Guest Post by Ross McKitrick
Hello WUWT’ers:
Anthony has kindly given me a bit of real estate on his website to tell you about a Christmas-themed project I am involved in. Cheerfully it has nothing at all to do with climate change, and unlike the overfed, self-important stage show at Doha, it might actually do some good for the world.
The quick background is that I am involved in the local (Guelph Ontario) Celtic music scene, and one of the groups I play in is called The Wild Oats, in which I play bagpipes, pennywhistle and bodhran. For kicks, over the past year we recorded a CD of Christmas music, arranged as traditional jigs, reels and waltzes. The CD is called Making Spirits Bright, and if I do say so myself it’s a blast. We are getting rave reviews on it for the quality of arrangements and the lively performance.
Now here is the best part. With the assistance of the aid organization World Vision Canada, for every CD that we sell, we and a group of other Canadian corporations will kick in a total of $75 for school supplies to be sent to classrooms in poor communities around the world. It can be ordered through the CD website, where you can also download a tune sample and watch a Youtube that tells you more about it.
Each CD sells for $20. But there’s another nifty thing, which is that if you order more than ten copies, the price drops to only $10 each (plus shipping and applicable taxes). So some local schools, church groups and other organizations have bought quantities to re-sell to their members at $20 each, making a bit of money for themselves while also generating large donations of school supplies for needy classrooms overseas. Also some small businesses have bought sets of 10 to give to their clients at Christmas, and groups of friends have gone together on orders to reduce their costs.
The Christmas season has only just begun, but based on early, word-of-mouth sales, we have already sold hundreds of copies. This week I traveled to World Vision headquarters in Toronto with two other band members to present them with a donation of $1,785. (That’s me behind the giant cheque on the left.) With the matching donations this will result in a shipment of nearly $27,000 worth of paper, pencils, readers, math exercize books, and other basic educational supplies. It’s the kind of stuff we take for granted here but it’s in desparately short supply in poor countries.
I have another 500 copies of this CD that I am hoping to sell before Christmas. WUWT attracts a well-educated readership that knows that schooling is the key for lifting poor communities out of poverty. If just 50 WUWT readers order 10 copies each (or some similar permutation) not only will a lot of great music be spread around the land, but I will be able to go back to World Vision HQ in the new year and give them another $2,500 in donations, which will trigger a total shipment of $37,500 in school supplies overseas early in 2013.
So I hope you’ll take a few minutes to watch our Youtube video and then hit the order button on the CD website. At present we are only shipping in Canada and the US. For those of you who take part, please accept my thanks in advance. I know you won’t be disappointed, and a lot of deserving students in needy countries will also thank you.
Ross McKitrick
UPDATE – Ross writes in comments:
We can now accommodate overseas orders. Just email admin@chanterrecords.com saying how many you want and we’ll send you a shipping quote and take it from there. For Canada and the US, follow the existing payment system at http://chanterrecords.com/MakingSpirits.aspx. By the way, just since post this went up last night we have been FLOODED with orders! Thanks everybody. We will be spending the weekend packing CDs for shipment Monday morning. Also, World Vision staff told me our donation yesterday, with the matching donations added in, will fully stock 540 classrooms in the new year.
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I’m in! Great project!! They made bagpipes to tune accordians:)
Most outstanding. Blessings to you and Anthony
Kudos Ross. I will post this on my blog as well.
That answers the hitherto tricky festive question – What do you buy a warmist friend who has everything?
Sorry but I can’t have anything to do with World Vision – You need to find another partner!
http://www.worldvision.ca/Education-and-Justice/Policy-and-Analysis/Pages/a-child-health-disaster.aspx
I read or heard some years ago that in a story about a dangerous life form threatening a group they found the aggressive things could be calmed by playing a musical instrument. All instruments seemed to work except bagpipes. Hmm . . .
Nevertheless, I’ll put my better half on to this as she is the musician in the family – playing fiddle in a group that entertains at nursing homes and re-hab places. Those elderly folks like the old dance tunes. As I write she is transposing Frosty the Snowman into a key for the Clarinet player.
Notice in Ross’s text: At present we are only shipping in Canada and the US.
This limits the possibility of sales, so let’s get the North Americans in the Christmas spirit!
So a Bodhran is kind of like those Lambeg drums the unionists use to get up peoples’ nose?
Uilleann or Scots?
It’s done. As a sometimes blues harp, flute, and guitar jammer who also has a love hate relationship with the penny whistle I couldn’t resist the chance to add your album to my itunes library. BTW I once spent a great evening in Guelph (more than 3500 kilometers from home) after a business conference being entertained by a local barbershop chorus of older men. The Royal City Ambassadors i think. That night sparked my interest and encouraged me to do a great deal of that sort of singing too, in the years that followed. I just finished participating in an outstanding chorus presenting the Messiah. And in a way I owe the joy of the experience, at least to a degree to that evening in Guelph. Now maybe I will be inspired to resolve my differences with the penny whistle. Somewhere in the back of my mind I’ve always wanted to tackle the bagpipes too, but that may have to wait for another time and sphere. I do have neighbours. Do they have bagpipes in heaven I wonder?
It’s a shame they don’t ship outside North America, I would buy one otherwise!
