What a wonderful event yesterday in Nyíregyháza, organised by and for the Smiling Hospital Foundation. All my compliments to and congratulations for Éva Kosina, the main organiser. She did a sublime job with the great help from her colleagues Bartha Magdolna, Csetneki Hanna and Mezey Viktoria. For organising events we adopt four main criteria in following order of importance:
1) First is the motivation and attitude to do one's very best. To spend as much time as required to get the job done without talking about the time and efforts involved. The spirit is what counts! And in this respect, the artists in Nyíregyháza have shown a wonderful attitude.
2) The second is the quality of the event. We must always strive for the highest qualities possible. In my view, it was a most beautiful evening,which has been enjoyed by an audience of about 70 persons. The choir, the music, it was all excellent and beautiful. My compliments!
3) Then follows the name-awareness. If the above two criteria are positive, most likely the event will contribute to the name-awareness as well. The evening yesterday certainly has enhanced the good reputation of the Foundation and contributed to make the name more known in Eastern Hungary.
4) Only in the fourth place is the fund-raising factor. This is by far the most difficult element of our events. It could not be expected that our young artists and staff in Budapest have enough experience and knowledge to succeed easily on their own. The past history of communism and socialism has certainly not prepared the younger generation in character and skills to become good fundraisers. In general, too many are spending too much time explaining why things did not work instead of concentrating on finding the ways how things could work and then trying with a great deal of motivation to realise the projects. But the event yesterday was a happy exception on a small scale. Bravo to Éva and her colleague-artists.

I am pleased to have made this 500 km return trip to Nyíregyháza. What we have shown there, is a good example for other coordinators of our Foundation, elsewhere in Hungary. I am now preparing for my trip to Croatia together with Countess Éva with the goal to start soon "smiling hospital" activities in that lovely country.

The highlight of today was the discussion with the printers of our beautiful poster, Océ Hungária Kft. They will print 500 A3 sized posters and also 500 Membership Cards and will do so as our much appreciated "Sponsor in Kind". We are very grateful for this wonderful support. To get such great backing from corporations in this period of economic recession is a great gift indeed.

A weekend full of talk about the best possible translation of earlier drafted English text into Hungarian for our poster. But most credit goes to the creators of this poster: Valent Design Agency in Miskolc. They did a sublime job. In any case, I am in love with this poster, because of the wonderful mixture and balance of colour, text, playful elements and strong message for "all to become a Member in the Order of the Smiling Knights".
Dr Béres András has also greatly helped in the realisation of the poster. But everyone, who visits this blog, should see for himself............ I hope you all like it as well!

The two only remaining items for sponsorship are: petrol for the Fiat Bravo and a mobile-internet modum for follow-up e-mails with mayors and making use of this blog.

The big trip with our Fiat Bravo is starting soon. We still need to find a good term to describe this "Smiling Tour de Force". I was thinking also of the following catching words: "3.200 mayors in 3 x 80 days" in reference to the book "Around the world in 80 days" by Jules Verne (a Hungarian as some Hungarians are claiming). The title should be in Hungarian: brief, to the point and easy to remember. Perhaps the best words will come some time during the tour.

Our main sponsor so far has been Fiat. The company has provided us with a beautiful Fiat Bravo, while taking care of service, insurance, but not of petrol and police-tickets (:-).

But a next major sponsor will be the Danubius Hotel Group, supporting with complimentary accomodation in the 19 counties. This is a crucial part of the organisation. This morning I will have detailed discussions with representatives of the Hotel Group and hope for the best.

In this blog we will publish the on-line diary of Dr. Royaards making his "Driving Tour de Force", visiting all mayors in Hungary.