Just a quick note to let you know that we are working on a face lift to the site which will be released in the next month.

We are also putting out some new marketing materials and widening our promotion.  We'll let you know nearer the time what the new approach is but we think you'll like it :)

Best wishes,

Peter McAteer

Festive news to share with you!

Just to let you know we have still been active and last week we ran a stall for the Friends For Street Children - the orphanage we are supporting in Ho Chi Minh, Saigon, Vietnam. We sold £130 of goods from the children and also sent a £500 donation from the Dreamaid Charity to support these lovely young people.

We wish you all a very Happy Festive Season and hope that next year is all you wish it to be.

Best wishes,

Peter McAteer and all at Dreamaid

Please see the lovely message we had in response to our support below:

Dear Mr. Peter McAteer,
Warm and peace greetings from FFSC staff and children to you and Dreamaid team.
How happy we receive your kind information, we would like to express our deep thanks for your kind concern, love and support for FFSC children. We hope Dreamaid increase your successful bussiness soon.
On this occasion, we would like to send our best wishes to Dreamaid team and their families on the Christmas and New Year comming. With your donation as a wonderful and lucky gift for FFSC children to have more conditions to study better in schools.
In addition, we will send you our dedailed budget to use your donation and also enclose FFSC receipt and thanksletter to you through email.
Thanks again and best regards.
Sr. Anna My Hien

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year!!

It has been a momentous year for Dreamaid. Numerous press releases and appearances, articles in magazines, TV appearance on the BBC, but the best thing has been the growing community of like minded people.

For me the highlight of the year has been the launch of the Friends For Steet Children in Vietnam project. The original objective of Dreamaid was to help people and Dreamaid is for me a philanthropic and socio-economic business with an innovative model. To see that we are genuinely helping people already is a great boost in a difficult eonomic environment.

Two weeks ago we had our first Craft stall in Aberdeen at a school fair where we sold only the products made by the FFSC orphans. I believe we made £162 selling for these young people and in doing so were able to do some face to face promotion of the site. Given we only had one days notice to arrange this event I was delighted :)

I realise I am remiss at blogging, facebook and all the social media but it doesn't do my tennis elbow any good and I find it difficult to keep up with the volume of interchange. Please don't take my relative absence negatively but having tried everything bar surgery I try to minimise my time on the keyboard...

We have grown steadily which is the only sensible way in this arena and will continue to stick to our core ethical way forward. We are so grateful for your continued support and hope that together we can make a great success not only for our buyers and sellers but for those whose dreams are so humble and modest.

Have a wonderful festive season and may all your dreams come true in the coming year!

Best wishes,

Peter McAteer

Sales Brochure Going Out Next Week!

After much work on the styling, testing we are finally ready to send out our brochure!

Apologies for the delay but this turned out to be much more demanding than we had envisaged with various technical issues to resolve.

We would request that Dreamers update their shops ready for a significant increase in visitors.

Due to holiday leave we are a bit behind on some new releases but I am advised they are progressing well and will be ready for announcement soon.

Best wishes,

Peter McAteer

Contributions to Sales Brochure

Dear all,

We have an announcement on the Forum regarding our plans to have a monthly sales brochure and would be grateful for contributions to help us make this novel, interesting and inclusive.

Our sellers are all creative thinkers and it would be great to have you all on board as part of a team of sales people :)

Your ideas and thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

The document will be emailed to targeted buyers with lots of pictures of wonderful handmade products and a demonstration of our caring shopping experience...

We look forward to hearing from you!

Best wishes,

Peter McAteer

What a week that was!

This has been a very memorable week for Dreamaid. We were featured on the BBC documentary on the 18th of May which then went worldwide on BBC News on the following weekend to a potentially enormous audience. Pity we can’t get hold of figures to tell us just how large that international audience was but we do have the UK audience figures. I believe the UK viewing figures were somewhat disappointing but I am no expert in this field. We had been advised to expect up to 5 million viewers but in fact the actual viewing figures were less than 1 million. Apparently the series had received some negative press reviews in advance and presumably this affected viewing figures.

