Rocktoberfest Chicago Invitation

From A Leg To Stand On:

The charity A Leg To Stand On (“ALTSO”) is excited to announce the launch of its 1^st Annual Hedge Fund Rocktoberfest-Chicago.  Hedge Fund Rocktoberfest started in New York City in 2004 by ALTSO’s co-founder, C. Mead Welles, a hedge fund manager who wanted to create an event that combined his love for music and helping people.  In its 9^th year, Hedge Fund Rocktoberfest-NYC is arguably the most unique and highly anticipated fundraising benefit in both the finance and charity industries, uniting over 1,000 professionals from the hedge fund and related financial services industries for a night of rock-and-roll and acoustic music performed by industry leaders in support of ALTSO’s mission. 

ALTSO is a 501c3 non-profit organization based in NYC that provides free prosthetic limbs and corrective surgery to children in developing countries who have lost their limbs in traumatic accidents or were born with limb deformities.  Since 2002, ALTSO has treated more than 8,000 children and currently operates 16 programs in 14 emerging market countries.

ALTSO’s 1^st Annual Hedge Fund Rocktoberfest-Chicago will be held on October 25^th from 7pm – 11pm at City Winery (200 West Randolph Street, Chicago).  The organization is currently seeking musicians from the finance industry to perform at this inaugural event.  To learn more about this opportunity, or to purchase tickets, please visit http://www.altso.org/rocktoberfest/, or contact the following event organizers: Ray McKenzie (raymack1999@mac.com) or Gabriella Mueller (gmueller@altso.org).

Event website: http://www.altso.org/rocktoberfest/

From Futures For Kids:

London’s futures and options industry joins forces with the foreign exchange community to slog 35 miles plus on 4 routes to the City for 4 children’s charities

Despite the bad weather, country lanes, public footpaths and bridleways around the Home Counties and beyond have seen a marked increase in use by an intrepid bunch of futures and options and foreign exchange industry executives in recent weeks. The reason? The Futures for Kids ‘Walk to Work’ and the sudden awareness that a good pair of walking shoes and a few plasters to ease the pain of those blisters will not suffice to drag those ageing legs some 35 miles to the City of London.

The FFK Walk to Work 2012 is raising funds for four children’s charities with a mix of local, regional and international coverage – Demelza House, Hope  HIV, Everychild and Variety.

The inaugural 2011 Walk consisted of a single route from Tunbridge Wells and 25 walkers raised £48k from friends, colleagues and customers. This year, instead of spending the day worrying about the next Eurozone crisis and pontificating about straight through processing, latency or the ‘flash crash’ some  one hundred City executives will ‘walk to work’ to the City on 4 routes from  Tunbridge Wells, Guildford, Tring and Billericay on Friday May 18^th.

A broad spectrum of market participants has joined the team including executives from brokerage houses, banks, proprietary trading firms and software vendors. They are boosted by a very strong contingent of senior management from London-based derivatives and stock exchanges and trade associations including Futures and Options Association CEO, Anthony Belchambers , the COO of the London Stock Exchange owned trading venue Turquoise, Adrian Farnham , as well as representatives from Deutsche Boerse subsidiary Eurex,  NYSE Liffe, Nasdaq OMX, Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange and Singapore Exchange. 

The team hope to be striding (or limping) into Paternoster Square after a long day’s ‘yomp’ between 5 and 7.30 pm to celebrate their efforts with the beneficiary charities and support groups at a Finish Line party sponsored by Eurex (who are also supporting the checkpoints on the 4 routes) and to receive awards sponsored by ICAP-owned post-trade software company, Traiana.

Unless they intend to trade on their mobile telephones they won’t actually be working, of course, but they will be doing much to raise the profile of the caring side of the City. FFK believes it is well on its way to its target of 100 walkers raising £100k between them for the 4 charities and already has over £32k in pledges.

Those individuals and companies wishing to contribute can select their favourite futures and foreign exchange industry characters at http://www.justgiving.com/teams/ffkw2w2012

Contacts – David Setters david@contango.co.uk 07710 271291/Emma Davey davey@foa.co.uk  0207 090 1348

London’s futures and options industry joins forces with the foreign exchange community to slog 35 miles plus on 4 routes to the City next May for children’s charities.

