fleur de Lis (jewelry shop), IACE (travel agent), Isebu (printer), Isshinryu Karate, and J-Cool (hair salon). We also get some income from our website (basically enough to cover the cost of the website).
All of the people who work on Alien Times are volunteers and none of the money that comes into the Alien Times accounts gets paid to any editor, contributor, or volunteer. All of the income goes towards the printing costs, the website costs (only the hosting and domain fees -- all of the design work and maintenance is done by volunteers), and the costs incurred while managing the publication (e.g. binders for the archives, stamps to send copies of magazines to contributors).
The editors of Alien Times are dedicated to keeping the magazine free so that it can be distributed to various locations around the city and be spotted and picked up easily by the people who need the information (foreign residents and tourists). However, in order to keep the magazine free, we need to do some fundraising!
We are hoping to raise approximately 50,000 yen this week, which is the approximate cost of printing a single monthly issue. We have never asked for the Tsukuba community to contribute financially to the making of the magazine, but we thought that maybe it was time to bow our heads and ask humbly for your support.
If you have benefitted from Alien Times or TsukuBlog in the past, please consider making a small donation to show your appreciation and to help ensure the continuation of our community's English magazine and website.
We sincerely appreciate your support,
The Alien Times Staff
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Charity Auction: Hope International
Hope International is holding a charity auction until March 9. Get your bids in now for a luxury vacation!
Here is what the Japan Times has to say about this organization.
HOPE International was founded by three Canadians, including a housewife and a pilot, and now operates in 20 countries worldwide. It's a very professional no-nonsense NGO with low overheads, using local people in offices and aiming globally to get 95 percent of donations to projects overseas.
"Profit and the nonprofit sectors are now interacting in very interesting and synergistic ways. 'Do-gooders' are operating in the for-profit sector as well as the nonprofit sector. There's room for corporate entrepreneurs, and social entrepreneurs like myself," says Canada-born Sheppard.
HOPE, for example, is engaging companies not only through providing an opportunity to donate to sustainable development that helps the poor, but also acting as advisers and coaches to firms and individuals who are seeking to develop effective CSR policies and practice.
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Children’s Home Needs Computers
A group in Kyoto is trying to raise money to buy computers and support an internet connection for a local orphanage. If you have some spare change, please consider donating it to this worthy cause.
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On Sunday, December 9th, 2007 at 1:30 p.m. the students of FriendsWorld/Global College will be participating in a Clean Up Walk through Shimogamo Jinja and along the Kamogawa to help raise awareness about the environment as well as to raise money for the Karyo-en Orphanage in Kyoto.
Karyo-en is located in the Shimogamo area and houses 20 girls and 18 boys between the ages of 3 and 17 who have been abandoned by their parents, in most cases because they have remarried or somehow changed their lifestyles in a way that did not leave room for their children. Some children are of mixed blood and were abandoned when their mothers remarried into a Japanese family.
Karyo-en is subsidized by the Japanese government and its most basic needs, such as for food, clothing and adult supervision are minimally provided, but as you can imagine, the children's lives are far from complete. In the past few years, some of the students at Friends World/Global College have brought food, clothing, books and toys to them as well as spent time playing with them and teaching them English.
This semester, one of our students who has been interning there, thought to raise money for computers and an internet connection for them. Although this will in no way come close to filling the gap left by the absence of family, on- line computers will give the children a way to connect to the rest of the world.
We are asking the children at Karyo-en to participate in this clean up walk with us to help empower them and demonstrate they can make a difference in their own lives as well as in the lives of others. We are hoping to raise money to purchase new and/or used computers that have a wireless internet connections, to buy equipment to set up the connection and to pay for it on a monthly basis. We are planning to continue this fundraising drive when necessary to buy additional computers or replace broken or out of date ones and to support the monthly internet connection charges.
We hope that you will help us by offering whatever donation you can. Any support, no matter how small, will be appreciated, so if your children would like to participate in their own name by contributing along with you- even just a few hundred yen- we will be grateful. This is not to say that we are not looking for larger donations- only that we hope that everyone can contribute an amount with which they are comfortable. We would also love to have you join with us in the cleanup, and ask your friends, family and colleagues to be sponsors too. The more money we can raise, the more computers we can buy and the longer we can support the internet connection.
Please contact me or anyone at Friends World/Global College and let us know if you can contribute to this drive in any way. We would like to buy the computers as soon as possible and start setting them up so please let us know how much you would like to pledge by Sunday, December 9. And please suggest to your family - especially your children and your friends - that they participate. Also, if you could help by forwarding this email to anyone who you think might be interested in helping, we would be much obliged.
Here are some of the different ways in which you can help:
Donate money (any amount would be appreciated) by sponsoring the students and children from the orphanage who will be picking up trash in Shimogamo Jinja and along the Kamogawa.
Participate in the cleanup walk and/or after-party with the children.
Donate any used computers you have that have wireless capability and are in good condition.
Forward this email to people on your mailing list who you think may contribute to this very worthy cause.
Start your own fundraising drive by telling your friends about this and asking for their help in any of the listed ways.
Donations can be sent either by mail to
Friends World/Global College
1-287 Akasaka Cho
Kinugasa, Kita-ku
Kyoto 603-8486
or can be deposited into our account at
Bank of Kyoto (Kyoto Ginko)
Kinkakuji Branch
Branch code: 165
Futsu Account number: 553079
Account name: Global College Japan Center
Barbara Stein
Overseas contributions can be sent to the above school address by an international postal order which can be obtained at any US post office.
For more information, contact Daniel Douglass (douglassdanielk[AT]yahoo.com).
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Clothing Swap in Tokyo
Women usually love what they buy, yet hate two-thirds of what is in their closets.
It's time for a change! Clean out your closets, under your bed, in the spare room, dump out the handbags and start spring afresh with a new look.
Who: You, your friends, and a gaggle of fun girls whom you haven't met yet
What: A swap! Bring your clothes (maternity wear, handbags, ballgowns, fur coats - it's all welcome) You can gently place it on the piles and then tear into the fashion, taking as much as you like.
When: Sunday, April 27th from 2-5 PM
Where: Pink Cow, Shibuya (it's in the basement)
How much: 2500 yen, including one drink ticket
Why: The surplus money raised from the event goes to Habitat for Humanity. The remaining clothing is donated to the Salvation Army. To date, the swaps have generated over 400 bags of clothing in the 4 years that they have been running. You get to meet fun women, new clothes, cocktails, gossip and more!
A few points to remember: Please, no footwear - it has proved to be too difficult to swap. However, if you have a magazine addiction like myself, I am welcoming all magazines for swapping! No books, thank you, but any glossy mag is bound to find a new home.
Above all, remember: Never wear anything that panics the cat.
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Come to the Festival and Support Zaya!
I hope many of you got a chance to read the latest issue of the Alien Times and read the article on Zaya, an international student from Mongolia who needs your help.
The supporters of Zaya are selling Mongolian meals at the Mongolian booth during まつりつくば(Matsuri Tsukuba or Tsukuba Festival). All the proceeds from the sale will go to the Save Zaya Fund. They are also collecting donations at the booth, but they have a long way to go before they raise the 30 million yen. Their booth is located in front of the Expo Center's planetarium, and they'll be there until the end of the festival tomorrow. If you are planning to go to Matsuri Tsukuba tomorrow, please stop by at their booth and support Zaya!
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