However, despite the low viewing figures we have received a fabulous response and have increased our number of products almost three-fold in the last couple of weeks and our sales have been increasing dramatically too. Due to the fact that we are seeking investors at the moment I have to be careful about how much information I give but suffice it to say that we are very pleased with progress.

We have been approached by people from as far and wide as Canada, Mexico, India, Thailand, UK, USA, Germany, Switzerland all wishing to help us to achieve our Vision. There have also been a number of parties expressing an interest in investing in Dreamaid which we are exploring.

I think the most rewarding part of this last week has been the number of new Dreamers expressing their support for what Dreamaid is doing. As the documentary demonstrated, starting a business of this nature in a global recession wasn’t easy but we are now coming out of that situation and the only way is up for all at Dreamaid.

When I first started as a Director in business in 1992 a fellow board member and senior Director of the company once told me ‘do the right things and the right results will come’. Dreamaid is doing the right thing and I am confident that with the support of our growing community the right things will happen. Not only for our buyers and sellers but also for those in need that we are supporting.

Thanking for your continued support,

Peter McAteer

BBC2 Programme Arrives at Last :)

The long awaited BBC2 documentary which features the first six weeks to five months of Dreamaid is due to be shown starting the 18th of May at 8pm UK time. It is called "Theo's Adventure Capitalists" and is made highly entertaining by the presentation style of the successful businessman and character Theo Paphitis.

The programme offers a great opportunity to our Dreamers to illustrate the wonderful products that they make to a huge audience. We are expecting around a million visitors to the site and as we are still very young we need to ensure we have enough quality products from around the world to sell. The programme is principally being shown in the UK but will be going global through BBC World.

The programme will follow a similar style to this one last week which was following three companies in Vietnam. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00scx8q

The documentary is business led and therefore may not cover the social project work we are undertaking in Brazil with photographers from the favela in Rio de Janeiro or with Talentos do Brasil to help around 2000 artisans.

We will also be followed by the Open University and used in educational programmes for business students. http://www.open2.net/theosadventure/index.html

It is also planned to use Dreamaid as an example of 'Sustainable Business' which is the whole point of the business and social strategy.

Exciting times even though I may have to hide behind the sofa on a few occasions!! However, I am delighted that Dreamaid is sufficiently interesting to have captured the imagination of so many influential people and now potentially will have a truly global audience :)

Early days in any business are a roller coaster so enjoy the programme and help us to keep this train on the tracks. This journey promises to be a wonderful one for so many people from so many wide and varied backgrounds. All sharing one Vision of a fairer world which recognises the value of handmade products, globally.

Have fun and thanks for sharing the dream.

Best wishes,

Peter McAteer

Vietnamese Orphanage Support

I know I am not the world's best blogger, twitterer or social networker and should do a lot more of this. However, I prefer to post things that matter than to inundate you with trivia :) Please accept my apologies for feeble social networking but...

I mentioned that whilst in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam, last year I came across a person working for an oil company that was helping an orphanage in his spare time. We talked about whether or not we could work together to the betterment of the kids of lives but in a way that would not promote abuse of children or slave labour. It is clearly a difficult balance to strike in a desperately poor environment. Unfortunately children do go to work earlier than they do in the west. This has bothered me ever since until I was recently contacted by the people that run the orphanage.

We will shortly announcing the DreamAid shop opening of FFSC (Friends For Street Children) where the DreamAid Charity will assist the orphanage to sell their products on the DreamAid website. We will handle the sales on their behalf and send the proceeds to them directly.

FFSC helps about 1000 children that have no homes and are forced on to the streets to try to scrape a living. This leaves them open to all kinds of abuse and sickness. FFSC is supported by donors and the Dominican sisters who administer health care and education programmes. Amongst these education programmes are handcrafts lessons where the older children are taught skills to help them earn a living.

