26 replies to this topic

[JCalvin]

I have been an avid follower of aging research in particular SENS for more than 3 years.
One thing which I have noticed is that unfortunately there are too many people like me. We follow the research the progress waiting for a major break-through or major funding initiative.
It is time we stopped following, it is time we stopped waiting, it is time for us to take action!!!

We need a solid plan, an action which we can all take part in, a way to make a difference, to raise awareness.

I propose that we have a 'Fight Aging Week' !!!

Initially I would like to propose that we hold it in the first week of February on a yearly basis. Therefore our first 'Fight Aging' week would be from the 1st to the 7th of February 2010. This will give us time to brain storm and come up with ideas for making the week a success.

Some points I have considered for the week:

- I think it is very reasonable to assume that we can get at least 1000 people from the forum to act as advocates and organizers in the location which they reside. This is based on membership numbers as well as the number of people who have signed up for '10,000 people to raise $1,000,000 to defeat aging' face-book cause.

- This number is expected to increase dramatically on a year to year basis as awareness increases.

- Everyone who acts as an organizer/advocate/awareness-raiser should purchase a shirt from the 'immortality institute's' shop, this will help to market the cause and will also raise money as all proceeds go towards fighting aging.

- Ideas for activities should be brainstormed... activities could include; walks, nature trails, bike rides, seminars, etc. Look at any of the other fund-raising initiatives for cancer etc for ideas.

- Each organizer should form a group to partake in fundraising activities such as selling i.e. to family or door-to-door products as can be viewed at BuyForCharity.com one product which grabbed my attention were the batteries (who if asked wouldn't buy some spare batteries, especially if they were raising money for a cause).

Please lets discuss this, but more than that lets make it happen!!!
It is by far time the 'Fight Against Aging' reached the public domain!!!

To saving lives and ending aging for all,

Jake Calvin

[JCalvin]

Steps Required ASAP!!!

- Registration Page for volunteers/advocates/fund-raisers

- Marketing Strategy to raise awareness for the week

- Brain-Storming of activities to be included in the week

[lunarsolarpower]

I have been an avid follower of aging research in particular SENS for more than 3 years.
One thing which I have noticed is that unfortunately there are too many people like me. We follow the research the progress waiting for a major break-through or major funding initiative.
It is time we stopped following, it is time we stopped waiting, it is time for us to take action!!!

We need a solid plan, an action which we can all take part in, a way to make a difference, to raise awareness.

I propose that we have a 'Fight Aging Week' !!!

Initially I would like to propose that we hold it in the first week of February on a yearly basis. Therefore our first 'Fight Aging' week would be from the 1st to the 7th of February 2010. This will give us time to brain storm and come up with ideas for making the week a success.

Some points I have considered for the week:

- I think it is very reasonable to assume that we can get at least 1000 people from the forum to act as advocates and organizers in the location which they reside. This is based on membership numbers as well as the number of people who have signed up for '10,000 people to raise $1,000,000 to defeat aging' face-book cause.

- This number is expected to increase dramatically on a year to year basis as awareness increases.

- Everyone who acts as an organizer/advocate/awareness-raiser should purchase a shirt from the 'immortality institute's' shop, this will help to market the cause and will also raise money as all proceeds go towards fighting aging.

- Ideas for activities should be brainstormed... activities could include; walks, nature trails, bike rides, seminars, etc. Look at any of the other fund-raising initiatives for cancer etc for ideas.

- Each organizer should form a group to partake in fundraising activities such as selling i.e. to family or door-to-door products as can be viewed at BuyForCharity.com one product which grabbed my attention were the batteries (who if asked wouldn't buy some spare batteries, especially if they were raising money for a cause).

Please lets discuss this, but more than that lets make it happen!!!
It is by far time the 'Fight Against Aging' reached the public domain!!!

To saving lives and ending aging for all,

Jake Calvin

Interesting idea but I take it you don't live somewhere that has especially inclement weather during February. Throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere February isn't good for doing much outside. If you placed the week during Summer vacation lots of students would be out of school and could devote their time to the cause.

[JCalvin]

Interesting idea but I take it you don't live somewhere that has especially inclement weather during February. Throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere February isn't good for doing much outside. If you placed the week during Summer vacation lots of students would be out of school and could devote their time to the cause.

