Hi friendly forum! Just wanted everyones opinion on this and what I should do. I entered the Tri For Life at Woburn (live nearby so that was one of the reasons) with a friend to do the team event (and a swimmer who was offered to us by the Tri For Life people).
1. Paid £200 to enter the team.
2. Didn't read the small print til yesterday.
3. Realise we need to raise £500 (team minimum) by next Sunday 7th
4. If we don't raise the minimum WE CAN'T TAKE PART!!!!
5. As we only entered 2 weeks ago we have only raised £50 odd pounds so far by selling eggs and cakes!
6. All our friends, family etc have been taken over by the Ice Bucket Challenge (good cause and great way to raise awareness) so we don't feel we can start asking again.
I have asked Tri For Life if we can still participate, isn't some money better than none and also we would lose our £200 registration. Their reply was to see if we could raise £350 instead but they are sticking to their guns, no minimum payment no participation. The 3rd member of our team doesn't have to help us as he is part of the Tri For Life team (compere or something).
Ok so this is by no means a begging letter in case it sounds like that. I DO NOT WANT MONEY, instead some advice on what should be my next step. I have an email ready to say we are withdrawing and the £200 should go to Charity (my husband put up £100 so we only had to pay £50 each).
Any suggestions, advice?
Written by
Nellyharte
Graduate
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Facebook. If all participants put out a note along the lines of the above, you are sure to be inundated with donations. I know you're not asking for money here, but if you put up a link to your giving page or donation bank account number, I expect lots of people will be happy to donate a bit - I would!
Thanks very kind useit but it is the 'principal' of the situation, shouldn't they be happy with some funds rather than none? Will have a think and I might put up a page......thanks for your support and suggestion.
I know what you mean - it seems a shame to lose your deposit, though I suppose you could just think of it as a very generous donation and feel good about how you've helped all those charities - good causes all. I bet if you get the word around you could raise the £350 in a week though ...
Thanks tryrun, I suppose my issue is timing now as I haven't got long to go and we have already done the cakes at work so your other suggestions are very good, might do the sweep it would be fun! I will set up a page and post it later. Many thanks for the suggestions.
Sorry don't know how to advise you. But with reference to 'the principle', well I googled 'Tri for Life' and on the front page it says:
"The tri for life Story:
tri for life is now in its seventh year, having raised £1.5m to-date for a variety of good causes. 2013 saw the launch of RUNDAY, a brand new running event, as well as the return to Woburn Abbey of the legendary triathlon. tri for life is all about raising money for charity through providing a challenge – which is why we have a minimum sponsorship level for all of our participants."
The set minimum sponsorship clause is quite obvious.
This looks Tri for Life are a commercial company who have contracts to fulfill with the charities to reach set figures in their fundraising. Now I'd guess they usually do this easily, as places at most of there events sell out quickly. But if you got a place just two weeks ago, it sounds as if this one didn't sell out...?
I wonder if people are getting 'charity-event fatigue'? There only so many times you can ask friends and family for donations.
i choose not to enter any events (whether running, cycling abseiling, etc) that require an minimum sponsorship amount. This has been discussed recently in the media and on social media and I understand the charities' point of views But, and this is a big but... do you know how much of your donated money goes to the charity and how much the commercial companies make in profit?
Thanks Swanscot and your points are all valid ones however I am such a 'newbie' to this running lark and the last charity one I did, Race for Life, had none of the minimum sponsorships attached so I assumed (very bad of me I know) that these events were all the same. I really didn't know a minimum sponsorship would ever exist! I haven't seen anything in the media either. It would be interesting to know how much profit the company makes as the registration fee isn't cheap either at £200 per team. All good points though and I will check details more thoroughly next time I sign up!
Not sure if this idea is do-able, but I'll offer it anyway!
