Bulgaria Ski discussion board

N.B. by the heading if you do not want to know, please do not read and therefore not moan. We do owe it to a lot of people to let them know the outcome.

Hopefully this will be the last posting from us on this thread. Andie has contacted all the contributors to let them know the outcome of the vote . We would now like to inform you all that a decision has been made and E12,000 will go to Stoikite and the balance to Karin Dom. For all the doubters out there we really have been working hard to come to an honourable , fair and satisfactory conclusion. I agreed to help out on this fundraising and did my first posting on my birthday last December - it has been a very long year! Andie came on board shortly afterwards and has been a real brick. She created the orphanage website and made no charge for doing so and kept it updated. She has kept records of every single donation, every email sent and received. She has done a lot of running around and made lots of phone calls and has never taken or asked for reimbursement. Andie, (Dreanas) has become a dear friend and I would publicily like to thank her for all her hard work, support and total dedication. I cannot tell you how hard she has worked, which made it so difficult for us to receive the adverse comments from some of you.

As soon as we heard the orphanage was closing we were not sure how to use the money (it was easier collecting it than giving it away!). It took a long time because Andie was in negotiation with BG Aid to see if they would handle the money for us. They suggested that she visited KarinDom in Varna, which she did a couple of days before returning to the UK for a visit. We then emailed everyone asking for their vote and gave 3 options - 1, to give all the money to Stoikite, 2 to give to Bg.Aid and 3 to give E5000 to the children at Stoikite to help them in the short term and the balance to Karin Dom. After receiving the replies we were then approached by Doug (Amanda Heath's partner) who put a proposal forward - for E12,000 he would put in some showers, warm water and a few new radiators etc. This was option 4. We then re-emailed all the contributors to ask them to choose again and the decision was to go with Option 4. Doug (and Amanda Heath) have agreed to produce properly accounted invoices for action by Plamen Borissov before any of the allotted monies are released to him/them for expenditure on the Option 4 proposal ONLY. Doug has promised to get the work done as a matter of urgency.

Because of personal issues Andie and I will not be working with Amanda any more. However, I would reiterate that I believe Amanda is 100% dedicated to the children at Stoikite and she and Doug will always do right by them. The children may still be in the orphanage for some time to come and always need help in the form of warm clothes, toiletries, stationery etc. If you feel as though you can help in any way please contact Amanda directly.

Again, thank you all from both Andie and myself for all the support you have given the children and us. We are just very sorry that things did not work out exactly how we intended. For the small minority who kept on writing adverse comments, perhaps you should think twice before putting such poison on a forum and causing such hurt and direct all your negative energy into something more positive.

Best wishes and happy skiing
Carole