Good Point!!! I do in fact live in the Southern Hemisphere (Australia), Completely slipped my mind that the weather is probably pretty inhospitable in the Northern Hemisphere around February.
I do think however, that it is important that we can decide on a global date to allow unification of our efforts and raise publicity.

Also very good idea to get school/university children involved as well... How many of us have children in School or University? Probably a fair few of us.....

So Maybe June... I think we should go with the Northern Hemisphere as it is more heavily populated with western countries.... but as I don't live there I'm not sure as to the best date...
Australia is pretty temperate most of the year so June would be fine here as well....

[Shepard]

Thanks for the idea. Recorder's deadline is November 12.

Further questions/discussion to come after I think on it a bit more.

[Mind]

I suggest fight aging week occur in early September during Imminst's annual anniversary.

[Shepard]

As we haven't heard anything back on this topic, moving to the Dewar for right now.

[Droplet]

This is an old thread but I really do think that a recognised fundraising period during the year that is international would be a superb idea. It would get the cause attention AND act as a fundraiser. Just one day would be great even if we couldn't get a week...just look at Children In Need and Comic Relief here in UK. Okay so we currently don't have the publicity to get it to go as far but I think that if we knew how to promote this and got enough involved, it would still raise a good chunk.

[thughes]

Pick a week that doesn't coincide with anyone else's special interest week, get a few other major life extension/transhumanist organizations on board (H+, lef.org, sens, etc... this is critical as an international fight aging week with just Longecity has limited impact), make some images for members to post on Facebook et al, plan to run a decent article on some currently relevant anti aging research (acquired in advance) on every day of the week. Post an article regarding the week about a month in advance. Tag the article on digg, get all the members to digg it (yes I know how hard that is), promote it on facebook... what else?

Plan to do this yearly (with reminders to all the organizations involved).

Should have a nice icon, but afaik the Longecity original icon is quite nice enough.

I wonder if the spring equinox is taken... The byline can be "We Survived the Mayans, now its time to defeat aging!". However, I admit, that won't have people taking it seriously.

[Mind]

OK. If this is going to move forward let us organize now for a planned event next year. Earlier (like 3 years ago, lol) I proposed September for fight aging week...because it coincides with Longecity's anniversary...and it so happens, SENS 6 is next year September 3rd through the 7th. It was wisely suggested that we would not want to coincide with other "weeks" but this one could be very synergistic. September is generally pretty decent weather for the northern and southern hemisphere for any outdoor-type events.

[Droplet]

Some great ideas from Mind and Thughes there. Nice to see thoughts on forwarding this idea springing up.

"We Survived the Mayans, now its time to defeat aging!".

Love it!

[thughes]

I just noticed the very old thread thing... Well it was a good idea 3 years ago too. Targeting the week of SENS 6 may work out. Any chance of
reaching out to a few other organizations (I know some people have contacts)? If any bites, a separate forum/thread/something for coordination would be good.

[Droplet]

I do think the more organisations we can get working together to do this, the better.

What about cheap freebies to give out at small events such as stickers and pens, you know like they do at job fayres etc.? A lot of businesses do this. Another thing I thought is a bit like the white poppy for peace, we could have some sort of cheap badge/stick on flower that people can have for a £1 donation to raise money for the cause.

Edited by Droplet, 29 November 2012 - 09:24 AM.

[Mind]

First and foremost, I think we should contact SENS about this. If they like it, then we should move forward. If not, I think we should put this one back in the closet.

[Droplet]

First and foremost, I think we should contact SENS about this. If they like it, then we should move forward. If not, I think we should put this one back in the closet.

Would be a nice idea if we can move it forwards. Are there not other organisations like SENS that would do something a little smaller in case of SENS showing no interest?

Mind, could you please have a word with SENS and/or smaller organisations to see if they would be up for this? You'd most likely know what you're on about more so than myself.

[thughes]

Perhaps LEF would be interested. They may be more interested if a few of the smaller organizations sign on first. Likewise the A4M.

H+ may be interested, since life extension is part of the platform.

