The relationship between Blood Bowl and charity work is a well-established one at this point in the game’s history. Many tournament organizers use NAF tournaments as a way to raise money for their favorite causes, whether in support of cancer research, animal care, or assistance for former service members. Podcasters have also run many successful efforts of late, with the same theme of enjoying one’s hobby while also donating to the greater good. In an official capacity, the NAF attempts to support these efforts through their Blocksfam initiative, which redistributes surplus tournament giveaways to charity events around the world. Now, one particular hobbyist has broken new ground with his means of raising funds for charity, and that is Mika Joensuu, a chief of youth services in Finland. Mika was named a Warhammer Hero by Games Workshop in 2020 and has been involved in charity events for many years.
Since January 2021, Mika has been making a large Blood Bowl stadium complete with fans, advertisements, and even an orc rock band. During his project he came up with the idea of actually selling the advertisements in his stadium to real companies and individuals to raise money for Mieli Ry, a Finnish organization that specializes in adolescent mental health services, a cause that intersects with Mika’s passion and career. Not only would the sponsor companies be helping a great cause, but in return for their money they would have their logo or name immortalized on Mika’s stadium. The stadium, which originally began as a standard hobby miniature project, turned into something much bigger with a sense of purpose toward benefitting the community in which Mika works.
We’ll let Mika take over here and describe what became of his project:
At first I contacted some Finnish game stores if they would be interested in participating into this. My goal was to get perhaps 200 € for the charity if even some of the game stores would join this. But people I contacted were really interested…not just game stores, but other companies, organisations and private citizens as well. For the private participants I gave an option of donating 10 €, and for that they would get their name to Hall of Fame board that is part of the stadium.
It did not take long when I also got the first band to participate: a big Finnish rock band called Apulanta joined in by getting their own advertisement there. This nicely gave my project some visibility and credibility, which helped to contact other organizations as well. So, I continued on with this project and now many more organizations have participated into it.
At the moment there are five big Finnish bands (rock bands Apulanta and Stam1na, and internationally known metal bands Nightwish, Sonata Arctica and Battle Beast) that have joined in, in addition of many other organizations: companies, gaming groups, conventions and many private persons.
In April one of the biggest music festivals in Finland, Rockfest, joined in. They also posted about this project to their social media, which reached potentially tens of thousands of people. Their participation also came up in perfect time, as I just had made a music stage and painted an orc band into the stadium.
At the start of the May I got one of the biggest radio stations in Finland, Radio Rock, to participate as well. They joined in with a special deal: they gave a bigger donation, and I am now making a ”secret project” for them into the stadium. I make and they publish weekly for four weeks a video in social media, in which I slowly reveal what I am making by posting the latest progress into it. For example the first video was watched almost 20,000 times in Facebook and Instagram in total.
At the moment I have collected over 6800 € to charity through this! That is an amazing sum that will help greatly the mental health work.
About the models, the bleachers are from Fanath set, the fans are mostly Fanath fans, but there are plenty of Games Workshop and other models as well. There are now four of these bleachers. I have estimated that I have used about 300 hours for this, with perhaps 100 hours of work still to do (I have about 30 fans still to add). Some pictures can be found from my Instagram www.instagram.com/mika.a.joensuu.
If someone is interested I can be contacted by email mika.a.joensuu@gmail.com, by Twitter www.twitter.com/MikaJoensuu or Instagram www.instagram.com/mika.a.joensuu
The Finnish donation site is https://potti.mieli.fi/oma-mielipotti/16-3662/f/Donation/Donate. If someone is interested of joining in (by buying a banner for at least 50 €, or a name for Hall of Fame for at least 10 €), this way you can pay by credit card:
- Choose ”Yksityishenkilö” (private person), or ”Yritys” (company)
- Choose ”Verkkopankki / kortti” (online bank / card)
- Choose the amount you pay (in ”Muu summa / valuutta” you can change the amount from the ready made amounts and check out the amount in dollars)
- Then press the green ”JATKA” -button, and you go to paying
- After the payment it is possible to write the message to the charity, to let me know who has donated (also send me an email to mika.a.joensuu@gmail.com)
Congratulations on the success of your stadium, Mika, and thanks for sharing it with all of us.
