Reasons to be Cheerful: Sharing the happiness via YouTube #R2BC

 
It's Saturday so its Reasons to be Cheerful. Amongst other things making me cheerful this week is the fact my cold is almost gone - nothing quite like a snotty nose to make you miserable! Otherwise there are some other things that have made me smile this week:
1) Making others happy

The final video from last weekend finally went up and I managed to get some great photos from it which show how much other people appreciate my filming:

Just so glad the final race footage is some of my best yet:

2) Walking to work

Being able to walk to and from work is one of the benefits of having a contract at a local school. Its not always as beautiful and sunny as this but I love it:

3) Being Creative

Another good thing about my current role is that I can have fun and get creative! We have been studying Earth and Space and made a model of our solar system using polystyrene balls that we painted to match the planets:

Can you help my YouTube channel?

I have really enjoyed developing and improving my YouTube channel over the last 2 years. It has enabled me to make new friends and have an excuse to spend hours filming in beautiful locations! However, YouTube brought in some new rules just as my channel started to take off and I am no longer able to make any money for all the hard work it takes to edit the films.

So this is what I need from my loyal viewers:

1. Please subscribe and get other folks to subscribe too - I need 747 more subscribers to hit the threshold!
2. Keep watching and sharing the videos - the number of hours watched is another threshold that I need to achieve...
3. If you enjoy what I do then please consider a small donation to help me cover my petrol costs and equipment. I will give you a shout out on my next film.
4. Sponsor me - if you run a business then I can include your logo/web site in one of my videos and in the description.
5. Buy a high quality still from the videos - for £2 I can offer you a still of your favourite moment in a recent race.

The next race I will be filming is the Great Westmorland Trail on September 7th. Here is a taste of last year's races:

So say hi if you see me as you run past and chuck a few pennies in my camera bag ;-)

Mid Lancs League Cross Country at Leigh Sports Village

Our first sporting activity of the weekend was a trip down the M6 and M61 to Leigh in Lancashire so my son could run in the Mid Lancs League cross country. These races are very fast and furious which doesn't really suit him but they make for good race practice and fitness. The first job on arrival is always to walk the course. As there are so many categories there are different lengths of laps and combinations. His course was going to be one medium lap:

Out on the golf course there was plenty of tape to help runners find their way:

Once he had walked the route I headed out onto the course to find suitable spots for videoing each of the 7 races. I tried to find something slightly different for each of them to showcase the route:

Kendal Winter League 2019: Race 1 Scout Scar

It was videoing the Kendal Winter League last year that really started the momentum going on my YouTube Channel. So with this year's competition starting last Sunday I am determined to:

1. Video all the races
2. Improve on my techniques and positioning for the films

I was combining videoing with being safety marshal on the gate at Scout Scar which meant that whilst I was close to the action (so close runners jostled me!), but it was quite tricky to film some of it! 

The first race was for the under 11s and under 13s which meant children from 8-12. This was a highly competitive and fast and furious race:

Once the 95 children had all finished it was time for the under 15s to take to the start line. This included my son as he had turned 12 before the New Year making him one of the youngest runners. They had a longer race of just over 2km and again there were some strong performances. My son was 13th out of 21 which was a great result for him:

The final junior race was the under 17s. Again some of these have only just moved up from the under 15 category but they all put in amazing runs:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Family, YouTube and my Commute #R2BC

 
If I've got the scheduling right its Thursday which means its time for the happiest linky around. So come on over and share the things that have made you smile this week - no matter how small. It as wonderful having old and new friends joining in last week so I hope its going to keep on making us all feel happier. As host I will visit, comment and share all the posts that are in the linky. If you are new to the linky then here are the simple guidelines (we are far too nice to do rules!):

• Posts must be about things that have made you happy
• Add the badge code to your post (see end of this post)
• Add your post to the linkup below
• Visit the other posts and comment to share the love
• If you want to then share those posts

So what has made me happy over the last week (apart from all the running posts I've already posted!)?

1) Family

My daughter started the couch to 5km running challenge last week I went out on her first run:

Running made us both smile. Let's hope being back at school doesn't scupper her fitness campaign! We also joined my parents at a local quiz night and were only 6 points off in the top 3 - guess we need to revise before the next one...

2) YouTube

Filming big competitions like the county cross country  and our local Kendal Winter League puts a real boost to my watch time! At one point I had had 1,400 views in a 48 hour window thanks to the 9 videos I made this weekend for the channel:

3) Proud Mum

Cumbria Cross Country Championships 2019

It was wonderful to be at this year's Cumbria Cross Country Championships at Hunter Hall School, Penrith. Some amazing running from all age categories. Here are my videos:

Under 11s:

Under 13s:

Under 15s:

My Top Nine Videos on YouTube

This was the year my YouTube channel finally got some momentum thanks to my filming of fell running! It is such a shame the rules of making money changed just as it was taking off as I would have a steady little income from it... I need to boost my subscribers to match the views and then I can earn some pennies *blatant beg*

Meanwhile here are my top nine videos by views from the last 12 months:

