Drumming up support for Plan

Bobby Jutley from Isleworth in Middlesex has been raising funds for Plan’s work at his music concerts. He has already raised a staggering £393.22 from the collection tins alone and he is aiming to raise a further £2000 in 2008.

“I have been playing the Indian Drums called the Tabla for the past 30 years and perform regularly at various concerts in between balancing my day job at Hewlett-Packard, as a Finance Manager.

My wife Swapna has always talked about adopting a child, so I thought that the closest thing to doing this would be to sponsor a child. Plan came into the picture when I encountered the charity on the internet.

I was so impressed with the work that Plan did and also the transparency of the accounting that I knew that I had found the right charity to support.

Having become a sponsor of a baby girl in India called Dugi-Soy, I felt that this was still not enough and that somehow I should use my music as an opportunity to create awareness of Plan’s work and also raise funds.

I discussed this idea with a popular singer that I regularly perform with called Asif Raza who was in complete support of my idea. The rest, as they say, is history!

So whenever I perform with Asif now, I wear a Plan t-shirt and take my collection tins with me.

During the performance, we make an announcement about Plan and our fundraising efforts and then basically the tin makes it around the venue with people queuing up to support Plan.

It's an absolutely amazing feeling and after all these years of making people happy with my music, I am finally able to use my talent to give something back for such a wonderful cause”

If you want more information on how you can raise money by organising a fundraising event for Plan, or if you have any other fundraising ideas that you'd like us to help you with, please email kevin.machin@plan-international.org