Twitter and good deeds

As a kid, I was a boy scout. Yes, I know you might say how sweet that is. But seriously, I didn't realise at the time how important being a scout was in preparing me for later life.

Let me give you two examples. Firstly, we formed a scout band. We had cavalry trumpets in B flat pitch with no valves so the only notes you could play were the harmonics of C. We had snare drums, tenor drums, a bass drum and glockenspiels. We entered marching band contests and did ok.

I showed promise on the cavalry trumpet so my parents were persuaded to get me a valve trumpet and from there I progressed really well. I went to the Junior School at the RNCM at age 15 and was eventually offered a place on the graduate course at the college. That was one of only two places with 57 people auditioning. I had an offer of a place to study law at the same time at the University of Manchester. It was music I loved, but I looked ahead and realised that although I aimed to play professionally in an orchestra, I would end up waiting for dead men's shoes. So I took the place to study law and switched to brass bands as a cornet player, met my future wife there and the rest as they say is history.

All that from joining the scouts.

What else did scouting teach me? It taught me to be on the look out to do a good deed every day. Simple motto, but what a world we'd have if we all did that.

Brings me to today and Twitter. I was working on the pc this evening when I heard the letter box close. I went to see what had been posted through and there was a leaflet from people I had no knowledge of, Ben and Caroline Lomax, asking for old clothes, bedding, curtains, belts and handbags to raise money for Christies cancer charity. I read the leaflet and thought that if I posted a request on Twitter and appealed to local people, I might just get some takers. I sent out a general tweet and asked people to retweet it. I also sent a few tweets addressed to local individuals I follow.

Result. Within 10 minutes @CoffeeApe replied and said his family had 4 bags full of good quality clothes they had been meaning to take to a charity and he would be happy to donate them to Ben's appeal.

I mailed Ben and got a wonderfully grateful email in reply from Ben and Caroline. They said that they had hoped that just one response would result from their leaflet drops this evening and how pleased they were that I was that one response. They were thrilled.

Here's the thing. It took very little effort on my part. Far less effort than Ben and Caroline had put in by producing the leaflets and posting them through may letterboxes.The simple step was connecting the leaflet to how I might use Twitter to promote the cause. I just then posted a few tweets. Job done.

That emotion of contribution when you are able to help people like this really is one of the power emotions that Anthony Robins talks about in his work, "Giant Steps".

I looked at Ben and Caroline's website. Take a look yourself here and sponsor one of the squares that will be on the flag they are to take to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. Do you know someone who might sponsor them?

So think how you can use Twitter or any other form of social networking for your good deeds and make a difference today.