10 years of Not A Ballerina in 2015 – my plans to celebrate my blog anniversary

Happy New Year, everyone, and welcome to 2015 – the year that Not A Ballerina turns 10. I can’t believe that this blog which I started without too much thought in my little flat in Heilbronn, Germany, will reach its double figure birthday this year. Back when I started blogging, announcing that you were a blogger was not something you did in the average room of people – you tended to get a few weird looks, at the least. These days, I can happily say “I’m a travel blogger” and while not everybody really knows what that entails, they usually will continue a conversation with me!

How will we celebrate my blog anniversary in 2015?

To celebrate my blog anniversary for Not A Ballerina, I decided that it should be big. This is partly because I didn’t think things through when I was booking my upcoming Europe trip – the actual birthday of this blog is 28th June, and I’ll be transitting somewhere en route to Iceland that day, so I thought – simple – I’ll just make the birthday celebrations last for all of 2015! I’ve had so much fun plotting and planning for a bunch of different ways to celebrate a decade of blogging, because I want to involve as many readers as possible, and continue to entertain and even educate, all while we have some fun. And so: this is my approximate plan for the Not A Ballerina tenth birthday celebrations in 2015. I hope you’ll join in with them!

January 2015 – Amazing words

To kick off the celebrations, I’m featuring some lesser-known but still beautiful quotes from writers, philosophers and travellers about why we travel and what we learn from it. Throughout January they are appearing daily on the Not A Ballerina Facebook page so check in there to see them regularly; some of them will be appearing on the blog and other social media platforms as well. I’d love to hear your favourite travel quotes, too!

February 2015 – Armchair travel and a giveaway

I wish I could travel all the time, but money, work and family don’t seem to allow it – and I might even get sick of it, I suspect. A great substitute when I’m not travelling is to read about travel. During February, when I’ll be well and truly stuck here in Perth while my son starts full-time school, I’ll be reading up a storm, telling you about my new favourites, and having a special travel book giveaway too.

March 2015 – Perth lunch for Not A Ballerina readers

I’m really excited about this part of the plan – I feel like I “know” so many of my readers from “talking” to them online, but to actually meet them in person will be so different! Now, unfortunately my blog is not quite at the fame level where I can offer trips to Perth from anywhere in the world for readers to come to lunch with me. Perhaps that’ll be on the cards for the 15th birthday? But at the very least, I’m looking forward to meeting some Perth or Western Australia-based readers of Not A Ballerina and swapping travel tales.

April 2015 – Local area challenge

When I travel, I just love getting “behind the scenes” and learning about how people in different countries go about their everyday life. (My son has obviously picked up on this too – hence his obsession with the rubbish collection processes in Penang and Vienna …)

During April, I’ll be hosting a photo-a-day challenge on Instagram and Facebook to get people from around the world to show each other what their everyday world looks like. I’m sure my son will persuade me to make “garbage bin” one of the topics, and I’m imagining others like street signs, the local coffee shop, playgrounds, fauna and flora and more, so we’ll all be able to get an insight into each other’s corners of the world.

May 2015 – Happy birthday postcards

This one is a selfish one. And birthdays are sometimes a bit selfish, right? I absolutely love getting postcards from around the world, so this is my plan – in the month leading up to the actual 10th anniversary of Not A Ballerina, I’ll be asking readers to send in postcards from across the globe, wishing the blog a happy birthday! I’ll feature them here on the blog and on social media, of course, and it’ll be a great visual way to see where all my readers come from or where they’re travelling around this year.

(If you read this later and want to send a postcard, first of all, thanks! Second of all: your postcard will find me at Amanda Kendle, PO Box 158, Duncraig East WA 6023, Australia.)

June 2015 – Not A Ballerina magazine launch

This whole blog actually started out of me writing for travel magazines. And I still love writing magazine-style pieces. I have long had a dream of having a magazine attached to the blog, and this seems like a good time to do it. So, in the month of the 10th anniversary of the blog, watch out for it!

July 2015 – New look for Not A Ballerina

Those readers who pay attention to these things may remember that the blog had a beautiful redesign last year (major thank you to Kelly Exeter on that one). But the header didn’t get an update then – I still like this one done by Amanda Alessi (who’s now a wedding photographer) – but it is time to update it and I guess it’s my birthday present to my blog. I have a very exciting plan to work with Aggie of Happiness Everyday to create something very special to slot into that important space up the top there.

August 2015 – Giving back

As you probably know, one of my big goals is to try to encourage more people to travel because – to oversimplify – I think we could achieve world peace if everyone travelled widely! I try hard to encourage people who have the means to travel to do so as much as they can, but what about those whose circumstances in life mean that travel is usually something they couldn’t even contemplate?

Tweet: To oversimplify – I think we could achieve world peace if everyone travelled widely! http://ctt.ec/X18bb+ via @amandakendle

In August, I’ll be a running a fundraiser to help someone travel (I’m thinking a teenager on an organised trip – perhaps to volunteer, or something – but details will follow …) who wouldn’t otherwise be able to. I know just how much trips as a teenager changed the way I thought about the world and definitely changed the entire way I live my life, and I would love to help be a catalyst to someone else to experience that.

(On that note, if anyone knows of a great program that could use this kind of support – I’m thinking someone based in Australia, for now, since that’s my home country, headed abroad, but I’m open to anything – then shoot me an email.)

September 2015 – Spreading the word

Regular readers will know that I don’t (practically never, actually) feature guest posts on the blog; I also rarely guest post elsewhere. But some crazy person said a change is as good as a holiday (although I would always take the holiday), and so during September I’m going to “be everywhere” – virtually, at least. And I’m going to introduce my readers to some other great blogs by featuring a guest post series here, too.

October 2015 – Photo contest

This is going to be a fun one. I’m going to host a photo contest where the aim is not to have taken the most amazing gorgeous photo (although amazing gorgeous photos will be happily accepted), but the aim is to add a sentence or two explaining a lesson you learnt from travel. Whether this is a simple lesson like “fried scorpions taste horrible” or a biggie like “reaching the top of this mountain convinced me to change my whole career”, I love hearing about the lessons people learn from travel and I want to feature them. And of course, there’ll be a prize. Start thinking about your entry!

My lesson from travel, for example, is something that arose from visiting the Gold Coast for the second time in recent years – the first year, I really didn’t like it much, but I was forced to return and much to my surprise, it got better. A good lesson for me!

November 2015 – Travel trivia challenge

And for the most fun of all, in November I will be hosting a big travel trivia challenge. Kind of like going to a quiz night, except it’s online, and not just one night. If you know a fair bit about the world, you might want to mark November in your diary! (Yep, the whole month.) I’m hoping to put together a really fun prize package for this one.

December 2015 – Thank you

I think by the time December comes around, I will be exhausted. But happy! So the final month of Not A Ballerina’s birthday celebrations will consist of some simple thank yous. I hope they also involve a meet-up in Perth. They might also involve a long lie down!

Stay in touch with the celebrations

If you want to be sure you don’t miss any of the fun, I recommend both liking the Facebook page and signing up to my newsletter (which comes out once or twice a month). You can also see lots of the fun on Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter. I look forward to celebrating with you!

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