9th October 2016 The Monarch Gala Charity Auction

We have a huge announcement today! As many of you may have seen online, today matches the date of the Monarch Gala in Quantum Break. We thought it would be interesting to not only do something for the occasion, but to have it be a force for good.

So, today we're announcing a charity auction on ebay, with sponsorship from Remedy, where 100% of money raised will go directly to Cancer Research UK.


Items for Charity: We've got two awesome items lined up for this auction, one of which will be announced a little later in the week as we're still smoothing out some of the details. The item that we're starting with has an Alan Wake theme and looks fantastic.

• The first is an Alan Wake collection. This contains Alan Wake Limited Edition for PC and Alan Wake's American Nightmare. Both games are signed by the developers. For American Nightmare the signatures are on the game cover. For Alan Wake, the signatures are on a fold out Alan Wake A3 poster inside the game box. [Beginning Price: £50]
  
• Our second item is a Special Edition XBOX One Quantum Break Bundle which contains a white XBOX One console, a digital copy of Quantum Break and a digital copy of Alan Wake. The case of the console has been signed by the developers at Remedy. [Beginning Price: £280]

We also teamed up with the lovely gentlemen at Poets of the Fall for the auction. With the release of their latest album, Clearview, and their follow up tour, schedules have been a tricky thing to work out. As a result, to make things a little more relaxed, we're planning a "part two" of the auction later this year with their contributions. So stay tuned for more information of that auction coming later this year! 

Reasons for Choosing the Charity: Something which I've always wanted to do with the site is run a charity auction. Choosing the charity was a simple, for me it was a personal choice. The first time when I experienced a death in the family was when I was seven, it was my Granddad. He was very stubborn in many ways, and I think he quite liked being a grandparent, not least because he got to do Granddad kind of stuff. This stuff would usually take the form of teasing and telling jokes that made stare you at a wall for five minutes afterwards. He would complain about Michael Schumacher winning yet again in Formula One, not because he watched it but because my Dad and I would be interested... he also knew it would wind me up. He would also make a turkey soup everyone refer to as "Special" for lunch when we came over and food comas would ensue.

I don't remember if I was told he had cancer at the time, or if that was after he had passed away, but I knew that he was sick. The soup was made less and less often until we just got used to bringing the ingredients for sandwiches. And he was often now asleep during our visits, though his presence was felt by the oxygen machine in the corner of the living room. The Cancer attacked pretty quickly, in just a few months. For our last visit, he had remained in bed all day, only waking up while we were leaving to say goodbye. Being seven, I didn't really understand the seriousness, I just knew that he was unwell. I remember my sister hugging him goodbye and me wanting to but not doing so in the end. There were various wires and monitoring devices that I was nervous about breaking. So, I decided I would wait until next time. 

I remember being told he had passed away, the funeral service at the church, the gathering at my Nan's house afterwards. It was only until a week after that it actually hit and by that point it had a week's worth of momentum.

Cancer sucks like that. It's precise in the way that it's selective, and a wrecking ball in the way it affects people.

Why an Auction: The reason I chose to run an auction is due to my Nan, on the other side of the family. She sadly also passed away from the same disease before I was born, but I knew that she was a nerd. Huge nerd. She took over running a Star Trek fanzine after my parents got married, but she was perhaps most known for organising a series of annual UK Trek conventions in the 1970s and 80s. At each event there would be a section of the program dedicated to an auction where all proceeds, along with any profits from the event itself, would go to Cancer Research UK. The way we're running it is the... well, more anti-social way of doing it, I guess, as it's all online. But it's a way of combining the nerdy things that we love with raising money for a good and very important cause.


Charity Auction Giveaway
To say thank you for all the support. Everyone who spreads the word about the Monarch Gala Charity Auction will be eligible to win a code for Alan Wake's American Nightmare on XBOX 360/XBOX One, which has been kindly donated by the awesome Josh (@TimePowers). All you need to do to enter is email alanwakethesuddenstop(at)gmail(dot)com with a link to the shoutout in the message section. The winner will be picked at random from the entries on the final day of the auction. (And for boring legal stuff: as the game is +18, you need to be over the age to enter.)


Special Thank You:  A huge thank you to Lauri (Community Manager at Remedy) and Mikki (Narrative Lead at Remedy) for helping me to arrange this and for holding people at knifepoint until they sign stuff. Thank you also to Captain at POTF for helping out with our second auction later this year. To Josh (@TimePowers) for the Alan Wake American Nightmare code! And to my Granddad for the soups.

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