Shoot Up or Put Up

And while Tim is tinkering and tippling his way through WDD, I thought I’d follow Cherise’s lead and go blue in time for the Diabetes UK North West Family Event today.

Well chaps, it’s that time of year again – World Diabetes Day. It’s like a diabetic Christmas, Yom Kippur and Eid-ul-Fitr all rolled into one. If you don’t already know everything about it you can check out the WDD site here.

My esteemed co-writer has already mentioned some things you might want to do; but I for one, being a huge and active supporter of diabetes causes *cough* will be spending the day tinkering in the garage, going to do nice birthday-related things with my wife and then traipsing to the pub to drink wine with our friends in the evening. Go me – diabetes campaigner supreme!

Doesn’t time fly? In a couple of weeks its World Diabetes Day again.

There’s lots of good work going on around the world and it’s nice to see the major UK diabetes charities joining forces to work together to raise awareness of diabetes on 14th November – Diabetes UK ; JDRF;  Diabetes Research & Wellness Foundation ;  Insulin Dependent Diabetes Trust ;  INPUT; and the UK Children with Diabetes Advocacy Group .

How can you get involved?

• Join thousands of others pledging to Get Serious about diabetes.
• Leave a message for Gordon Brown asking the UK Government to increase research funding for type 1 diabetes.
• Turn something blue. Last year in the UK alone we managed to light up more than 25 buildings with blue light on 14th November. This year we’re aiming for more. If you have a suitable specimen locally that you think would look rather fetching in blue, here’s some guidance on how to encourage it’s owners to support WDD.  
• Go blue online. On a more local level, why not turn your Facebook, Twitter or Myspace profile blue on 14th November to support WDD. For the technically inept like me, here’s how to do it.
• Go viral. Finally why not help to create the world’s longest viral highlighting the life long nature of diabetes.

I’ll be spending World Diabetes Day talking to parents of kids who’ve been recently diagnosed with diabetes. What’ll you be doing to mark our day?