Hi everyone,
I just wanted to say thank you so much for all your fantastic comments, funny slogans and photos – and of course your donations. We couldn’t have done any of this without you.
I’ve written another blog for the Guardian site where you can leave ideas for how we can best use the funds:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/23/atheist-bus-campaign-ariane-sherine
Will write again here soon.
Many thanks again!
Ariane
14 comments 24.10.08
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.
15 comments 21.10.08
It has been a manic first day for the atheist bus campaign – we surged past the £5500 donation target a little after 10am and the more money that gets donated the more buses with atheist adverts we’ll be able to pay for. Thanks to all that have donated, and please keep on donating!
As well as Ariane’s Comment is Free article we’ve also received some decent press coverage of our efforts:
Online we’ve been covered by The Register, politics.co.uk, The First Post, Brand Republic and tens of bloggers.
13 comments 21.10.08
** We reached the total at 1006 BST (GMT+1) on 21st October, just over 10 hours after launch – thank you so much to everyone who contributed! If you haven’t donated yet and would like to then please do – we are now aiming to launch a full advertising campaign across the UK! **
The Atheist Bus Campaign launches today, Tuesday October 21. With your support, we hope to raise £5,500 to run 30 buses across the capital for four weeks with the slogan: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Donate online now!
Professor Richard Dawkins, bestselling author of The God Delusion, is officially supporting the Atheist Bus Campaign, and has generously agreed to match all donations up to a maximum of £5,500, giving us a total of £11,000 if we reach the full amount – enough for a much bigger campaign. Our campaign partner, the British Humanist Association, will be administering all donations.
With your help, we can brighten people’s days on the way to work, help raise awareness of atheism in the UK, and hopefully encourage more people to come out as atheists. We can also counter the religious adverts which are currently running on London buses, and help people think for themselves.
As Richard Dawkins says: “This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think – and thinking is anathema to religion.”
856 comments 21.10.08
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