This sponsored post is about a company that I think lots of you will be happy to find out about. They are called Lifestorybank and they can be found at www.lifestorybank.com
They offer an online video recording service for people to record their special memories , life advice and general family history. If you have ever sat there and thought that you would love to find the time to sit down and write your life story then please visit Lifestorybank. There’s a big difference though…there is no need to spend hours writing down all those treasured memories…instead you can video record yourself telling the story of your life. Plus another bonus is that lifestorybank asks you the questions to answer so you don’t need to spend ages thinking about what to say in your video biography. What an amazing idea!
Lifestorybank has an online animated interviewer (avatar) who will ask you all sorts of questions about your life so far and through your answers the people you choose to share your videos with will be able to hear all your fascinating family facts, funny stories, lifelong memories and your gems of wisdom regarding life in general.
I have asked my mum what she thinks of the idea of Lifestorybank and she thinks it is a lovely idea and she just wishes it had been around when her mum was still alive. I do too! I never got to see my nanny and it would have been so emotional to be able to have seen a video of her telling us about her life. I know lots of things about my nanny through what my mum has told me about her but when my mum is no longer here how much of what she has told me will I remember?
I must admit, I did think that maybe if there had been a Lifestorybank video of my nanny from when she was still alive that my Mum probably wouldn’t be too keen on seeing it as it would bring back memories of her. However I was quite wrong, my mum has told me that she would have loved the opportunity to watch a video like that and to actually be able to see and hear her Mum talking about her life, telling tales of my mum’s family history and giving snippets of advice that she had gathered from her years of being a mother. Sadly the clock can’t be turned back now and there is no way of getting those video recorded memories for my Mum to watch however you still have the chance to create a video for your loved ones so they can watch it when the time is right.
Your video biography doesn’t have to be morbid – it can instead be life-affirming. It could be that you have just had a child and you want to record your life story so that when your child is older you can sit down together and watch it back . Or of course, it could be that you want to record your story so that your memories are preserved for future generations to watch and listen to. Whatever your reasons for wanting to record the story of you….you now know that Lifestorybank can help. You can tell all the funny family stories about the things your kids did when they were little or you could talk about your own parents and grandparents. Maybe you’d like to reveal the secret ingredient in your special baking recipes or perhaps you just want to say how much you love your family and will miss them when you are not around anymore. Whatever you have to say – it is possible for you to record it in a lifestorybank memory video.
With the basic free membership there is the opportunity to record 3 free lifestorybank chapters of your life which contains various carefully selected questions for you to answer. However if you would like a more comprehensive video of your life then you can opt to pay the one-off fee of £90 to have full membership. By doing this you will have the chance to record a full 32 chapter video biography. The video can be filmed in bite-size chunks so you don’t need to spend hours on end filming all at once. Instead you can just answer a few of the avatar interview questions at a time and over a short period of filming your life story in the virtual memory bank will begin to build up. Then when you are ready you can share your video with your loved ones…be that while you are here or after you have gone. If you would like to share the video you have made while you are still around then all you do is share the link and give them the password but if you would prefer the video to be viewed after you have passed away you can leave the link and password with a loved one for them to share it with others when the right time comes or alternatively you can write it in your last will & testament.
I don’t like to talk about death of my loved ones but the sad fact is that it is something we are all going to have to experience at some point in our lives. I think it is a nice idea to know that with Lifestorybank you can record your life story for posterity so that the people closest to you can hear all about your thoughts and memories at any time they wish when you are no longer around.
The recordings you make are stored privately in the cloud so access is available wherever there is an internet connection. You don’t need to worry about your video being destroyed by flood, fire or other such things. Also unlike a book, photo album or USB stick, there is no need for you to choose which of your children can keep the keepsake video….instead they can all have the password (when you feel the time is right) and they will all be able to access the video of your life story whenever they wish.
I think Lifestorybank will become very popular as time goes on because I feel more and more people are realising that it is so important to try and safeguard those special memories that we all have. A few years back you only had a couple of options…write up your life story and find somewhere to safely put the huge book that detailed your life or instead you could tape record it – except if you’d done this we could now no longer here it as not many of us have cassette players! 🙁 You might have considered using a camcorder to do a video recording of yourself but you may have stumbled about what to say when faced with the camera rolling.
The reason I think Lifestory bank is so clever is because the avatar called ‘Ava’ questions you on 32 different chapters of your life. This is divided up into about 300 individual questions for you to answer at your own pace. Because the questions have been specially designed to get the most useful information and advice from you there is no need to worry about what to say. You just have to sit back, relax and answer the questions. 🙂
The company was founded by Joanna Helin and sadly the inspiration for the business was after losing a loved one to Cancer. She realised how little she had recorded of their life and wished that hadn’t been the case. She would have loved to have been able to show her children videos of them laughing and chatting. It would have also been nice if the opportunity had been there to record her loved one’s life story for future generations to see and hear. Sadly it wasn’t an option for Joanna but she didn’t want that to be the case for anyone else which is why she set about creating Lifestorybank.com. You can read more about it here
I would love it if you could please spread the word about the service that is offered by Lifestorybank and if you feel that you could benefit from recording your life story please click here to create an account (be that free or paid for).
You can follow the company on You Tube, Twitter and Facebook. Please stop by and tell them how much you love the sound of their online memory vault.