For my 30th birthday I’d like to do something a bit unusual… In my 30th year I would like to raise £15,000 by completing 30 challenges that will create 30 scholarships that will then help 30 young people over the next 30 years.

The idea is to use the money raised to create a scholarship fund for the young people within the school that I work (and have done since 2003, my 20′s in effect).  The scholarship will be awarded annually and the recipient will receive £500 to be spent towards an overseas expedition. As well as giving the winner of the award the experience of a lifetime they will commit to sharing their experiences- blog, photos, etc on the scholarship website as a way of motivating and inspiring others.

Over the next year I will chart my own journey through ‘challenges30’ on a blog as a way of inspiring my students and others along the way.

All money raised will go to the scholarship fund. Race entry etc. will be paid by myself. The final total raised and summary of the one year experience will be presented in a whole school assembly on my 30th Birthday on the 17th July 2012.

Check out the new website.

If you’re a young person looking to connect with others in different parts of the world, or a teacher hoping to bring their world into the classroom why not have a go at quadblogging?  This short video provides an overview of how it works and the link at the bottom of this post will take you to the sign up page.

Sign up here.

Image via Wikipedia

Looking at some of the things I’ve done on the biography page you will be quick to see my passion for volunteering.  Though I do most of this in the UK I do try to spend some of my holidays working in other countries.  Being a teacher and obsessed with education it makes the most sense that I use the skills I have in these areas to help others.

Despite 10 years experience working in the UK education system, in a wide variety of roles, I was becoming increasingly frustrated at the difficulty of finding places to volunteer my skills.  On the other hand I was overwhelmed by the amount of organisations that would take me as a volunteer with no previous experience and charge me a fortune for the privilege.  With these things in mind I’ve created a website with the aim of highlighting organisations at which the professional can volunteer:

• that requires minimal payment to the host organisation other than that required to cover food and accommodation costs
• that allows the professional teacher to contribute their skills

I haven’t personally worked for all of the organisations and charities featured on the site but they are the organisations that, having volunteered in similar locations myself, I would be willing to volunteer for, based upon the information they present.

Check out the new teacher volunteers site here.

Let me know what you think and feel free to get in touch if you know of other great organisations that should be on there.