Our Appeal

For the past few weeks, the world has watched with horror as bushfires relentlessly rage through the Australian state of Victoria, leaving indescribable devastation and loss in their wake.  More than 1,800 homes have been destroyed and hundreds of lives claimed by the fires, with the country now mourning the highest post-war death toll in Australian history.

Already, stories of human kindness and generosity of spirit are providing a ray of light on a black horizon. As Australians and people from across the world pull together to help those who have been most affected by the fires, we are proud to say that within days of the terrible news breaking, Traders from the Antipodes were getting in touch with our Australian directors, expressing a need to ‘do something to help’.

We felt that Phoenix was in the unique and privileged position of being able to respond quickly and productively to this tragedy. The decision was made to raise money for the Victorian Bushfire Appeal by rushing through a special edition, charity version of the new Blue Butterfly card by Amanda Loverseed. Phoenix Trading is donating 100% of available monies from the sale of this card to the Phoenix International Charity for distribution to the Red Cross Victorian Bush Fire Appeal 2009. Further donations from Traders’ own individual fundraising efforts should ensure that, if we sell out of all the stock we will raise in excess of $40,000.

Operations such as this do not just happen and we owe a huge debt of gratitude to a number of people. Thanks to the Phoenix staff members who worked tirelessly to facilitate the creation of the design and the promotional materials to support it. A big thank you to our printers at Sherwood Press in Nottingham, who undertook the impossible and managed to turn a three week job round in one week and 2 days. Thanks especially to the Sherwood Press staff who volunteered for weekend shifts to ensure the schedule was met. On Monday morning, true to their word, Sherwood delivered 20,000 Blue Butterflies that were ready to take an exhausting flight across the Pacific to be released over Australia. And finally, we would like to express our gratitude to the IT team at Fourfront, for the generosity and assisting us with creating an online profile for the Appeal at such short notice.

Silent Auction of Artwork

Amanda Loverseed, the UK-based artist who designed Blue Butterfly, was so moved when she was told that her design had been chosen to spearhead this fundraising initiative, she immediately offered to donate her original artwork to be used in whatever capacity we saw fit to further augment the appeal coffers. It was decided to hold a silent auction for all AUS/NZ Traders to bid on the artwork. Karen Lewis accepts the original artwork from Amanda Loverseed – the prize in the silent auction in aid of the Bushfire Appeal in March 2009.