‘Donate Another Day’: our 2023 UNICEF fundraiser
Last year, more than 90 Bond fans raised over £2700 in a single day for Roger Moore’s beloved UNICEF. This year, we’re raising money for the charity by uniting around our love for the Bond films of another UNICEF ambassador: Pierce Brosnan.
On 3rd June 2022, more than 90 Bond fans raised more than £2700 for Sir Roger’s beloved UNICEF. We did this by watching all 7 Roger Moore Bond movies in a epic marathon with only short breaks (20ish minutes each) for costume changes and to make themed cocktails for each film. While many joined in however they could, several people joined in the whole 17 hour event, even matching us drink for drink (a particular shoutout to The Other Guys here, whose stamina was impressive!). Billy Robertson (aka @BillysBondArt) raised over £700 alone with sales of his artwork. We tweeted throughout and went Live on Instagram between each film.
You can rewatch the cocktails, the costume changes and the chaos here:
https://www.licencetoqueer.com/blog/rogering-for-unicef-mission-report
One event was not enough
Wearied and almost Bonded-out as we were after the 17 hours, we knew immediately that we wanted to repeat the event around the same time the following year. Not only did we raise a tidy sum for charity but the event created such a great feeling of camaradarie amongst the Bond online community.
But which Bond’s films to feature?
Roger Moore was a UNICEF ambassador from 1991 until he passed away in 2017, so it had made sense to start with his films. But for the second year, we needed another Bond actor with an impressive track record of charity work.
Pierce Brosnan has campaigned actively for a variety of causes. Brosnan has been an Ambassador for UNICEF Ireland since 2001 and, along with Liam Neeson, was an outspoken supporter of UNICEF's ‘Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS’ Campaign. As well as volunteering his time to UNICEF, Brosnan has continued to donated thousands from the sales of his own artwork to the charity.
‘Now I’ve got you in my sight…’
I love all of Pierce Brosnan’s Bond films. Yes, even that one has grown on me over the years. Writing a 13,000 word critique of Die Another Day helped me see past the superficial slip ups (CGI ice wave, etc) and get to grips with its many admirable qualities.
GoldenEye was the first Bond film I saw in the cinema. I recorded a podcast about this when I saw it back on the big screen for the 60th screen Bond anniversary.
Tomorrow Never Dies is my favourite of Brosnan’s films and is on regular rotation in our house. And The World Is Not Enough is right up there as one of the most finely plotted, acted and scored Bond films of all.
As much as I love the films, watching all four back to back is not something I have ever attempted - nor, to my knowledge, has anybody else. That’s nearly 9 hours of films if you don’t have any breaks. Fortunately, we’re going to build in breaks. We hope this will allow even more people to watchalong than last time. And in case you’re thinking this still sounds too easy, we’ll also be using the extra time making not just one but TWO bespoke cocktails per film! The recipes are below. If you intend to make some - or all! - of the drinks, you may find this table helpful when checking your cupboards to see if you need to buy any ingredients.
In addition, we’ll be feasting like there’s no tomorrow on a Brosnan-themed smorgasbord, with new recipes by Bond food expert-without-equal Edward Biddulph.
Tomorrow Never Dies (and hopefully we won’t do so by doing this!)
Sunday 28th May is part of the Spring bank holiday weekend here in the UK, so we hope this good timing for as many people as possible.
Here’s an outline of what is happening when. We’ll be making each of the cocktails mentioned below live on Instagram. The recipes are linked to below in case you want to stock up on ingredients and make them yourself.
All times are in British Summer Time (BST)
10.00am GoldenEye
Recommended cocktail pairings: Natalya Simonova AND Dame Judi
Recommended food pairings: See the full menu here.
1.00pm Tomorrow Never Dies
Recommended cocktail pairings: Gun Under Your Pillow AND a Wai Lin
Recommended food pairings: See the full menu here.
4.00pm The World Is Not Enough
Recommended cocktail pairing: Dr Christmas Jones and Foolish Sentiment
Recommended food pairings: See the full menu here.
7.00pm Die Another Day
Recommended cocktail pairings: Death For Breakfast AND Jinx (or you could just make a ‘mo-hee-to’)
Recommended food pairings: See the full menu here.
Some ways you can get involved:
Watchalong all four films with us, with or without accompanying cocktails and food. We may do an Amazon WatchParty like last time and we’ll definitely be tweeting, Instagramming throughout.
Watchalong as much as you can, perhaps one or two films. Join in with #DonateAnotherDay
If you can’t watchalong with the films, you can at least follow what we’re up to on social media.
However you get involved, please remember to donate, even if it’s just a few £!
