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Cliffhanger drama leads to new helpful social network

An online help and support network for the local and national community launches publicly this month.

A lonely and terrifying experience on a French ski slope led a young builder to devote two years of his life to creating a new online help and support network.

Chris Davis came close to death when he snowboarded on to the edge of a 200ft cliff and had to spend two hours edging through chest-high melting snow to reach safety.

“I thought the snow would give way at any moment and take me over the cliff,” he recalled. “A couple of times the snow beneath me slipped over the cliff and I thought this is it. Eventually I reached the strip of snow I was aiming for. It was about a metre wide with rocks on either side before it opened out below the rock line. With my heart racing I put my board on as carefully as possible.

“I don’t really remember the ride down but I remember thinking my only chance was to stay on my feet as long as possible to get past the rocks. I ended up buried in snow at the bottom of that cliff face but I was alive.”

The experience changed the whole outlook on life for the 31-year-old father of three. Back in UK he started working on AddmySupport.com, a giant help and support network with thousands of members, resources and Support Packs for a variety of different needs. Instead of wading through endless search engine results, AddmySupport connects anyone needing help to people, organisations and resources that can support them.

Chris’s snowboarding day had started in wonderful powder snow. “It was one of the best runs of my life - perfect snow, bright sunshine and perfect boulders poking out of the snow to do my turns around. It was heaven. I stopped for a moment to get my breath and realised I’d lost the piste. I was all on my own. I should have stopped and walked back up then but it was so wonderful in the mountains I checked my map and decided I could cut through and rejoin the piste further down.

“The perfect snow just seemed to go on and on but eventually it started getting harder and harder to spot a riding line and before I really knew what was happening I found myself about 5ft from a huge cliff. I just managed to slam the brakes on in time. I was close enough to the edge to see over it. It was 200ft straight down. I tried to climb back up but the snow was warming up and starting to slip. I spotted a thin strip of snow about 50m away and spent the next two hours edging along the top of this cliff face towards it in melting snow up to my chest.”

He emerged from his ordeal without a scratch.

“It was like it hadn’t happened and everything just carried on as normal. But when I met up with my family I started crying and they didn’t know what was going on. I’ve got three kids and I just couldn’t stop thinking what would they do if I wasn’t around? When we came back from holiday I went back to work, but I kept thinking about what might have been for me and the kids, and I knew I needed to do something different.

“I guess I realised I wasn’t always going to be around and seeing how easily my kids could have been left without their dad terrified me. When the idea for AddmySupport came to me I gave up building houses there and then. I just couldn’t be part of the rat race anymore, doing the same thing everyday and not seeing enough of my family. I started working on building AddmySupport almost the next day.”

Davis wanted to create something to help and support anyone who needs it whatever their background, age, gender, nationality, location, beliefs, experiences, needs and values are.

His experience in the mountains had shown him there are not many things worse than feeling alone. It can happen at any time in your life (even when you are surrounded by other people.)

Some people find it too hard to ask for help, others simply don't have anyone to turn to. But AddmySupport aims to solve this problem.

“Some people seem to coast through life, unfazed by life’s challenges, while others have to fight and struggle everyday just to keep going? It’s access to support that makes the difference between winning and losing, finishing a project or leaving it incomplete, an idea taking off or fading away, achieving a goal or giving up. The support can come from friends, family, colleagues, peers, professionals, organisations or access to the right resources. The right support at the right time can make a huge difference.

"I had used Facebook and other online networks since they first launched. The more I used them, I realised they were a great place to tell people what you were up to when things were going well, but not right when things weren't so good. It's no surprise really - Facebook is a friend's network. It helps you stay in touch with each other, but it was never designed to be more than that.”

Whether it’s help for learning an instrument, coping with a challenge, quitting smoking, losing weight, setting up a business, writing a novel, learning how to moonwalk or supporters for your own campaign, AddmySupport connects you to people, organisations and resources that can help.

“An internet search engine is no replacement for personal support from friends, family, colleagues, peers or from professionals and organisations.” explains Chris.

In the early days of AddmySupport, Chris created a few support pages which brought together the best resources he could find into one place.

“I sent these support pages to friends and family to help them with a range of issues like learning to ski, coping with an illness, setting up a business, changing jobs, completing a DIY project and even trying to save a relationship. The people I sent them to found them really useful and things have developed from there.”

He has worked on the beta version of the site for more than two years and invested his life savings in the project.” It’s been difficult getting the business to this point and couldn’t have done it without support from his own family and friends.

“I have already used my own support network to find some great professional help. Having the right people backing me up has made a big difference to where I am today. Finding someone who has been there before and understands all the challenges to be overcome is invaluable. Whenever I get stuck I can turn to them for help and advice.

“The hardest thing has been building it to work for all the different things people need help with. For a help and support network to work properly it has to work for everything people need help with. This includes relationships, work, health, sports, education, life challenges, home and financial issues. It’s been a huge challenge to get here but we now have a great network that really works.”

He is now looking for outside investors to take the project to the next stage.

AddmySupport is free for everyone to use. When users come to the site, AddmySupport makes commission from some of the resources users find to help them. These could be books, courses, recommended products or AddmySupport’s own offers.

“We also have our Support Ads that help individuals find companies who support their values and at the same time offer an opportunity for those companies to make a unique connection with these individuals.”

AddmySupport is a UK limited company. The site is set up on its own dedicated and secure servers and new features, members and content are being added every day.

For more information

Email: chrisdavis@addmysupport.com

Website: http://www.addmysupport.com

Tel: 01453 889699

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