It is a lovely thought that we can reach out to them and encourage their development by purchasing their work and letting them realise that they are not alone. We will announce their products soon and hope you will help us to help them shortly.

Hoping little dreams become big ones and that they come true,

Peter McAteer

Happy New Year!!

Well it's hard to believe that 2010 is here as 2009 flew past so quickly.

Apologies for being a little quiet lately but this last month or so has been really hectic for us as we prepare for the next phase of growth of Dreamaid.

In May we will celebrate our first anniversary and perhaps time to review how we have been doing. A few highlights are:

• Soft launch was successful - few bugs ironed out but no real issues found
• Branding growing well - everyone we deal with loves the Dreamaid concept
• Visitors from 125 countries in six months - wrong period in video below :)
• Dreamers from 47 countries
• Products from 23 countries

We recognised early confusion as to whether we were a charity or a business or both. As a result we split the Dreamaid Charity website from the Dreamaid business website to avoid any concerns the duality may cause. However, the business does strongly sponsor the charity and the charity gains from free promotion due to the business. This is critical to our socio-economic aspirations of bringing the developing world forward whilst building a reputable and successful business. We need to be strong to help people.

We built Craft Advice in order to deal with what we believe will be an increasing demand for learning amongst our Dreamers. This is a first of its kind in this domain and one we are excited about growing in the coming year.

Another unique feature was launched with our multi-currency capability which means you can list in Euros, Dollars or Sterling. We intend to widen the scope of this capability in response to market conditions and demand.

Our multi-lingual capacity has been demonstrated in English, Portuguese and Spanish so far and we intend to widen this during 2010.

We introduced a capability to search by price and are working hard to enhance this search capability to other areas to make buying simpler.

We received an amazing reception from both the business and media community and are about to be shown on a major UK TV channel. This is both exciting and daunting as we are still very new and growing. However, it does demonstrate that we are doing something very interesting and novel. We hope to build on this relationship with the media by having great stories to tell of our drive to help people whilst making a sustainable business for them and for us.

We have commenced working with several NGO's (Non Government Organisations - Charities typically) to help them. These are wonderful people that truly appreciate our efforts and we are delighted to be able to offer some level of support, albeit modest at the moment. However, we know this will grow quickly.

We are now very busy putting together plans to attract investment so we can really take Dreamaid to where it belongs - the world.

For those of you that have been with us during this inaugural year thank you for believing in us. It is not an easy trail we have set out upon and it will have its challenges but rest assured we truly value your joining us and supporting our cause.

We hope that this year brings you great happiness, good health and that your Dreams come true.

Best wishes,

Peter McAteer

Yes!! Favela Project goes live on Dreamaid!! :)

When setting up an organisation like Dreamaid 'Vision' is critical. For me Dreamaid has the most compelling Vision and 'Purpose' of any business I have ever been involved with.

Our Vision is for a better world in which even the poor have access to the market and our Purpose is to help people.

We now have another project on board which demonstrates the Vision and Purpose in practice.

With the combined efforts of BP, Dreamaid and UNISUAM (a local University) these very poor people from a favela (shanty town) in Rio now have the chance to make a living for themselves http://www.dreamaid.com/store/Foco_No_Futuro

The people have been formed in to a Cooperative and 25% of the sales will go to support the Cooperative and the rest to the artist. BP have assisted in drawing up the framework agreements for the group and in getting the people formally registered with the relevant authorities.

For many this is the first time that they have had a Carteira de Trabalho (work registration document). Therefore they were not legally entitled to work in Brazil without this document. Now they can!

I visited this group with Cristina Figuerido (BP) and Altayr Montan Derossi (UNISUAM) recently and was humbled by their work. Congratulations to them on their fantastic support in the favela.

The people from the favela are lovely people who deserve a chance in life. Poverty may currently constrain their options but not their minds as their photographs ably demonstrate.

They are aptly named "Foco No Futuro" - Focus on the Future...

