5 years ago on the 23rd March, one of our good mates in The Gathering left us for good. Nick Butcher was a great bloke and would have loved chatting to the new types we've got here in TGT. Dirty minded, full of fun and silly as they come!

Anyway. Each year Nick's parents give us £50 to award to the clan member(s) who've made the most positive difference to TG in the preceding year. We generally do it by a nomination process, so please PM me your choice with a short reason as to why.

This year, as we're part of TGT, I'd like to invite people from the other clans here to also nominate their choices if they wish, as it'll be interesting to see who's made an impact and why.

As ever, if you want to get in touch with the family, you can leave a message here. They are really impressed we're keeping this going, and they've posted a note on our homepage which everyone should read. :)

One of our occasional members, and an old friend of the community [FOG] Buster has bravely undertaken to take part in a 30 mile highland bicycle ride followed by a 43 mile hike to raise funds for Maggie's Cancer Caring Centres.

Cancer is a terrible disease that can destroy lives and families, it touches upon all of us bringing heartache and misery. Maggie's Cancer Centres are spread across the world, as well as having an online presence. They offer help, advice and support to victims and their families and they have been described as "A community Jewel" by Michelle Obama the First Lady of the United States.

You can support Buster in his self inflicted but selfless ordeal by visiting http://www.justgiving.com/ItekSoSolidCrew and making a donation. It doesn't matte how much or how little you can contribute as long as you make the effort.

Well done Buster, it's good to see someone putting themselves on the line to help others, we'll eagerly be awaiting pictures of your misery!

On behalf of everyone at TGT, we would like to wish you all the best in 2010.... and enjoy your Christmas!

We received this awesome card from the Tapir-crazy guys at Splash Damage. The text on the back of the card reads:
Tapirs are endangered, but you can help! Simply customise the card with the enclosed sticker sheet, post a picture of it on your website, and send a link to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . For each of the first 30 submitted Tapirscenes, Splash Damage will donate money to tapirs.org conservation project.

So we did! This is the result:

I came across this charity whilst wandering around the net yesterday and it occurred to me that this is a fairly awesome way for gamers to help little kids who for whatever reason are unfortunate enough to end up in hospital.

Many kids develop serious illnesses, or require operations that require long term stays in hospital, and I don’t know about the rest of TGT, but I find hospitals to be possibly the most tedious and boring places on earth.

The Childs Play Charity allows gamers and groups to buy a game or gaming related items which are then delivered directly to hospitals all over the world which have long stay child wards.

The UK hospital is Alder Hey in Liverpool, but there are hospitals all around the globe as you can see here: http://www.childsplaycharity.org/.

If you want to contribute then click on the controller on the charity map page, and you will be taken to an Amazon list, like the one for Alder Hey, or you can donate directly to them through the paypal link on their main site here: http://www.childsplaycharity.org/.

Don’t see your local hospital? Contact their children’s ward and talk to them, most hospitals would jump at the chance to have themselves represented, you can ask them to contact Childs Play at their contact e-mail here: http://www.childsplaycharity.org/contact.php.

An e-mail should do it, and we can help a lot of little kids all over the world who are stuck in a bad situation, at a bad time in their lives.