Fairy Bricks Big Raffle 2014

I'm involved in a charity called Fairy Bricks; the idea of which is to raise money to buy LEGO® sets for children's hospitals and hospices - so far, over £20,000 (US$34,000) worth! It began life as a raffle on Brickset last year and is now a registered charity in the UK, but assists hospitals all over the globe. The Brickset Forum is full of AFOLs who know where to get heavily discounted LEGO, so the funds Fairy Bricks raise is used to get the biggest possible LEGO bang for the buck.

AFOLs also donate LEGO items to Fairy Bricks; most goes straight to the hospitals but some of the donations are really cool items specifically for Fairy Bricks to put into "The Big Raffle", which is aimed primarily at AFOLs. This raises money to buy sets that are more appropriate for hospitals to receive.

This years Big Raffle is underway - but about to end! You have until Monday 11pm (British Summer Time) to buy some tickets via a donation on PayPal (and you can do so without a PayPal account). They cost just £1 per ticket; for international folk, Paypal will handle the conversion. Read full details on the Fairy Bricks site which has the link to the raffle entry donation page.

"But what's in it for meeeee?" Well aside from those smiles on the faces of kids (and relieved hospital staff), the chance of winning really cool LEGO prizes! There are over 40 and some are truly money-can't-buy items, such as a copy of Billund exclusive set 4000010 LEGO House that's been signed by LEGO's CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, Marketing Director Mads Nipper and many LEGO Designers. For my small part I've been helping to organise another of the prizes; an original model of a starfighter built (and signed) by Senior Designer Mark Stafford. He made it in just two hours on the LEGO Inside Tour in 2013, during the evening when participants get to build alongside the LEGO Designers, and kindly donated it to Fairy Bricks' Big Raffle.

Sweet, and one of a kind. As the icing on the cake, custom minifig company Minifigs.me have now added to this particular prize by designing a Mark Stafford minifig!

So don't leave it any longer; head over to Fairy Bricks to read the full list of prizes and enter! The exciting live draw takes place on Brickset Forum this Wednesday and Thursday evening (BST).

Here are some more pics of Mark's work. I love his use of various stacked wedges along the back half, and the rear view happily reminds me of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (I'm talkin' Gil Gerard incarnation, oh yeh).