City-based Trade Associations FOA and ACI UK team up to support effort

EUREX to sponsor Checkpoint Infrastructure and Finish Line Celebration 

Futures for Kids (FFK) is pleased to announce plans for a greatly extended ‘Walk to Work’ to take place on Friday May 18^th 2012.

Encouraged by the success of the pioneering inaugural 2011 event which raised £48k for 3 FFK charities the organisation, formed by London-based participants in the exchange-traded derivatives industry in 2008, has been looking at ways to broaden participation from the financial community and, of course, to greatly increase funds raised.

Key derivatives industry executives take on a 36 mile slog for Futures for Kids

Some thirty London-based futures industry executives will ‘walk to work’ tomorrow from Tunbridge Wells to the City of London. Not that they’ll get much done when they arrive, exhausted and footsore at about 6pm in the evening.

The brainchild of a couple of industry executives, Tony Foreman of Progress Apama and Simon Vincent of Flextrade, the FFK Walk to Work is raising funds for three children’s charities with a mix of local, regional and international coverage – Demelza House, Hope HIV and Everychild.
Instead of spending the time pontificating about straight through processing, latency or the ‘flash crash’ during one daily commute from Tunbridge Wells Tony and Simon challenged each other to walk to work in the City. They approached Futures for Kids who agreed to put the event together along with their charities and the Walk to Work was born. The inaugural walk will take place tomorrow, Friday May 20th.

Several industry luminaries have joined the team including FFK’s chairman, Bill Templer, Morgan Stanley ; Anthony Belchambers, CEO of the Futures and Options Association; Ferdinand Peelen of Nasdaq OMX and OSTC’s Jonny Aucamp and Rob Brophy.
Other industry organisations are supporting the Walk with RTS Realtime Systems supplying Tee Shirts for all the entrants and Eurex sponsoring the checkpoints and refreshment stops.

In addition to the 36 mile hike starting at 6am at Tunbridge Wells there are also ‘joining points’ at Dunton Green (20 miles) and Chislehurst (11 miles). The team hope to be striding (or limping) through Canary Wharf between 5 and 6 pm and entering the City shortly afterwards, hopefully collecting more donations on the way.

The FFK team has now raised almost £30k in pledges and anybody wishing to contribute can select their favourite futures industry characters at http://www.justgiving.com/teams/walktowork2011

Or make a donation to the team as a whole at http://www.justgiving.com/walktowork2011

Contacts – David Setters david@contango.co.uk 07710 271291/Emma Davey davey@foa.co.uk 0207 090 1348

Econ Illinois to host American Dream dinner event on Thursday, April 28, 2011

Join business associates and friends for an evening of socializing, networking and good food while supporting the mission to help all children in Illinois receive a sound financial education.

Econ Illinois, a nonprofit organization celebrating 60 years of service to schools and teachers in Illinois, will host its annual American Dream dinner event on Thursday, April 28th at the Art Institute of Chicago. Funds raised from the event will go to support economic and financial literacy education for K-12 students throughout Illinois.

http://www.altso.org/rocktoberfest/

 Last night in Chicago, the Futures Industry Association was honored by the Greater Chicago Food Depository for being one of its top donors. Other honorees included the Chicago White Sox, General Electric, The Citadel Foundation and Kraft Foods.

Accepting a plate from GCFD is FIA President John Damgard.

THE MOST FUN AFTERNOON FOR YOUR FAMILY IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER…

What could be better than a really fun, very affordable, afternoon of amazing activities for the kids, with great food and prizes on a cold Sunday afternoon…with football on large flat-screen TVs??

Answer: The fact that this tax-deductible donation will go toward saving the life of one of our own little boys and so many children suffering with a deadly disease now!

We really hope you will join us this Sunday!Event Details:

The Lakeshore Athletic Club will be hosting: A Birthday Bash Against Batten: A Family Day of Play’ To Fight Rare Childhood Disease

Sunday, January 24, 1-4 pm (Chicago): Chicago families will be gathering at Lakeshore Athletic Club on Fullerton, to celebrate an incredibly inspiring effort which so many school children started this past Spring on behalf of one of their own, Jasper Duinstra. This fun afternoon of activities, sports, auction, food and prizes will also be a celebration of Jasper’s 5th Birthday. For only a $20 donation per child ($15 in advance), activities such as swimming, obstacle course runs, tennis, arts and crafts, basketball, and dance will be offered throughout the afternoon for children ages 3-10. There will be storytelling, face painting and Balloon animals as well and a Pokemon Trading Room will be set up for kids who want to trade cards. A silent auction will be held throughout the event, which will be MC’d by ABC anchor Ravi Baichwal and local vendors will be providing great food.