Let's hope that they are successful and that we can jointly create a better future for them :)

Best wishes to you all and thank you for your lovely hospitality when I was with you!!

Pete McAteer

Mexican Art at the British Museum

Apologies for lack of communication. I've been doing a bit of running around again :)

Last week I was in London on my way back from Brazil and was invited by BP to the opening of an exhibition of Mexican art at the British Museum. Several interesting conversations were had with heads of various companies regarding potential CSR support and I will follow those up in due course.

I returned to take a closer look a week later for a Breakfast meeting and to hear a speach from the Mexican Embassador and a young winner of a competition to describe the meaning of the "Day of Dead" - a Mexican celebration in which they remember their dead relatives and loved ones.

Key companies that showed further interest were Cemex, Mexicana (national airline) and BP. I was very grateful for the opportunity to discuss with various people our Dreamaid Charity projects and aspirations.

Thank you BP for your continued encouragement.

Best regards,

Peter McAteer

Rio de Janeiro - BP Favela Project

We have been working closely with a project in Rio where 85 photographers from one of the city's most violent favelas (shanty towns).

This training project was about to close when we met with BP to see if we could help. We are shortly planning to sell the photographic prints these mainly young people produce on Dreamaid.

We hope to achieve this in the coming week and will let you know when they go live with our second social project.

Dreams coming true here on Dreamaid :)

Peter McAteer

Recife - Arts & Craft Fair Organisors 14-18.10.09

The largest arts and crafts fair in Latin America takes place annually in Recife. This year it grew from sales of c. £1m in 2006 to £10m in 2009 with around 250,000 visitors!

Although it is normal only for Brazilian artists to display at the fair we have been invited to apply to participate. Albeit we may have a Brazilian entity by the time the next fair takes place anyway.

Apart from organising the fair this government sponsored group also provides support to the local region (Pernambuco) which is huge in aerial extent. We discussed how we might work to assist taking artists products to market both within Brazil and potentially internationally and agreed to work together.

Following the meeting we received the contact details of all the artisan groups that displayed at the fair this year and will be contacting them to bring them to Dreamaid.

We also met with a number of local artists and artisans and received a tremendous reception.

Best regards,

Peter McAteer

Recife - Government Dept 14-18.10.09

The North East of Brazil is famous for its outstanding natural beauty. It is a very poor cousin of the Southern areas in which many people survive by their artisan skills alone.

We met with the main government department providing training and support to the artisans to see if we could help them in their drive to commercialise artisans better.

A meeting that was scheduled to take up to an hour lasted almost three. A hallmark of most meetings we are having on Dreamaid.

Again the reception was brilliant. It is now a common occurrence that meetings start as official business meetings and end up in often tear filled embraces and 'beijos' - kisses - as we bid farewell and vow to improve things together.

A forthcoming conference of the national leaders of the 27 states of Brazil will focus on commercialising artisans. We have offered to present Dreamaid at this or any similar venue in future. Clearly we are a long way ahead of the NGO's and government bodies in using Web 2.0 technology to commercialise artisans but we really need their support and access to the artisans in order to effect a major breakthrough.

We are under no illusion as to the size of task ahead but to have started at all is a major step forward. We cannot fix everyone's problems but if we can start to help some people we will have made a valuable contribution to some people's lives.

Dreaming of a brighter future :)

Peter McAteer

IETS Brazil - 13.10.09

View Video

We met with the leader of this Government sponsored think tank which works to link companies, NGO's, academia and Government to forge a brighter future for Brasil.

The reception we had was fantastic and we have been invited to present to a wider group when we next return to Rio.

The leader was very quick to recognise the radically new business model that Dreamaid represents. His insight to the underlying strategy of Dreamaid was as remarkable and his recognition of the outstanding potential of Dreamaid both to help the poorer artists and to become a torch bearer for a new way of doing business in a caring and supportive fashion.

This think tank is acively involved in the strategic direction of Rio in to the World Cup, Olympics and beyond.

