The Social Experiment - It's For Charity

San Francisco | An Eventing Wasteland This Weekend

If you're foolish enough to be following me on twitter (and pay any attention to my tweets), then you'll know I'm currently out in San Francisco on a business trip, which sadly means I'm missing Aldon Horse Trials back home in the UK. I had planned to visit for the first time as it usually plays host to a number of Badminton hopefuls. It also seems there is little happening eventing wise out here in California this coming weekend, other than an event south of LA at 3 Day Ranch, which unfortunately would mean as much time travelling as I would spend getting back to the east coast.

So whilst I plan my weekend and decide between assisting with some foaling down, a ride on along the Pacific here in northern CA, doing something completely non horsey like visit Lake Tahoe, Chicago for St. Patricks Day, or go in search of the giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), I've come up with a master plan (and social experiment) to vicariously enjoy eventing this weekend!

Charlie Massey | The Eventing Barista

So my social experiment is quite simply to get y'all to @ reply me with eventing reports from around the globe, and for each one I'll make a donation to a very worthy cause - Spinal Research.

Two eventing personalities are running an appeal for this charity by completing marathons. Clare Lomas is aiming to walk the London Marathon in the 'wrong trousers' & UK eventing's very own Barista, Charlie Massey aka Charlie The Coffee Man, will be running both the London Marathon and the NYC Marathon this year. I'm already sponsoring him in his quest to run 2012 miles, which will probably require me to sell my first born, so as this second round of donations could well see me parting with my daughter if this social experiment is too successful, I'm going to need to set a cap, of say what it will cost to get a new iPad (it launches today).

To briefly explain, Clare Lomas was injured in an eventing fall a few years ago and is partially paralysed (see earlier link). Charlie Massey was inspired to raise money for spinal research after Ruth Mathieson's unfortunate eventing accident. So Spinal Research is a charity that can make a real difference to the eventing community. You will find links to their appeals on the right hand column of this blog so feel free to make a contribution, and I will split all donations I need to make from this social experiment 50/50 between these funds.

Last weekend at Tweseldown, Charlie devised a new hashtag (#eventinglive) for us to use when tweeting from events - inspired! So what a great way to put this to the test.

So here's how my great social experiment for charity works:

• You need to get yourself to an Affiliated Eventing show anywhere in the world this weekend.
• You need to "@ reply" tweets to @monty_white
• You need to include the hash tag #EL4C (eventing Live for Charity)

This is a (mobile) social experiment so there are some rules for tweeting:

1. Tweets must be unique, posted from a mobile device (phone or tablet), and include location information from your device.

2. Tweets must be relevant to what is going on at the affiliated event, start with @monty_white, and include the #EL4C hashtag.

3. Photos & Videos included in tweets must be vaguely focussed, taken at the event, unique, and include a horse or rider that is competing at the event. Videos must include a horse competing in a phase of the competition.

4. I only read English so all tweets must be in English, and the use of "LOL" is strictly forbidden. 

5. Tweets must be sent from the event venue between Friday 16th March & Sunday 18th March 2012 no later than 60 minutes after the last horse has finished the final phase. (local time)

Here's how you can make a difference:

• For every plain text tweet I'll donate £0.05p
• For every tweet with a photo I'll donate £0.07p
• For every tweet that includes a video I'll donate £0.10p

At the close of play on Sunday I will gather all the tweets, photos & videos that are technically possible and put together a special gallery.

None of this requires you to follow me but you will be helping a good cause, and you get double points and good Karma if you include a picture of Charlie putting a donation of yours in his charity pot at the Swalcliffe event this weekend, or if you catch him out on a run. Re-tweet your friends and let's see if we can get trending.

Have a great weekend everyone, and keep me posted!