March Recruitment Month
I am exhausted! I'm now working 2 departments, having a lot of fun and staying busy at work. Going to go over points in bullet form.
* Tonight's meeting is canceled- everyone has a scheduling conflict :)
I'd like to have one for March discussing recruitment, please email if you have any suggestions/days and times that (don't) work well for you or places we should meet.
* Posters are DONE and being hung, thanks to Bethany for getting us the approval and HUGE thanks to Emily in the reception team for putting them up! I modified each poster so they would include the Invitrogen logo (so people would know it's a company event) as well as the local contact (moi) and website streamers.... because really- who's going to remember my name or the blogspot address? :) Hoping for a few bites from interested folks.
* I am still working on friends and family to help out with the team. Kyia has 2 family members interested and together they've raised $135!! Way to go KYIA!!!!
* Created an email list:
relayivgneugene@yahoogroups.com so our group can stay in contact. All pertinent information will now be emailed as well as logged on this blog. To join, if you haven't yet gotten an invitation, just go to :
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/relayivgneugene* Some interested parties haven't yet "officially" signed up. The walk is months away, but we're behind our ideal in fundraising. Please sign up as soon as possible. Right now we're just working on individual fundraising, we'll work on group fundraisers starting in April.
*The meeting Wednesday went splendidly. I was not able to attend so Bethany went and picked up useful information and ideas for our team. She was also able to suggest a better tent site behind the main stage. It's a little quieter, but still right on the track for easy access.
Way to go BETHANY!!!
*I'll see about getting more promo items: pins, pens, and teammate information. Hoping to be able to run over tomorrow on my lunch break.
Ttfn! Hope you and yours are doing well and I hope to hear from everyone soon!
Brandy//Team Organizer
Relay Update
YAY! We're currently in 5th for donations, just behind Semperian. Our team now officially has 5 members, and several more who have promised to join our team. Remember- each person who joins is not only going to help out with the fundraising, but more members means less walking time per member. (in theory)
It's too early to sign up for your "walking time" just yet. Please don't ask me to reserve a spot for you or keep track of your preference just yet. I'll make a post for that and you can reply in a comment with your desired spot and walking time.
Semperian just finished a Huge fundraiser, so I'm expecting them to jump even further up in the ratings very soon. We have $150 and that's a great start!
In case anyone's wondering, I'm in Customer Service- the call center, in building C. I'll be helping out accounting starting next week (yay!) in building E. I'm pretty well tied to my desk 8 hours a day since we're running with minimal staffing. After work, I have a 2 year old and a husband I care for, and we only have 1 car. I'm doing all I can. It's just slow going. Just know I'm doing all I can to help keep this going, and if I can manage to fit this in my schedule- trust me,
anyone can.
Bethany emailed and said there are fliers and promotional materials I can pick up from ACS. I don't see anything on their website. Spoke with "Tinker," who is the local contact. There is NO age limit. Anybody under 16 just needs to sign a "youth release form" in order to participate, and must have a chaperone available.
OH! And I'm supposed to attend Team Leader meetings. Oops :) No clue.
I was supposed to get a Team Leader Packet, it just hasn't been processed yet. I'm to go down to the local ACS to snag that as well as supplies. That sounds encouraging! They're the 3rd Wednesday of every month at EWEB at 6pm.
ACS is in the office building between and behind Trader Joe's and Pier 1 at2350 OakMont Way #200 upstairs, hours are 8:30-5pm M-F, but gone next Tuesday. My working hours are 8-5 so I had to take some time off to go do this. Fortunately my supervisor Bev has a great sense of humor :)
I grabbed all the forms/posters etc and I'm all set and ready to go. March will be our month for promoting awareness for the Relay for Life and getting more members on our team.
YAY!
I propose a meeting next week after my Wednesday meeting, so I'll be really prepared. I'm going to say let's meet on Thursday at 7pm at the Shari's on W11th. Spread the date/time. I'll post meeting notes for anyone who isn't able to come. I'll have signup sheets for those unable to do it themselves online and a couple of fundraising ideas I've been kicking around.
Hoping to hear your great ideas and get to know you better! :)
Brandy//Team Organizer
Volunteer Age-Restrictions
Kyia emailed inquiring about the age-restrictions about volunteers. The website doesn't give any specifics so I called- the volunteer answering the phone said she'll have the site event-coordinator call me back.
Does anyone have any other questions for when she calls? I'll post as soon as I hear back.
No luck on getting jars to place around campus for donations yet, I'm still working on it!
So far 3 people have signed up and joined our team officially via the Relay Website:
Kyia
Dawn
We got our first donation, too (aside from the generous donation of our registration fee from Global Citizenship.) My Aunt Kathy donated $15.00!!!
WAY TO GO AUNT KATHLEEN!!!
I also see Kyia donated $20! What a great start to our fundraising!!!!
