A Bit Like That Feeling Before Getting A Nightbus In London
21.10.08 | Jon - Webmanager |
BBC, Donations, Hits, ITN, Journalism, Justgiving, Press, Telegraph, Times, Visitors, Website
It’s been a long day, you’ve worked hard and maybe had a beer or two somewhere and then you’re about to get a nightbus home in London. Welcome rest awaits soon, but you’re content looking back at the day.
That’s more or less how I’m feeling as the webmanager of atheistcampaign.org after this manic and brilliant first day of the campaign to get atheist ads on the buses. As I write more than £43000 has been donated, almost 8x the target, and that does not even include any match funding from Richard Dawkins. This website has received more than 15000 individual visitors today, even prompting the hosting firm to contact me to ask me what was going on with such a spike in traffic.
The campaign has been covered all over the place – BBC, ITN, Telegraph, Times – and more will surely await tomorrow. We’re also very thankful for all the messages we’ve received, and the bloggers that have written about the campaign – we’ll link to you just as soon as we get a moment.
Ariane and I are voluntarily giving up our time to run this website and campaign, so today marks the culmination of weeks of hard slog to pull everything together doing this alongside our regular work. It’s been very, very worthwhile, and I’m super grateful to everyone that has donated so far. I’ll log off for now and be back at it afresh tomorrow morning.
October 21st, 2008 at 23:16
And we’re super grateful to you for all your hard work.
October 21st, 2008 at 23:23
Congratulations on this campaign! Just wanted to let you know that you’ve received of media coverage overseas too – the leading Aussie newspapers The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald have both run with the campaign. If only the Aussie dollar hadn’t dropped so far that more than half the donation is gobbled up by the exchange rate… Keep up the good work!
October 21st, 2008 at 23:43
I bore my friends whenever I get the chance with my attempts to get them to give up the last remnants of their childhood religion, but it’s great to know that there are people doing something more organised. Here’s to a religion free society!
October 22nd, 2008 at 1:21
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
- Margaret Mead
Apathy? Dead, by the looks of things.
Congratulations to all, including – especially! – to those who have donated.
October 22nd, 2008 at 8:45
It’s really encouraging to see how enthusiastically the campaign has been greeted, especially considering how difficult it can sometimes be to get non-theists to agree on how their position can best be presented to the world. Thanks to both of you for setting this up.
I’ve added the donation widget to asktheatheists.com and posted on YouTube about the campaign.
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:08
This is great stuff, £54,000 and counting. Well done – it’s made my day. All aboard Darwin’s Bus.
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:53
Will Dawkins now have to stump up £43000+? What a delicious thought…
October 22nd, 2008 at 12:08
Please get a better slogan, the one shown is awful!
As an atheist, designer and writer I can help, probably for free!
Check out my avatar
http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=56035
check out my website
http://www.designalternative.co.uk/
Check out my blog
http://www.whengodsonyourside.blogspot.com/
October 22nd, 2008 at 12:41
[...] in a day (so many that the hosting company contacted Jon Worth to see what was going on – more here!). It also gives the campaign identity and builds trust for other people to believe the [...]
October 22nd, 2008 at 12:49
It’s now 12.45 and up to £59.6k. Fantastic! You have given a lot of us a public way of saying that we don’t buy the whole God thing. Thanks for that!
Stick with ‘probably’ – it’s funny, ironic and very, very human.
No-one with a brain will mistake what you mean!
October 22nd, 2008 at 13:35
It’s interesting to note that the story has disappeared almost entirely from the BBC website despite being one of their most read articles, and also given the phenominal developments in the campaign over the past 24 hours.
The story can be searched for, but is no longer linked from the ‘England’ or ‘London’ front pages. When one finally digs up the story, it’s also notable that the link to the justgiving page has been removed entirely.
Am I being paranoid? Or is the openly pro-religion BBC feeling a bit worried about directing so many people to the donation page?
October 22nd, 2008 at 14:04
I love this campaign. Let’s get it in Manchester. Well done all.
October 22nd, 2008 at 16:41
You’re brilliant for organising this, and what an amazing response at JustGiving. This is making my week.
October 22nd, 2008 at 17:11
The Atheist Campaign reached Canada today via CBC Newsworld (a 24 hour news channel)! The segment was called “Ungodly Ads” but the tone wasn’t judgemental or negative; Canada has a very large non-religious population, anything from 15 to 35%.
October 22nd, 2008 at 17:26
I asked the BBC about the link. They said they removed the campaign
donation link because “it appeared to contravene the BBC’s guidelines
on linking to charities”. Given there is a link to the BHA site they
are happy the “existing links offer a broad spread”. But feel free to
ask them about it. You can complain about any story via the Contact
the BBC link at the bottom.