Dreamaid wants to be part of this new Rio as the city struggles to shrug off its difficulties of having a population in which 75% of people are poorly educated. It is a city of amazing contrasts where the facade of world famous Sugar Loaf and Christ Redeemed statue lay back to back with incredibly violent shanty towns (favelas) and their drug barons. Last weekend saw 14 die in gun fights in which a Police helicopter was shot down and the two policemen killed.

We are working in one of these favelas to help people reach out beyond their boundaries to a brighter future.

Best regards,

Peter McAteer

Rio De Janeiro Arts & Crafts Fair - 10-12.10.09

In an amazing meeting lasting several hours Cenira and I explored a partnership agreement with a very large government sponsored NGO in Brazil which helps poor artists and artisans.

We have put together a proposal to work with them to help them sell their goods on Dreamaid and also to provide internet access to these people.

There are 2000 women from extremely poor communities covering 14 communes in 12 states across Brazil. Some of these people live beneath the trees they use to make products and don't even have anything resembling a house. Others installed their first toilets recently with the support they were receiving from the NGO.

Amongst their product ranges are amazing handbags made from fishskins which are coloured in a uniquely Brazilian fashion.

By working with existing NGO's we can reach out to many more people than we can alone. Many of the NGO's provide great support and with our assistance we can move these people in to the 21st century and afford them access to market at greatly reduced cost to them.

We even discussed using the clothes that they make for the next filming of a documentary covering Dremaid to be filmed in London in a few weeks. Let's hope we can get them online and purchase the clothes in time for filming!

Best wishes,

Peter McAteer

Rio De Janeiro Arts & Crafts Fair - 10-12.10.09

An impromptu visit to this Rio fair brought a surprising amount of results. Cenira and I were filmed by the Department for Agriculture that had organised the event as we were discussing the difficulties an amazing furniture maker was facing.

Washington (strange but true Brazilian name) from the North of Brazil was displaying works made from discarded wood. He had been helped to bring his goods by the government as there was no way he could afford to bring them to market otherwise.

We said we would try to help him to sell on Dreamaid but he needs to obtain the necessary certification to ensure that he is abiding by rules to protect the rain forest.

It is important that we acknowledge there is a wonderful opportunity for artisans to help with carbon capture but this must be within a recognised scheme with appropriate certification. If we turn trees in to useful products whilst growing more trees to continue capturing carbon we help the environment. If we just cut the trees down for short term gain we destroy the environment. As there are official bodies in place to deal with this subject we are keen to work closely with them to ensure we do our best to help both the artisan and the environment.

Best regards,

Peter McAteer

Craft Advice

In our experience the handicrafts network love to share ideas and know how. Many people face similar issues on which they would like advice. Also, both locally and internationally we have found that some people have really interesting techniques that others could benefit from learning.

One example is incredibly fine paper made from elephant dung in Thailand and a lesser quality paper made from recycled paper in Mexico. How do we transfer such knowledge? The addition of flower petals in Mexico created very intersting paper and maybe the Thai people would benefit from this?

We believe we have the answer to these challenges in hand...

We are putting the final touches to our learning environment for handicrafts people.

What should we call it? Options we are considering are:

Dream Answers
Craft Answers
Craft Advice

Can you think of a better title?

We are working with our Dreamers to create the logic behind the database so that it is more useful to them.

Best wishes,

Pete McAteer

We Need More Sellers!

Dreamaid will be the subject of a major television documentary which is likely to result in substantial numbers of people visiting the site to purchase our items.

This presents a huge opportunity for our sellers and we are concerned that we need more of your items to sell.

If you are not already selling on Dreamaid we would love to see you benefitting from this great publicity and if you are already selling, please maximise the number of products you have avaliable to sell.

Sweet Dreams

Peter McAteer

Dreamaid in Press and Journal

Following a recent interview at the Aberdeen office, the following article was published in this North East of Scotland newspaper.

http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1415304?UserKey=

Best Wishes,

Peter McAteer