Hi everyone, I hope it's ok to post here as I'm not a twister (but after reading and looking at pictures on here I'm desperate to give it a go- I must resist!). I run a small charity called Post Pals which makes seriously ill children smile with cards, letters and little gifts. We often send balloons (foil helium ones) as we find they can bring on a smile in even the poorliest of children. We have done it a few ways, we send some via companies like Bizzy Balloons although due to the price we can only for this for children in need of TLC, we worked with a balloon company to send a foil balloon to 150 children (City Link kindly shipped them for free) and we also do 'balloon drops' where by a volunteer buys some balloons and delivers it to the ward, often balloons (and a bar of chocolate for the parent) just mysteriously appears in their room. As you can see they bring about huge smiles.




There's quite a few things I've had in mind for bringing about smiles had only found the occasional twister on fb who delivers to their local area or people who do it as part of entertainment nor did I know who to ask.

I would love for each child to receive a balloon model of something they like be it an animal, character, something cool etc. it would need to be sent through the post but I once won a bouquet of flowers made from balloons that were posted to my grandparents and arrived fine (my grandpa insisted on keeping them long after they had deflated!). Does anyone here do that? We are a small charity (run by a few volunteers and we are all ill ourselves) but do have a bit of money out aside for this.

I've seen some balloon birthday 'cakes'. We have quite a few children who are tube fed or fed IV and who can't have cake, it would be brilliant to send them a cake that they can enjoy on their birthday. I did find a site that did this but they were £30 which is out of our budget. Again does anyone (or could anyone) do this?

As a young child I won a stuffed balloon, there was a cuddly rabbit inside the balloon and I thought it was the most amazing thing ever, I still remember the excitement and since starting Post Pals have always wanted to send stuffed balloons to the kids, either with a cuddly toy in or balloons inside a bigger balloon. There seem to be very few companies around who do it and I've found them to be very expensive, I would love to find someone who does it for less (the prices I found were about £40).

We have an annual party in June where families come to from all over the UK, it's a very special party (their words not mine) as its very inclusive for children of all ages and abilities and they are surrounded with people who understand. We hold it in Surrey in a church hall and garden, I would love to have it decorated/jazzed up with balloons but I wondered how much I could expect this to be (I would go simple as the cheapest option), does anyone have any recommendations of someone in Surrey who does this?

Also for the party I LOVE the exploding/confetti balloons and think they would go down well. Is this something we could do ourselves if we brought the supplies? Also do you think this could be posted in a big box to cheer up kids?

At the end of the party we do a forget-me-not balloon release letting go of one balloon for every child we have lost with forget-me-not seeds in. Normally I just buy the party canisters of helium but sadly the amount of children we have lost continues to grow so is becoming quite expensive. I never had any luck trying to find a big canister to rent for the weekend like you see in shops. Does anyone know where I could get one and if it is worth it price wise?


Thank you for reading my 101 questions. Our site is www.postpals.co.uk and this is a little video (only a few minutes) which explains what we do and how it helps http://youtu.be/l42sKtdPXrw

Hi Vicki

I have been twisting about 18 months. I am no expert but do a reasonable job in my spare time. I am based in Suffolk and I am happy to help in any way can. My email address is mailto:robeagling@gmail.com">robeagling@gmail.com. Drop me a line and let me know what I can do to help and I will do my best..
Thanks Rob