1) 3 Peaks Fell Race on Pen Y Ghent

My son and I hiked part way up to film the brave souls setting out on this year's 3 Peaks Fell Race the marathon with mountains:

2) Grasmere Sports Senior Guides Race

I was working as a steward at this year's Grasmere Sports so missed my son's fell race. I did get out in time to film the Seniors with commentary by the legendary Pete Bland:

3) Anniversary Waltz and Teenager with Altitude descent from Cat Bells

My son again helped me to film the final descent of these races from side of Cat Bells. A stunning day to cheer on the runners as they headed for home:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Its October #R2BC

 
Thank you to Michelle for hosting the linky in September and its now over to me for October. This means I have to be more on the ball! I look forward to reading and sharing everyone's posts this week and I hope you visit the other lovely bloggers. 
October is always a reason to be cheerful for me as its my birthday month and my daughter has her birthday too. Before we get to those here are my reasons to be cheerful this week:
1) Back to Fell Foot
I finally made it back to Fell Foot parkrun after another couple of weeks off. It was a stunning day to be running along the shores of Windermere:

2) Being Crafty

I have already posted about some of the things I have been making at school this week. Its been great to be allowed to be creative whilst teaching a child more about World War Two. Here is my template for the final Anderson Shelter I made:

3) Being Positive

I am continuing to create messages for the new venture with my daughter. We have put out our second video and are thinking up ideas for the third!

So please join in and share your happy posts and give some R2BC love to your fellow happy bloggers!
get the InLinkz code

Not Much Sense and Sensibility

My daughter and I decided back in the school holidays that we needed our own YouTube channel for our double act! We created Not Much Sense and Sensibility but it took until today to get around to actual filming and editing our first video and setting up the social media to go with it. We have:

• Twitter https://twitter.com/much_sense
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NotMuchSense 
• E-mail: notmuchsenseandsensibility@gmail.com

We had a lot of fun filming and editing the video as you can tell when you watch it:

What we need now are questions to answer or challenges to undertake! We are also planning on doing some out and about filming. Watch this space and please interact with us...

Reasons to be Cheerful: A mixed bag #R2BC

 
This is the last week of hosting by Michelle as I will be back in the hot seat for October - note to self be organised! She has done a grand job of keeping us joining in and sharing the love linky love. I hope everyone continues to join in as the number of bloggers taking part is a reason to be cheerful in itself! Here are my reasons to be cheerful this week:
1) YouTube
I always get a real boost on my stats after a big fell race and the English Schools' Fell Running Championships was no exception! It makes the hard work worth while when I see that I have had over 1,000 views in 2 days. Of course it would be even nicer if this meant I had earned money from it but hey ho!

2) Proud Mum

The downside of videoing the races is that I generally don't see my son finish them! Luckily for me Woodentops are often there to capture moments like this when my son dug deep to beat the boy wearing number 34:

3) Cute Puppy

You would have to have a heart of stone to not have a smile on your face when meeting this gorgeous 14 week old spaniel:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Sunshine, Garden and Wainwright Bagging #R2BC

I am feeling in a particularly cheerful mood as I host for the last time before handing back over to Michelle! The financial pinch of 2 weeks with no paid work is over and although I am not working full time I can breath again... So here are my reasons to be cheerful this week:
1) Tutorial in the sun
We didn't have as long a heatwave as everyone else in the UK but my student on Thursday made the most of it by having her lesson in the garden:

2) Gardening 

Since writing about my front garden last week I have made even more progress! I grabbed some 50p bargain flowers from the supermarket to add some instant colour. My wild seedlings are beginning to sprout and since this photo the grass has been cut:

Just hoping that my sad looking jasmine will survive!

3) Wainwright bagging

Whilst filming the fell races on Saturday I took the chance to finally get to the top of Cat Bells. You can see how pleased I was with myself:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Proud Mum, YouTube and Guinea Pigs

Welcome to another Reasons to be Cheerful linky as its Thursday! I enjoy reading and sharing your posts and I hope you enjoy each others. Just link up and then go and visit. Here are my reasons to be cheerful this week:
1) Proud Mum
My daughter has got her first job! Its tough at 14 to get a weekend job so she has done well. I can still remember earning a princely £1.47 as a supermarket cashier at her age.
2) YouTube Channel
Thanks to all my YouTube videos of fell running I went through the 100 mark for subscribers as well as continuing to have a large number of views:

3) Caption Competition

When I checked back on my shots of my son on a friend's trampoline there was this caption worthy moment that put a smile on my face:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Family Memories, Photos and Film #R2BC

We have been so busy this week that I have just realised that its Thursday so linky day! The lack of blog posts is due to working on my YouTube channel. I also had to go to Manchester to collect my final studio portrait... I hope you will join in and share (I have a feeling I need to visit a few of you still from last week...). Here are my reasons to be cheerful this week:
1) Videoing with my daughter:
I recruited my daughter to help me film the latest fell race at Elterwater. She used 2 of my cameras and her phone to record the action in the bog whilst I was on the hill:

