SIAD: a big hit

In case you're wondering, even though Self-Injury Awareness Day was on a Saturday (weekends are quiet you see) the LifeSIGNS website still manage to pull in six times as many visitors for the day!

Six times as many! I'm just thankful that our little server didn't fall over under the weight of demand!

SIAD

Self-Injury Awareness Day is the 1st of March each year, and it's the last week of February that's crucial to the success of SIAD, so thanks to all our members and everybody for raising awareness!

It's not too late to get involved, in fact, loads will be happening tomorrow and even Monday no doubt!

Why not download the LifeSIGNS resources and see what use you can put them to in your own real-life and online communities?

We offer:

• A generic letter for you to customise – great for sending to MPs, Doctors, Teachers, Magazines,Local Newspapers and Radio Stations;
• Posters for you to print on A4 (or bigger) to stick up around your office or school / college / uni;
• Factsheets for Family Members, Teachers, Friends, Guys and Health Care Workers – slip one under the doors of your Headteacher and Doctor.

And of course we're selling Wristbands again, but more than that, we've got SI Awareness Keyrings for you, so please check out our website and order online today, we'll post them out to you super fast! All money directly helps us raise awareness about self-injury; we're a non-profit voluntary organisation and we're 'unfunded' so your donations keep us going – thank you so much.

Get the SIAD Pack: www.lifesigns.org.uk/siad/
Get Wristbands and Keyrings: www.lifesigns.org.uk/services/wristbands.html

LifeSIGNS on the Radio

Glasgow's Sunny Govan Radio has also invited LifeSIGNS to speak about SIAD and SI Awareness, so I'll be on around 11:30am on Friday 29th of Feb.

www.sunnygovan.org/ you can listen online from the front page, you just need iTunes or some MP3 playing software.


Lincoln's Siren FM radio have invited LifeSIGNS on to talk about SIAD and the 'Tell Someone' Project, so I'll be talking on the phone from 7:40am on Monday 1st of March (SIAD!).

www.sirenonline.co.uk/

www.sirenonline.co.uk/listenwindow.asp (works best in Internet Explorer)



Wish me luck!

Wedge

SIAD causes strain on our little server

You know that websites are hosted on a server yeah? And you get that, when a surfer clicks on a web page, the page is sent from the server to the person's browser, and that the 'sending' uses up maybe 80 - 200KB of data bandwidth? (Y'know, web pages are computer files, and files have a certain size measured in Kilobytes [KB].)

Well, with all the extra people searching for Self-Injury Awareness Day and self-injury information, LifeSIGNS has had loads more visitors than usual! In fact, hits are up by about 40% over January's statistics - we've had so many extra visitors in February that, just now, as we approach SIAD (1st March) our little server is beginning to struggle under the weight of demand!

We often deliver nearly a Gigabyte of web pages each and every day, but throughout February, we've been having loads of days that consistently require a Gigabyte of bandwidth or more each day! Just to put that in perspective, A Gigabyte is about a thousand Megabytes, and you know how many files you can get on a Megabyte don't you? (A Megabyte is about a thousand Kilobytes).

So, at the moment, it's as if our little server is delivering 8,500 MP3s a month - that's how much data is being served to our visitors.

Of course, our little server has to look after a lot of the LifeSIGNS services, we've always kept it busy; it makes our Message Board work, manages our large Newsletter Mailing List, and looks after our main website and all the videos, documents and art that our site offers. So it's kept pretty busy.

I'm happy to pay for our server, and happy to look after the little fella, it's my contribution to the LifeSIGNS voluntary organisation.

If you'd like to help me pay for future upgrades to our little server, (who, bless it, is under some stress) then please make a donation to LifeSIGNS and use the 'note' section to say "for the little server" :)

Wedge

Flickr - The Orange Challenge

We had a lot of fun last year, taking photos of anything and everything orange, so, if you're a Flickr Member, please do come and join the official 'Hunt for Orange' Flickr Group!

It's all to raise awareness in time for Self-Injury Awareness Day, and anything Orange is welcome.

Thanks to Jenny for setting the group up last year, let's have some fun now!