Jasper was diagnosed in March with a rare, fatal disease called Batten in which he is currently losing his ability to walk, to see, to speak and to think. At this point, children with Batten Disease are likely to lose their lives between the ages of 8 and 12. Nearly 20 Chicago schools: administrators, teachers, and families have supported their children’s citywide effort to change the fate for Jasper and other kids and in doing so, will now help children with other orphan diseases get more near-term treatments as well. By helping fund research that will likely stop the progression of this disease and others and by working to fast-track promising treatments legislatively, many children’s lives will be saved.

Best Buy, Jock’s Bar and Grill, Starbucks, Reinhart Food Service, NYC Bagel and Deli, Alpha Baking, Devil Dawgs, Trader Joes, Caffe Baci, and Uncle Sammy’s will be among those sponsoring this event, providing great prizes and food.

For more information and to buy tickets, please go to www.JasperAgainstBatten.org or one of the Lakeshore Athletic Club facilities.

IF you wish to volunteer to help with event, please contact: Alana Baum at 312-729-5212. (IF YOUR CHILD WANTS TO PARTICIPATE IN THE POKEMON TRADING ROOM-DON’T FORGET YOUR CARDS)

Don’t miss the 20th anniversary party! The NYMEX Foundation’s 3rd annual live auction evening fundraiser is Thursday, November 19, 2009 from 5PM – 8PM on CME Group’s NYMEX World Headquarters trading floor at One North End Avenue in New York City with entertainment featuring Felix Cavaliere’s Rascals. Tickets are $150.00 each and can be purchased in advance by calling 212 299 2775.

Over 600 guests are expected to participate from the financial industry and help raise funds for children in need.The silent online auction, www.nfauction.cmarket.com went live on Monday, November 2, 2009 and will run through Monday, November 23, 2009. The online silent site is offering over 100 different items for bidding, and new prizes will be added weekly.

You can access the online site or obtain information about the NYMEX Foundation by going on their website www.nymexfoundation.org .Thanks to the generous support of the trading community, the NYMEX Foundation has raised an average of $1 million each year for the past four years towards their mission of supporting children in need primarily in the NY tri-state area.

This year marks the sixth anniversary of A Leg To Stand On’s annual benefit, Hedge Fund Rocktoberfest, being held at B.B. King Blues Club in New York on Thursday, October 8. This event unites a rapidly growing number of A Leg To Stand On supporters for a unique night of rock-and-roll performances by members of the hedge fund and financial communities.

Since 2004, Hedge Fund Rocktoberfest has proudly served as A Leg To Stand On’s signature fundraising benefit. Due in large part to the support received through this one night, A Leg To Stand On has been able to directly help over 3,000 children through the provision of free corrective surgeries and prosthetic and orthotic devices. An estimated 10,000 children have been helped through A Leg To Stand On’s training workshops, aimed at teaching innovative best-practices in orthopedic care to in-country medical providers.

During these difficult economic times which have affected many American citizens, corporations and non-profit organizations, please remember that there are approximately 140 million disabled children in the developing world who cannot even walk or feed themselves because of limb disabilities that we have the power to correct. These children continue to rely on A Leg To Stand On’s efforts to provide them with the physical capabilities to access the opportunities and self-esteem earned through education, work and mobility. In January of 2009, A Leg To Stand On committed to helping a total of 11 project partners in some of the world’s most impoverished countries: Haiti, Nigeria, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

Our hope is to help 1,000 children through our project partners but we need your help to do so. We urge you to participate in A Leg To Stand On’s Sixth Annual Hedge Fund Rocktoberfest and thereby help level the playing field for 1,000 children in the developing world.

On behalf of the children we help, thank you for your support. We look forward to seeing you at A Leg To Stand On’s Sixth Annual Hedge Fund Rocktoberfest!

Sincerely,

C. Mead Welles
Co-Founder and Chairman