Not only did she do a great job but she also assisted an injured runner in the under 13 race. Here is one of our videos:

2) Family memories

After tea with my aunt and uncle we were treated to seeing some slides from the 1970s of baby me and my brother as we grew up. I was a real chubster:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Half Term, YouTube, Tots 100 and more #R2BC

I have lost track of the days as its the school holidays so only just realised its Thursday and time for Reasons to be Cheerful! Hopefully folks will still join in and share the love. Despite having a cold for a few days I have had plenty of reasons to be cheerful during a week off school:
1) Marshalling and Filming at Fell Foot parkrun
I had my monthly volunteering slot at my local parkrun by marshalling at one of the turns. I managed to combine it with videoing the runners too. Amazing how many smiles I managed to raise in the rain:

2) Barbondale Fell Race
This has to be one of the most entertaining fell races to watch. It is so steep most runners come down at least some of the route on their bottoms or in one case fronts! There were a few spectacular face plants as well. My son helped me film this time and our videos have had nearly 1000 views in less than week!! Here is the summary video:

3) Fixed Internet

Just as my YouTube videos were becoming popular my Internet connection had lost lots of it upload speed so it was taking a day to upload one video! BT finally sent out an engineer and the upload speed has gone back up to taking only a couple of hours for one of the videos:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Snow, Blue Skies and Winter Walks #R2BC

Trying to be organised for this week and actually have this post ready to go before Thursday! It has been a wonderful week with a variety of work and plenty of reasons to be cheerful. Hopefully folks can join in and share theirs too.

1) Blue Skies

It was such a stunning day on Sunday which really set off the Hoad Monument when we stopped at the supermarket for a snack on our way home:

2) YouTube Filming

I am now getting known as the lady who films the fell races! I made a sign so that runners knew what I was doing pointing a camera at them:

To see my latest one have a look on YouTube (and if you can leave a like or a comment I would appreciate it!).

3) Snow

Yesterday we had just enough snow to look gorgeous without causing too much hassle. I walked past this magical looking tree on the way to the supermarket:

#CountryKids KWL Whitestones Juniors

On Sunday I got some more practice in for filming fell running when my son took part at the latest Kendal Winter League event at Whitestones. It was very windy and the course was muddy and steep. I found myself a vantage point to try to capture the races. It was hard to keep the camera stable even with a tripod (my new monopod was delivered whilst I was out!) but it was a stunning view:

At noon the under 13s set off and I was able to capture how tough it was to get up the hill:

My son managed to run the course over a minute faster than last year so I am very proud of him!

Reasons to be Cheerful: Teaching, YouTube, National Running Show and more! #R2BC

The lovely Michelle is hosting again this week before I take back over for February. Please do pop over to her place and say hi! I seem to have plenty of reasons to be cheerful this week and here are a few of them:
1) School Display
I have been enjoying creating an England display at school with the help of the children. Alongside the St George from last week we now have a dragon and Big Ben or Elizabeth Tower:

2) Fell Running filming

I had a freezing cold afternoon videoing the Giggleswick fell race in the snow:

I am astounded that I have had over 700 hits on my two videos! That really did put a smile on my face. I will be doing a fuller blogpost about this tomorrow...

3) National Running Show

My son and I had free tickets to the first National Running Show at the NEC. Plenty of reasons to be cheerful meeting folks I have only spoken to online and listening to some famous runners. 

#CountryKids Fell Running Challenge no 3: The Helm in Snow

When snow fell yesterday we took the chance to do our first snowy fell running film. It was also a chance to try out my new Action Camera. I had discovered the day before that if it was clipped to a bum bag it only really recorded the ground in front of you! So my mum suggested clipping it to a head torch band instead. We discovered this worked alright so set off to a snow coated Helm:

My 11 year old had a quick lesson in starting and stopping filming before stripping down to his running kit and making the film. It turned out that in the cold with gloves he didn't always get the switch so we had a few sections of film that weren't of running (but you really don't want to watch my rear view walking up a hill!). There was an occasion when he had pushed the band back up and forgotten to push it down again so we had a few sky shots too! Luckily a couple of the head cam films were OK enough to put into this film alongside the ones shot on the main camera:

Film number 4 will probably be the first Kendal Winter League at Scout Scar next weekend... Here are the links to the series so far:

Challenge 1: The Helm

Challenge 2: Kendal Castle

Fell Running Challenge #2 Kendal Castle

My son was very pleased to have had over 100 views of the two versions of his first fell running film in a week! So we headed down the road to Kendal Castle to film our second one. It was bitterly cold but no snow except in the distance as he ran up, around and down at the castle:

Fell Running Challenge #1 Helm

My son has been inspired by Kendal Mountain Festival to make some fell running films and then create a short film to enter into the competition next year! Today we headed up onto the Helm which is the home of his fell running club. Under his direction I filmed him running along this beautiful hill and performing many drills:

We are looking forward to making more films and including some other club members to make them more interesting. If anyone can suggest a great location for making another episode we would love to hear from you!

I am also open to suggestions on how to improve our videos...