Wedge

Wristbands and Keyrings now in stock - see pics!

LifeSIGNS SI Awareness Wristbands and fantastic Keyrings are now in our possession and we have uploaded some great pics to the website, so have a look and admire them for real here.

Both wristbands and keyrings are selling well, so thank you to everyone who has pre-ordered them – we will be sending them out early next week.

For everyone else, there’s still plenty of time to buy a wristband or funky new keyring (or maybe both!) before SIAD. We have some great discounts if you buy 3 or 5, so why not treat your friends and promote Self-Injury Awareness at the same time?!

Wristbands and keyrings are available to our members world-wide, and it’s great to see so many non-UK members already buying them – thank you.

All new orders will be processed and delivered worldwide within 10 days (5 days for within the UK).

You can pay with paypal or credit/debit card. UK customers also have the option of paying by cheque or postal order – please see the website for more details.

Remember, we are a not-for-profit Voluntary Organisation and all monies raised will go directly towards promoting self-injury awareness, so your custom is not only much appreciated, but also very worthwhile.

Wedge and Jules

BBC 1Xtra: Screaming Without Words

BBC 1Xtra have produced an audio documentary about self-injury called 'Screaming Without Words'; it's a frank discussion about the issues surrounding SI, and it may well be triggering to some people - it's aim is to raise understanding among people who don't know a lot about SI.

The documentary features Janet from LifeSIGNS, and several ernest interviews with young people from various backgrounds, cultures and religions, as well as notes from nurses and teachers.

Janet discusses her cultural background, what she describes as an identity crisis. Janet recorded her interview in November 2005.

You can listen to the audio file online right now, see the 'Screaming Without Words' page from 1Xtra.

I will be recording my response to the documentary tomorrow at the 1Xtra studio, and I can only hope that I speak as clearly and as well as our Janet and the other brave people who told their story.

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You will need 'RealPlayer' to listen to audio from the BBC, but you can also try 'Real Alternative' if you would prefer.

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Back to LifeSIGNS

Sweets and Leaflets

LifeSIGNS is cool!!! That's what I got told when I was giving out our wonderful leaflets and factsheets in a halls of residence at Sheffield University anyway!

In an attempt to raise awareness for SIAD, which seems to be creeping up ever so quickly, I decided to write to a few halls of residences to hold an 'LifeSIGNS Information Evening'. Tonight I held my first one. Tactically armed with free sweets and lollies and a stack of publications, I erected a cute little LifeSIGNS stall in the main reception to get as much publicity as possible!

At first, alot of the people were attracted to the sweets, took a factsheet or two but then threw them in the bin right in front of me. Some even got offended when I offered them a leaflet - 'Oh, I don't do that kind of thing' and 'Urgh, that's scary', were among many of the typical misconceived assumptions about SI that I heard. Which then made me more determined to spread the truth abuut SI and try to smash the prejudices many people already held.

So it was time to get tough! A free lolly meant that they had to take a leaflet or factsheet and listen to me talk about afew things - what SI is, why some people may feel the need to do it, that fact that it isn't just adolescent girls who do it. Some became engaged and became more interested and asked questions, while some ended it with, 'Can I take an extra sweet now I've listened to you?!'. There were afew who were genuinely interested and had been affected by SI and I hope, through all the wasted factsheets that were thrown in the bin, and the prejudices that were held by some, that their first introduction to LifeSIGNS has been a positive one and they will find us useful, and realise that LifeSIGNS can indeed provide the best Self-Injury Guidence and Network Support.

Afew lessons have been learnt from tonight. Ultimately there still needs to be a lot more work done in raising awareness and changing the perceptions of those who mistakenly think that SI is 'weird' or 'scary'. Even if people didn't read the factsheets or leaflets properly, at least they've heard us talk about SI and LifeSIGNS. And its made me more determined to do more to raise awareness and improve resources - the fact that at least three people tonight found out that they are not alone in their SI and that support is out there, has reaffirmed what LifeSIGNS is all about and that we do make a difference. That's why, as one boy who I was talking to about the work that LifeSIGNS does stated, 'you're cool!!!'.