[Mind]

The list of organizations that could support this idea is fairly large. Most likely it will be up to Longecity for form an organizing committee - volunteers that can put in the time and see it through (a pretty big committment, if we want it to be successful). I think if we provide the people, the other organizations will join in to promote and support the idea.

[Droplet]

So who would seriously be up for helping out with this and could they please list their names in this thread? If we start collecting names then we will know how many potential helpers we have.

Edited by Droplet, 05 December 2012 - 06:55 AM.

[thughes]

I suppose some thought needs to go into what exactly a Fight Aging week should do, what it needs, at least to have some basic outline to show people.

For example:

- Joint conference (I believe Imminst has some prior experience with this). Not much point in a week without a conference and speakers.
- Artwork.
- Basic web page. Doesn't have to be big but should be professional, showing all participating groups. Mission statement. Links to Donation pages. Could be hosted on the same server as imminst, with its own name and redirection.
- Probably a private forum for organizers(could be hosted here too)
- Advertisements in other Life Extension media (least expensive)
- Advertisements in various scientific media (semi expensive)
- Advertisements in big media (possibly unobtainable)
- Drumming up enthusiasm. Eg using the website to highlight major medical advances in 2013 as they happen, or highlighting things in the works. Having all involved organizations feature a prominant link to the website on their pages, and reminders in their newsletters.

Really have to investigate what other "weeks" or "days" have done to see what can be done.

But I note a significant dearth of volunteers here lately (where did they go? other organizations?) so I'm skeptical about pulling anything off without an influx of volunteers from at least another organization or two. Unless all the management wants to volunteer.

I can likely help with a website, plus research into ideas for what to do in the week. Happy to review/edit any material if no professional editors are available. I am not an artist and you do not want me designing artwork. I have no problem mailing people once there's a mission statement but I have no official standing. It would be much better for official mails to come from management. Plus, I have no contacts in other organizations.

[churchill]

I can say with some measure of confidence that this plan while being ingenious, will in fact go no where. The most obvious problem is that the cause is not even close to being large enough to go for a fighting aging week, second problem as you have identified that there will not be enough volunteers of the right calibre (e.g. sales and marketing), third would be there is very little money for it, better to just donate directly to SENS.

More information on agency and how hard it is...
http://lesswrong.com...reciate_agency/

[Droplet]

I can say with some measure of confidence that this plan while being ingenious, will in fact go no where. The most obvious problem is that the cause is not even close to being large enough to go for a fighting aging week, second problem as you have identified that there will not be enough volunteers of the right calibre (e.g. sales and marketing), third would be there is very little money for it, better to just donate directly to SENS.

More information on agency and how hard it is...
http://lesswrong.com...reciate_agency/

Thanks for that Churchill, though if it is only two people who are brought round to the cause and the activities organised only small then I'd see it as success.

[thughes]

Nice article on agency. I've only recently found LessWrong, so far its been interesting.

[Mind]

Well, of course, every project needs a leader with vision & passion who is willing to take real & visible risks, in order to make the project happen. Every organization usually has a small handful of active people who do 95% or more of the work. Such is life.

SENS does not want to sponsor or help coordinate "Fight Aging Week" but they did NOT nix the idea of having the week coincide with SENS6.

[churchill]

Nice article on agency. I've only recently found LessWrong, so far its been interesting.

Yes I think it is worth going to one of the meetups if you are nearby, so far I went to one and it was pretty decent.

[Droplet]

Well, of course, every project needs a leader with vision & passion who is willing to take real & visible risks, in order to make the project happen. Every organization usually has a small handful of active people who do 95% or more of the work. Such is life.

SENS does not want to sponsor or help coordinate "Fight Aging Week" but they did NOT nix the idea of having the week coincide with SENS6.

Do you know of anyone else who would be interested and share our vision?

[Mind]

Well, of course, every project needs a leader with vision & passion who is willing to take real & visible risks, in order to make the project happen. Every organization usually has a small handful of active people who do 95% or more of the work. Such is life.

SENS does not want to sponsor or help coordinate "Fight Aging Week" but they did NOT nix the idea of having the week coincide with SENS6.

Do you know of anyone else who would be interested and share our vision?

No, not right now, but I could do some digging/asking around, at some point.

[Droplet]

No, not right now, but I could do some digging/asking around, at some point.

Thank you very much...would be superb if you could.