I do not know Adrian Sudbury, but his is a story I feel my paper must tell. Adrian is a fellow journalist who works for another newspaper within our group. He is a young ambitious reporter and should have the world at his feet, but within weeks he will probably be dead. He has leukaemia and his treatment has failed. Rather than sit and dwell on these facts he has decided to use the time he has left to try and get each and everyone of us to become bone marrow donors so another family don't have to go through what his is. Read Adrian's words and then honour his life by adding your name to the list of donors.

I'm 26 years old and will be dead in a matter of months.
I will die from the leukaemia I have been battling for nearly a year and a half.
There is only one thing left for me to try and achieve.
My dying wish is that everyone reading this will think again about bone marrow donation.
In around 75 per cent of cases the procedure is not too dissimilar from giving blood.
If more people knew that then the 7,000 children and adults, who are still waiting for a transplant, might have a chance of surviving.
As it stands they will die.

LAST night, Thursday, I was invited to a meeting to discuss Chesham Museum's plans to move to the former Chapter One book shop site in Chesham.
I was really pleased to see that so many people attended, the organiser even had to bring in more chairs to accommodate everyone. However we were all given a glass of wine, so maybe that's what encouraged people to attend!
For those who don't know, Chesham Museum is currently situated in a small stable behind the Gamekeepers Lodge pub in Bellingdon Road. This is generously given to the museum by the landlord.
Ideally though the museum should be in the centre of town and in a bigger premises as currently only a fraction of exhibits are able to go on show.
So when Chapter One came up for rent museum staff felt it would be the perfect venue, and I have to agree.
Now though the difficult bit. About £13,000 needs to be raised to cover rental of the premises and costs etc in the first year, and they need a good idea as to whether this is possible within the next three months.
The purpose of the meeting was to try and find people with various skills who can set up a group to raise the finds, fill out the forms for grants etc and generally rally people to make sure this dream becomes a reality.
I have pledged that the paper will help where possible and we will obviously keep readers informed of what is happening and the various fundraiser that are being organised.
If you can help pop into the museum or visit the museum's website at www.cheshammuseum.org.uk

THIS year the Examiner is again supporting the Chesham Mayoral Awards. The annual awards allow people in Chesham to nominate who they thinks should win the youth award, business award and people's award. On Wednesday evening a group of us got together at the Town Hall to go through the nominations and pick the winners.
It is a ridiculously difficult task, but I think we have chosen the right winner. These are due to be announced in May and will obviously be featured in the paper the winners are notified. Sadly Chesham Mayor Merrin Molesworth called for the awards to be scrapped, but she was over-ruled and the awards will be back next year. I think she felt it was a lot of work organising the nominations and encouraging people to enter.
I believe it is good for Chesham that we have something like this and I just hope it continues to grow each year, I think this is only the third time the awards have been held. Year on year there have been more nominations as people get to hear about them.
Amersham was so impressed by Chesham's effort that they are holding their first Mayoral awards this year, which the Amersham Examiner is sponsoring. The winners of those are due to be announced on May Day.

Friday was a busy old day. I spent most of the morning trying to finalise details of a fantastic competition that we are going to run in our wedding magazine I Do next month. So far we have a £1,000 wedding dress to give away along with flowers, holiday vouchers, beauty treatments for the bride and free suit hire for the groom.
If you are getting married in 2009 make sure you don't miss the magazine, which is free within the papers. The winners will be the couple crowned Bucks bride and groom on 2009 and readers will get their chance to vote on who they think should win.
I was then invited along to The Elgiva in Chesham to meet with the manager Mark Barnes and PR Tina Humphries.
The papers sponsor the pantomime each year so we were mainly discussing how things were going with that and what we need to arrange this year. Amazing to think you have to have these discussions in March! Mark tells me they have already sold out on six performances!
My inbox was full of emails when I returned to the office and I would say 80 per cent of them were about potholes. It seems that everyone has a story to tell and a pothole to report. The state of the roads in this area is ridiculous and I just hope the council do actually spend their £3.25m wisely and don't just bodge the repairs so we are in the same situation next year.

I had a horrible start to today that. I was driving to work in Chalfont St Peter along the A413 when I was overtaken by a motorbike. Seconds later I saw the driver of the bike thrown in the air as it appeared he had collided with a bollard in the centre of the road.
It was a horrible sight and I was really surprised by my reaction, I just froze. The lady in the car behind me jumped straight out and went to help while I just sat in my car shaking. I have never witnessed a crash before and it has stayed with me all day, I just keep seeing the biker flying though the air.
He was lucky he wasn't hit by the car behind him. One of the reporters called the police and ambulance to find out how he was and apparently he escaped with minor injuries.