At my church fete 2 years ago, one of the ladies was wandering around with a bucket which had a wooden sunken "lid". In the lid was a hole for money. She was selling raffle tickets at £1 each to win half of the value of the bucket ... the only thing was you didn't know how much money was in the bucket! At the end of the event when all the prizes were being drawn, she counted up the money and put half of it aside, and then used the bucket to put all the raffle ticket stubs into, and our vicar drew one. The lucky winner (me) got £68, which meant that the church also got £68!!!!!
Well that is a new one Mamma, love it and our Woburn Festival is on this weekend so off I go to find a bucket! Thanks everyone for ideas it is very helpful....fingers crossed we get to the £350 or all my training will have been in vain!
justgiving.com/froxfield/ just in case any of you have a few spare quid after all the ice bucket challenges. It is actually for 3 charities but didn't know how to do that on just giving.....xx
Done! Why not repeat your story on a new post and ask for more donations from your c25k family here? They are such worthy charities you are sure to attract some dosh! Good luck x
This is really hard one, I agree any amount raised should be enough.
Sorry to use these words in chile a lot of the races are for charity, you have to donate to which ever charity the event is associated with. Once you have made your donation to the charity you are added to list of runners. This means the charity get the money, secondly we ended up donating double the amount they asked for because we didn't see how they would make enough money with only £5 donation each from 4000 runners, plus we just thought this was such a good idea. I like this system a lot and maybe something races in uk could consider.
Totally agree vix seems more transparent to pay charity directly. We will see how our fundraising goes, I love doing the charity races but not with all this pressure!
Hi Nelly Sounds like a bit of a pickle you got yourself into! Typical innit! You set out with the best of intentions and the earths lands on your head!
From being a fundraiser in the past, I found that folks will buy raffle tickets for a bottle of wine, whiskey or chocs, or fork out 20 p a go for a tombola with small gifts that you can get folks to give you. Everyone has a bottle of bubble bath, talc etc that is unused and in perfect condition. Toiletries are the most common, but hankies, jewellery etc, can be tombola'd. People like it. Ladies are the best customers (surprise surprise!) . Kids themed ones always went down very well.
Great suggestions missW, I agree people love to gamble a bit and all those pennies make pounds. I will search the house today and also raid my husbands wine! Once again the forum has come up trumps to help me.
I can't help with ideas but I will sympathise, I do the GNR for the first time on the 7th and luckily got a ballot place which I have chosen to use for charity, when I saw how much the charity wanted for one of their places I nearly fainted £450 plus £40 entry fee! I know they need to make as much as possible but as you say everyone has charity fatigue with the links being bombarded around and pick a select few. I'm going to do cakes at work next week for a donation but my entire site has just done an event this week with cakes for epilepsy fundraising for one of the staff. Along with ice buckets I'm not sure how successful I'll be and I'd never reach the £450, I'm glad I'm doing what I can without the pressure (oh and someone on the private Facebook page asked directly what would happen if they didn't hit the amount, indirect reply 'you've plenty of time left to hit the fundraising target' :S blacklisted, personal account pillaged????) good luck!
I have done a few cake sales now and getting quite good at baking having rarely made a cake before! I do agree everyone has charity fatigue so tombolas and cake sales are the way forward. It does feel like an extra pressure but I have myself to blame as we only registered last week and haven't given ourselves much time. Oh FB can be cruel! Good luck to you to!
Do you have a local pub and a friendly landlord. If so get a few obscure songs from say the 80s or 70s and do a pub quiz with guess that tune. Just play the start of the tracks. Everyone has to pay to enter and because it's a good cause ask the landlord if he will donate a round of drinks to the winners. Also put out a bowl for donations. It's fun and dosent take much to organise. You only need about 25 songs and someone who has the gift of the gab. So. All you need is one cd with tunes on. Some pens and paper and a someone who likes to entertain. Good luck I hope you get something sorted.
Thanks for the idea realfoodieclub, might struggle to sort all that in a week but it has got me thinking about similar ideas! Great forum for help and a big thanks to everyone.
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