Fundraising idea #1- Contacting Friends & Family
The first fundraising tip listed on the website is:
-
Sign up on this Web site to Relay Online! Once you have registered, you can start sending emails to friends and family. Then, sit back, relax, and let the donations roll in!
-
Go the tried and true route and mail letters to everyone telling them about Relay For Life and ask them to mail a donation within 10 days. Consider including a self-addresses stamped envelope to make it easy for people to donate. Ask your Relay For Life Committee for sample letters, and make sure to include your own story as to why you are participating.
Just asking for donations- How Novel is that?! :)
I really can't see sending letters with a stamped return envelope to people I know. I understand some people might be comfortable with that idea. I'm just not. I went with emailing. Somehow it feels more personal. I may include a brief snippit about the fundraiser during my bi-monthly update that I send to friends and family, but I think most would be offended at a self-addressed stamped envelope ;)
Here's the email I sent to a select group of my friends and family:
Hi all! I'm sending this to everyone whom I thought might be interested. I'm participating in the Relay for Life through work. From the website at : http://www.acsevents.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=141982&lis=1&kntae141982=254DAEED338E47B9847264DA5AA93B4F "July 28-29 2006 noon to noon Lane Community College Relay For Life® is a fun-filled overnight event designed to celebrate survivorship and raise money to help the American Cancer Society save lives, help those who have been touched by cancer, and empower individuals to fight back against this disease. During the event, teams of people gather at schools, fairgrounds, or parks and take turns walking or running laps. Each team keeps at least one team member on the track at all times. Relay is much more than a walk around a track. It is a time to remember those lost to cancer and celebrate those who have survived. It is a night for people who have shared the same experience to comfort and console one another. Relay gives you the power to help accelerate the Society’s advancement toward a future where cancer doesn’t take the lives of our friends and family." I'm not sure if many of you know, but I lost my Grandmother to cancer a few years ago. It was a really hard loss. I had helped care for her in conjunction with my Mom and hospice for the year and a half before her death. She went slowly and painfully- a horrific way to die. Part of why I've enjoyed working for Molecular Probes, now owned by Invitrogen, has been because of its role in disease and drug research. The company has been a huge supporter of charitable organizations, as well as supplying detection technology to research organizations around the world. I would LOVE for local friends and family to sign up and be a part of the Invitrogen Eugene team. You would be involved with fundraising and would take a section of time to walk during the event. Information on joining our team can be found on our blog site here: http://relayivgneugene.blogspot.com/2006/03/join-up.html If you're not interested or able to join the team, you could also donate here: https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=141982&lis=1&kntae141982=8E7B60AF8D70432DB473CA9EEAD1155F&supId=121056576 They take credit/debit cards with a $10 minimum. Anything less can be mailed to me at my home address, which most of you have (email me off list if you need it again.) If you don't have the time or funds to do either, I totally feel ya. You can keep track of our progress and what we're doing with this event on our blog site at: http://relayivgneugene.blogspot.com/ Thanks for reading! BrandyPainless, and hopefully they won't hold it against me to solicit funds for the project.
Join Up!
We're all signed up now. Thanks to Allegra and the Global Citizenship Team for providing us with the intial registration fee, we are now an official Relay for Life Team.
Our main page is here:
http://www.acsevents.org/relay/or/eugene/relayivgneugene.I set our group goal fairly low, considering the number of people actually on-site. I set the group goal at only $5000. Absolutely fluff since we have 'til July... or is it?
So here's how this works. If you want to WALK on the team, you need to sign up UNDER our team. You would go
HERE - you'll click
"JOIN A TEAM" and select
"INVITROGEN EUGENE." From there, you will enter your information, including t-shirt size and personal goal.
I set my personal goal at $100. I know I can do more, and may raise my goal if I make that too quickly :)
Under "
Personalized Web Page Link" you will need to choose a username. This is important and you HAVE to do this because you won't be able to edit this later. What this is, is your personal page INSIDE of the Invitrogen Eugene page. Your friends, family, or poker buddies will be able to make donations towards your goal via credit/debit card on this site. The money that each of us raises personally goes toward BOTH our goal, and towards our group goal.
Under "FEES" you will select "General Participant," which does not charge a fee. Hit continue and you're set. It will give you the address for our main site, as well as the site address for your personal Relay page that you can give to people for your blackmail errr...
donation requests.
As far as the blog goes, I can have posts emailed to you if you'd rather go that route than checking back with the website- just send me an email and let me know if you want on the "email blog posts" list. I'm going to post pertinent email discussions and fundraising ideas that people send to me so we can keep track of everything in one convenient location.
One of our team members is confused as to what a blog is. I'll explain. "Blog" is short for web-based log (journal.) You can post a daily entry, or make a new page every day. You can see on the right-hand side the link to previous entries, sorted by their subject lines. The blog also contains whatever other information we consider pertinent. I have links up to the Invitrogen website, if anyone wanders across this blog and wonders "what the heck is Invitrogen?!" and a link to the Eugene Relay for Life site for easy access. I might add more links.