Eyes Wide Open,
If you feel like not giving, fine. But you should not diminish World Vision mission to help those in need based on the link you provided. You may not like the ties to Global Warming, but they seem to be going about it in the right way in that they are trying to provide needed services to poor and disadvantaged children in this world. Whatever their reason for wanting to help folks, they are not pushing global warming solutions, but spending money to help with projects that help children and families. IMO, that is the right way for organizations who believe AGW or GW is a threat to our world. They also seem to be an above average charity in amount going to help those in need (81% – rated A-).
Unless you have more on World Vision then that, I would suggest you just bow out on this one.
DBD says:
November 28, 2012 at 8:28 pm
Nay, that’s a myth. The bagpipe was devised to attract the wild haggis, not by the sound, but by exciting the female with exaggerated male reproductive apparatus. Aye the sound would scare off any normal creature, especially the obsequious sassenach.
Thanks Ross, much respect for what you have done in the AGW arena battle, and for promoting a good cause. With that said, had to get two.
Eyes Wide Open,
I’m sympathetic to your view. I noted similar a similar stance a while back from World Vision Australia. I haven’t seen the same in WV USA. But the specific projects they show seem to be desirable without reference to climate doctrine. I assume naivety on their part. It’s quite possible they are open to education.
Having recently explored my ancestoral links to the MacLaren clan, this could not be more timely. Count me in. Will add it to our traditional Xmas morning mix, from ‘Unto us a child is born’ to ‘Driving Home for Christmas’.
Great work Ross, It is normally, engineers who are so multi-talented. I would buy one if in Canada.
Is there not a way to put the music on a downloadable file so that it can then be copied onto a CD.
I would be happy to pay $A15 just for the music files plus another $A15 for your charity.
World Vision: blowing cash on a pagan cult
Andrew Bolt
Tuesday, May 12, 2009 (12:04pm)
I’ve been a donor to World Vision for more than a decade. I’ve helped to publicise its work and urged you to support it, praising above all its commitment to giving the poor the direct help they need.
That’s now over. When my current sponsorships end, I will not renew. I will not donate a dollar more than I’ve already promised. An organisation I once admired for pragmatism has now fallen for the giddiest ideology of all. Under Tim Costello, so ignorant and alarmist that he blames global warming even for tsunamis, donors’ money is now being wasted on a great sham. A once-Christian organisation is now switching its focus from saving people to saving Nature, as it follows a neo-pagan gospel.
…
World Vision Canada has this posted, How Global Warming Affects The Poor. The usual junk, and this example of execrable dreck:
A study done in Peru has linked an exponential increase in hospital admissions for children with diarrhea, to heat waves caused by the El Niño—a weather phenomenon some attribute to global warming.
These kinds of problems have led the World Health Organization to attribute five million extra illnesses and 150,000 extra deaths each year to disease and malnutrition caused by climate change.
El Niño caused by global warming? Paging Bob Tisdale.
They’re a good charity that has done great work. They help desperately poor people who need the assistance. But beating potential donors with the climate change goad to stir up some extra guilt among the Rich Westerners, with its shonky science, questionable linkages, and outright lies, is insulting. These people need help, there’s more than enough of a case by itself. But throwing in fairy tales of how the dreaded CAGW monster will consume these innocents unless I give them money, that’s a turn off.
If you like the music and since it will help deserving people, buy if you want. But hopefully The Wild Oats will find a better organization to help the next time. And they are out there.
That’s the problem with jumping on the (C)AGW gravy train, you’re along for the ride when that bridge too far finally collapses.
For those who don’t know what a Bodhran is, it is a small hand-held drum, and you hit it with a stick or a bone. There are two varieties; one is covered in the skin of a goat, and the other is covered in the skin of an Englishman. They both sound the same, but one is more fun to hit.
OMG, I’ve listened to The Wild Oats before and never realized Ross was in it! Guess I need to read the names more often 😉
In re Celtic drums’ inspirations; the folks of the Eastern mountains of the US speak of a Swinette, a pig’s arse stretched over a trashcan.
About visions of the world, read S. P. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. I stand with my civilization, my culture, and its history. Douglas Bruce H.
Carnwennan says:
November 28, 2012 at 8:44 pm
That answers the hitherto tricky festive question – What do you buy a warmist friend who has everything?
_____________________________________________
An accurate Thermometer?
Love the CD.
Thanks Ross and Anthony And the blessing of the season to you and everyone here at WUWT.
Put it on Amazon, so that I can purchase it from Germany, and you can count me in.
Cheers,
Mogamboguru / Michaelfrom germany
Ross: That is Great! I have two Celtic bands with my wife and some friends and we play all over. We actually just did our 14th Lehgih Valley Christmas Concert Sunday with about 15 other bands of all genres. I play guitar, keyboard, bodhran, and my wife is the fiddler.
I will order one of your CDs.
Tom
Oh, and Ross, in case you are interested, we are at http://www.blackwatermusic.com
Tom
Arguments over the origin of bagpipes continue; it seems to be either Greek or Egyptian. Each insists it was the other.
I ordered ten and if they get here in time, we can sell some at a small nearby store.
Meanwhile in Doha the insanity is compounding. Glad that the world is increasingly uninterested.