We Aspire to Inspire

We are Target Who.  We are a small group of thirty Doctor Who fans and we hope to inspire you. 

To teachers, pupils and other readers we hope to demonstrate what can be achieved with passion, communication, courtesy and teamwork BUT to Doctor Who fans, wherever you are in the world, we want to inspire you to embrace our cause and JOIN US.  We mentioned this at the very end of our very first post.  We have mentioned this in each and every interview we have given.  We are quietly whispering it, and some of you have already responded to our call.  The eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed a post that appeared on our Facebook page from Donald Bain on the 16^th of May.  It reads:

Well done, great idea. I don't have any mint Target books but I did find 6 unread hardbacks from 2005 (Dr 9) at the back of a shelf and have donated to my kids local school here in Hobart. Thanks for the inspiration.

That’s Hobart in Tasmania.  Wow!  How wonderful is life in the 21^st Century.  We sit and write a blog in the United Kingdom and on the other side of the world someone is moved by our words to embrace our cause.  Donald Bain we salute you.  We are Target Who and we are growing.  We are now a small group of THIRTY-ONE fans.  Welcome to the team Donald.  Whenever you hear Target Who mentioned, know that you were part of what we achieved.  Every fan that now donates a book in our name is following your lead.

And they are following already.  We heard off Steve Goddard from Oxford via a Facebook email.  He told us of some of his childhood memories of reading Target novels and added “I'll be more than happy to make a donation of my own: 'The Daleks' would be a very good option.”  When he does, he becomes part of Target Who.

In our other mailbox we received a message from Lucy Hatherell and her 11 year old daughter Isabel.  They told us “Just read your blog and think this is BRILLIANT! My daughter and me are both massive Whovians so it was a no brainer to donate some books to her school! So please add Waddington and West Bradford Primary School to your map who will soon be receiving a lovely parcel containing: Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster, Doctor Who and the Tenth Planet, Doctor Who and the Day of the Daleks" When they do, they become part of Target Who too! And so we grow. We also heard from “Koth” on a comment on our blog.  “What a great plan! I have some books I was going to get rid of. I can donate them to your cause. They are the 90's reprints and never been read, in my library doing nothing but being a variant cover.” We’ll find a nice school library or three for his books and he’ll become part of Target Who too! Finally we heard off another fan whose efforts have impressed us so much, we are going to hand the blog over to him temporarily to tell you himself what he’s done.  His name is Roger Smith, and some of you may know him in Doctor Who circles as Black Dalek.  Over to You Roger:

I love the idea of putting something back.
I have been a Doctor Who fan for 50 years.
Doctor Who taught me so much:  compassion; standing up for what is right; helping when you can.  It is the small things that make BIG differences.

It also taught me to read.  The first book I ever bought for myself was Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion.  I read that book and the universe opened up to me its endless possibilities.  So what Target Who are doing ticks all the boxes for me and I wanted to contribute.

I also play cricket for a village team.  It is our 75^th Anniversary this year and we are doing things to support our local community.  I had a word with our chairman and the club has agreed to boost my donation to our local schools with even more books.  Everyone is a winner!

I set out to buy a few books, but I discovered that The Book People were selling 6 target Reprints as a set of only £4.99!  If you spent over £25 you got free postage and packing.  I got 36 books for £30.  I also sent for 10 of the £1 The Silurian gift off Amazon, so I set a target of fifty books - one for each year of Doctor’s Who’s existence.  However, I was so impressed with the Quick Read books that it soon became 75 books - one for each year of Woodmancote Cricket Club’s existence.  

 I’ll be spreading them far and wide.  Not just the local village school, but also other schools in Birmingham where I grew up including going HOME I will be taking AUTON INVASION along with some others back to Pegasus Castle Vale, the School where it all started for me with the chipper club so very long ago and to schools where relatives of mine now attend. 

Roger Smith and Woodmancote Cricket Club we salute you.  Your generosity has taken our breath way.  We hoped to inspire fans to also donate a book.  We never expected anything like this.  (The Book People Offer)

We are Target Who and we are barely one month old.  We have whispered an invitation and look the response.  Now we raise our voice and say “JOIN US!”  How many of you reading this recognise the stories above?  Do you have books on a shelf you will never read again like Donald? Do you have Books in cupboards or lofts like Steve, Lucy and Isabel?  Do you have unread duplicate books that remain in your collection just because it has a difference cover like Koth?  Wouldn’t all those books be better off in a school library where they can be read and enjoyed again and again and again until the distant day when they fall apart?  Can you afford to buy a book or talk other people into also supporting our cause like Roger?

JOIN US!  Become part of Target Who.  We have added another counter at the top of the blog to record books donated by YOU in support of us.  We have added a pin in Hobart, Tasmania for the books donated by Donald.  The others will get pins when they confirm their books are now in a school.  How many pins will we get on the map with your donations too?  We hope you will contribute many.  We hope they will span the globe.  Can we get at least one inspired pin in EVERY US State?  Can we get inspired pins in Canada? Australia?  New Zealand?  It is up to YOU.  Finally we have created an inspired donations photo album for photos of you with your books.  Tweet us, message us, email us, or post to our wall.  Just tell us how many and where and include a photo if you like.  Use a pseudonym if you want.  When you do, you become part of Target Who.

We know that Doctor Who Fans are the most generous of people.  For years we have proudly watched as so many of us have quietly raised money for many, many wonderful causes.  This is the 50^th Anniversary of our show.  It is our year.  We don’t believe that anything on the scale of what the thirty of us have started has ever been attempted by a group of Doctor Who fans, (or any other type of fans for that matter).  Nothing like it may ever happen again.  This year we will put 14,000 books into thousands of schools completely free of charge to support children’s literacy.  But imagine for one minute that EVERY Doctor Who fan in the world also donated just one book to a local school… together you would make our 14,000 books seem insignificant.  Every single one of you that steps up and joins us will inspire another to do the same.  Will you join us?  Will you help us inspire an entire generation to embrace reading?  Will you become part of what could potentially become the single largest fan lead charitable scheme in the history of the Doctor Who Fandom?

We are Target Who.  We started as thirty Doctor Who fans and a plan to inspire some school children. We want to be so much more.  Join us and we can inspire the world.