Basically, and at its heart, a blog is just another website. You don't have to be a master coder to blog, all I do is type in the editor. You don't have to make blog posts to participate, you can just read and email me with any comments, or you can sign up for a username and post a comment below the initial post. I hope that makes sense...
So far, parties that have expressed interest in participating are: Brandy
Bethany
Ginger
Dawn
Jolene
Kyia
That's it. I'm a little disappointed more aren't turning out, but maybe with a little cheerleading on our part we can drum up more interest and support from the company at large. I was thinking of getting permission to send out a bi-weeklyish informational update to the company, maybe monthly would be more the way to go :)
We could show how Invitrogen, and Molecular Probes specifically supports and helps in Cancer Research- does anyone have specific information on that? I'm not a technical person so I don't have exacts... or if you have ideas of who I could email for information?
Maybe send updates on how much our team has raised thus far and encourage people to join in. I would say we could designate someone to be our "cheerleader" and to be the person who is in charge of recruiting new members, but honestly we should ALL be doing that. :)
The GREAT news is, any of our friends and family are more than welcome to participate and walk on our team. That means I can volunteer my husband (mwahahah.) I'm not sure about volunteering my 2 year old, but wouldn't it be SO CUTE to push her around the track for an hour in a stroller? Okay, losing focus...
Anyway, feel free to encourage friends and family to sign up under our flag and participate.
As far as fundraising goes, we can do the fundraisers, dep the money into our account, and just use the site's credit/debit card to transfer the funds... I think that's easiest.
When is a good meeting day/time for everyone? I'm best evenings and weekends, customer service sure is hoppin'!
Fundraising part 1
Per the Relay for Life agreement, found on its website:
"The American Cancer Society provides Relay For Life® participant ("Relay participant") Web pages as a service. All donations received through the Relay participant pages are contributions for which no goods and services have been provided. Therefore, Relay participant pages shall not contain any language which suggests that merchandise will be provided in exchange for their contribution. Relay participants are expressly prohibited from offering merchandise sales, prizes, raffles, giveaways, lotteries, contests, tournaments, lucky draws, or any games of chance on their Relay participant pages either as an outright token action or as an inducement to solicit donations."
That may throw a wrench in ... well almost all of my ideas actually. They do have a page set up for fundraising ideas
here.What's confusing is, the fundraising idea page lists raffles, etc as a fundraising idea. My thought is that the language in the agreement refers ONLY to our Relay for Life website, like we can't sell stuff off of it in exchange for donations, but they don't care what we do outside our personal Relay for Life website.
I think the first, and most basic thing to do is setting up donation jars in the lunchrooms and at strategic locations throughout campus. Can I get volunteers to set up and monitor jars? Please comment below or email me- I will see about getting some jars asap!
Brandy//Organizer
Welcome Post!
Emailed to !Eug-AllUsers Group today:
Good Morning/Afternoon!
I've agreed to serve as the point person and organizer for this year's Relay for Life!
From the website, located at: http://www.kintera.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=141982
July 28-29 2006 noon to noon
Lane Community College 
"Relay For Life® is a fun-filled overnight event designed to celebrate survivorship and raise money to help the American Cancer Society save lives, help those who have been touched by cancer, and empower individuals to fight back against this disease. During the event, teams of people gather at schools, fairgrounds, or parks and take turns walking or running laps. Each team keeps at least one team member on the track at all times.
Relay is much more than a walk around a track. It is a time to remember those lost to cancer and celebrate those who have survived. It is a night for people who have shared the same experience to comfort and console one another.
Relay gives you the power to help accelerate the Society’s advancement toward a future where cancer doesn’t take the lives of our friends and family."
One of my friends is the point person/organizer for Semperian, over on Country Club Road, and she's got a head start!
We need your help. I'd like to set up bi-weekly meetings to discuss fundraisers and build our team.
You don't have to walk to be on our team. You can help post fliers, help with fundraising, donate, or just offer words of support and encouragement. If you're interested in joining, please shoot me an email (do NOT reply all ;) .) I'm hoping to have our first meeting at the end of this week, or the beginning of next, on a weekend-day or evening. I will set up a blogspot page so that everyone can keep track of our progress/meeting notes/what have you. Please visit http://relayivgneugene.blogspot.com/ Thanks for reading, I hope to hear from MANY of you soon!
(anyone else get the willies when you have to post to everyone in the company?!)
Also got the news from Allegra on the Global Citizenship Committee:
Our proposed sponsorship of the 2006 Relay to Life team has been approved, for $100 registration fee and $500 matching funds. BETHANY is our GC team member that is your liaison, so just let her know what you need!
thx, Allegra
Well begun is half done!!!
Brandy//Organizer
