I want to say thank you to every single one of you who cheered us on yesterday as we participated in my (and Gavyn’s) very first read-a-thon. For Gav, I believe it was a wonderful experience, and he is looking forward to doing it again. The next one is in October, so keep an eye out on the Dewey Read-a-thon site for signup information, probably in September.

For me, it was also a great experience, though I will take some things I learned out of it this time, and attempt to transfer them over to my goals and expectations for next time:

1. Let it be a low stress exercise. If I need to stop and take care of my family or whatever else at any point in the day, don’t beat myself up about it.
2. Keep the calendar clear. This time I only signed up for the Readathon two days before the event, so I had to go to the dentist, the grocery store, etc. which could have easily been done on another day with planning.
3. Set goals. This is important- to know what I want to get out of the day when it is done. Things like, how many pages to read or books to complete, how much money to raise, any experience I want (such as reading outside).
4. Choose a variety of book types to keep it interesting. Don’t try to read an entire book in one sitting unless it is completely engrossing and you don’t even notice the time passing. Have novellas, magazines and favourite books on hand to fill the time I just can’t stand to read that book I am 300 pages into anymore.
5. Plan some time to read to my kids that don’t read yet. This was an oversight this time that I want to remedy in the future.
6. Plan meals and snacks ahead of time. Obvious I know.
7. Make sure to plan a thank you gift for your spouse who attempted to keep the non-reading children at bay for 24 hours. This one is important, and I did not think of it ahead of time.

If I can implement all of this in time for the October event, I am anticipating a much more fruitful and satisfying experience.

The fundraising portion of the event went well for us. While I did not end up needing to cap the donation since my pledge did not exactly go viral around the world 17 times, we did manage to get a good amount of support. Here is the breakdown:

• $3.50 for blog comments/likes
• $6.00 for six new blog followers
• $5.00 in Twitter activity
• $19.00 for all the lovely support on Facebook
• $33.00 for the 11 books Gavyn read
• $40.00 for 8 hours of audio-books on my part
• $10.00 for 2 books that I read
• $75.00 for time not spent reading

We also had an additional donation of $20.00 to encourage Gavyn in his reading.

For a grand total of $211.50!!!
Proceeds will go to Kickers Soccer Camp.

This was a blast! See you all next time!!

(image source)