I've just returned to the office after putting the papers to bed. It has been a busy old day and wasn't helped by the fact the fire alarm went off just as we were about the send the last couple of pages. Sometimes you can't help but feel everything is against you!
Anyway despite all of this I think we have some very strong stories and two of the best papers of the year so far.
Since January we have been running a campaign 'Free not Fee' to try and get Chiltern District Council to abandon their plans to introduce parking fee where previously there weren't any.
On Tuesday we discovered we have had success in Chalfont St Peter, Chalfont St GIles and Little Chalfont. However the areas where they didn't kick up as much fuss, Amersham and Chesham, are still being looked at for the possibility of introducing fees.
As my reporter said "You snooze, you lose". Hopefully these towns will now react.
Now I just have to cross my fingers the printers don't send the wrong pages to the wrong paper, which they seem to have managed to do for the last two weeks, thus undoing our hard work!

The Mr looked a bit pale this morning when we woke up. I had a few things to ask him, he started to shake. It was then that I realised it was February 29 and the poor lad thought I was about to propose!
Over the last few weeks several friends have suggested I pop the question, but it just seems a bit wrong to me.
Firstly, if I wanted to ask him to marry me I wouldn't wait to be told what day I could do it.
Secondly, if you do the asking what happens about the ring!!! You can hardly ask them and then say, "Right then, let's go get me a diamond". And I'm certainly not intending on buying my own!
Another thing is that I am curious as to how he will go about it when the right time comes. Will he go down on bended knee in the middle of Paris or will he simply pop the question after a curry on Saturday night?
We'll wait and see, probably a long time too.

A very distressed lady came into the Advertiser office today. She is heartbroken as she has lost her beloved dog. She was out walking him in Chalfont St Peter and he ran off and hasn't been seen since. Being a local community paper based in Chalfont St Peter I agreed to place an item on our website, just in case someone has spotted the little fella. I couldn't believe it when half an hour later someone commented inferring that we shouldn't place such menial news on the site! Someone else has previously said we put too much crime and bad news on the site. Just goes to show you can't please all the people all of the time. I am glad that someone else has placed another comment saying it is local news for local people, they get it at least!

It seems to me that everytime I spend more than a few minutes with a small person I get ill. After dropping my niece back home last Thursday I started to feel a tickle in the back of my throat. By Friday I had the start of a cold. I know it's mean, but I'm blaming the child!
The cold had really taken hold by Monday and by Tuesday had developed into Man Flu, but I battled on at work. Much to everyone's amusement I have now started to lose my voice, no joke when you have my surname. Already twice today I have had wise cracks, both times after spelling my surname over the telephone. Ho, ho, Julie Voyce without a voice. Save it, I am not in the mood!

I've just returned to work after taking four days off to look after my niece. Crikey, what an eye opener. I don't have any children of my own and after this week it may be put off for a few more years!
Now this is nothing against my niece, she is lovely and really good company, but I am just so knackered! These little people just don't stop. From 7.30am when we got up, and that included Sunday much to my horror, until 8pm we were on the go.
On Sunday we went to Lowndes Park in Chesham to play on the swings and see the ducks. I had never realised how many people are up and about on a Sunday. It was a beautiful day and the park was packed. The only sad thing to see was all the empty cider and wine bottles that were strewn across the park from the night before. but people didn't really seem to take much notice and obviously weren't put off using the park. I really re-lived my youth and had great fun on the 'death slide' and the swings. We saw for ourselves the scary geese and I was glad we didn't take any bread to feed them as one young mum looked scared to death as the geese surrounded her!
On Monday we went to Odds Farm Park which was brilliant. We got to stroke the rabbits and feed the pigs and the goats and we even saw their new addition, a baby lamb. I'm not sure who enjoyed it more, Isabel or me!
Tuesday was spent visiting a friend who has small children and we decided to go for lunch to a pub with a soft play area. This was a whole new experience for me. I didn't know such places existed. Total madness. It wasn't the sort of pub lunch I am used to. Every two minutes a small person would run past crying as they had been pushed over or fallen off of something. My friend took delight in laughing at me and my shocked expression.
On Wednesday we spent the morning making Valentine's Day cards. I say the morning, but really it was about 30 minutes. All that mess for 30 minutes! Half way through she even asked to go and watch Cbeebies. Why do I bother I asked myself, and realised I was starting to sound like so many of my other friends with children! It's a thankless task this parenting lark! But the small thing made it worth it. The excitement on her face as we took the train back to her home, the big kiss good night and the sleepy smile in the morning when she strolled into my room asking for breakfast and the way she reached for my hand when we watched Jungle Book together. It was fun, but probably the most tiring break I have had. It's great being an auntie and being able to hand the little ones back to their parents. I can't wait for a sleep in on Saturday and I certainly have a new respect for parents, give me a day in the office any time!