Free Spirits Charity Fund Raising Thoughts - Please Read!

[Mike Channin]

It has occured to me that we have a large, global and dedicated band of rowing nutters, certified to do silly, extreme and otherwise newsworthy and attention grabbing things (usually involving rowing).

This can, and has already been, used to raise money for charity.

What I think we should do is have a set of charities that we raise funds for, and dedicate each event we do to raising money for the fund and then onwards to the charities. Some events could be specifically for a single charity (e.g Children in Need because of the timing of the 'day') and others to the general pool.

For this, I'm suggesting an initial list of something like:

MND - for Paul Sims
Children in Need - as supported by Marcus
Steve Redgrave Trust (or whatever it is called -seems appropriate)
Maybe a few more (possibly on a rotational basis - to keep as many people happy as possible)

We would need to contact the charities and make sure they know what we're doing, and they can then help us publicise and fund raise. And we can use this website to highlight and showcase what we do.

We already have various things done or in the pipeline:

Ultradistances (marathons, 50ks, 100ks, .... (erk!))
Global Relay Rowing
Extreme Erging (thanks MaxDev)

and I'm sure we can think of plenty more.

So what do you all think?

[webberg]

Mike, I think this is a fine and noble idea that needs some simple and thoughtful rules to keep it relevant and keep our people focussed.

I have suggested that next year around this time we should perhaps try to get enough people together to do a 2 erg, million metre attempt. Perhaps linked with Children in Need or perhaps another fund.

In reality I doubt that we could get enough people together to do a marathon type attempt more than once a year. Otherwise we will be doing virtual pieces like the present 24 hour event, or have small groups for more local events such as you, Paul and Stan did.

Asking for sponsorship for a large charity and having a public event (in a gym or whatever but at least witnessed) is a worthwhile and achievable aim.

Trying to raise cash for a row that is unseen (i.e. virtual and in a garage/gym/boathouse, etc) and where the funds are going to a general fund for distribution to an as yet unknown cause is more difficult.

Local events are more practical if the local contact is able to call upon a number of us to help in getting those metres done and the MND challenge that Paul organised is a good example. Given enough notice and with careful selection of times etc, I would hope that there are enough "pockets" of us in the UK at least to lend each other support.

(I have been thinking about this and working out if we could have a London group row the distance to say Reading, where a group of us there woudl do the distance to say Birmingham to hand on to another group etc, eventually the whole of the UK end has enough to go over the Atlantic and hand over to our US colleagues. Not sure who's going to row enough metres to hand over to the Kiwi/Aus people - probably Zach, Hummingbird, Rita, Gary and Scott Hill on their own! ).

Overall, whatever the details, I am supportive of this and think that we can use our efforts for good causes. I have issues with which charities but that's a very personal thing and I suspect we all do.

Good idea.

[ptruz]

sounds like a great idea

[Mike Channin]

I can see us running an Extreme Erging event once a month as a regular amusement if it makes good money for good causes, and with the benefit that it would gain momentum and interest over the course of the year. Should then give us a platform to publicise other events too, hopefully.

[JanetS]

Great idea Mike.

& v good points Webberg

(I have been thinking about this and working out if we could have a London group row the distance to say Reading, where a group of us there woudl do the distance to say Birmingham to hand on to another group etc, eventually the whole of the UK end has enough to go over the Atlantic and hand over to our US colleagues. Not sure who's going to row enough metres to hand over to the Kiwi/Aus people - probably Zach, Hummingbird, Rita, Gary and Scott Hill on their own! )

Now this has possibilities.........

[PSims]

Great ideas Mike.

I would like to see technology help us.
Webcam somehow to link up several groups for a simulteneous virtual row. I'm not an expert though!

RowPro would be great too.

I also thought of being sponsored for the total metres I (we) could achieve in, say, a month....which gives flexibility to people's lifestyles.

What do we think?

[Mike Channin]

Anyone else want to say anything???

[Thomas W-P]

I think it is a good idea.

I am up for meeting people at the top of a mountain and rowing its height. I will bring my family if they bring the ergo. I might even carry the seat cover and a camera.

[webberg]

Still up for this.

We need something that will capture the imagination and to the (non erger) is seen as very difficult.

Now a marathon an hour for a whole day is 1,012,680m.

With 9 ergs (3 in London, 3 in the Basingstoke/Reading area and 3 in the Midlands) and averaging 14k an hour, that's around 8 hours rowing per venue. That fits quite nicely in a day.

So 3 ergs and 14k an hour. Probably needs around 20 people per venue?

I suspect that our US team mates might also do something similar but geographically they are more spread out and might have to do something virtual.

Also to get a little techie about this it might be worthwhile establishing our own charitable trust. This is a realtively simple task but does require things like Trustees, accounts, minutes of meetings, etc. I'm sure that Fiona and I can handle the accounting side but this would mean that Trustees would be drawn from other team members.

Once established though we could increase any donation we get by use of the gift aid scheme which recovers the tax on each payment. Look at the "just giving" website for more details.

For UK donations this will increase the contributions a lot. There is a similar scheme in the US but paying donations outside the US has a few complications.

We also want to be careful that we don't cut across the Redgrave charity here which is supported by a lot of the indoor rowing community but it's worth thinking about.

I will investigate a bit further exactly what might be needed in terms of legal documents and such like. Do we have any UK lawyers on the team?

I'll leave the challenge to those with a bit more imagination.

[Mike Channin]

I think an official charity is a great way to go, even if we then just use it to forward cash to other charities (hence not treading on the toes of others, e.g. Sir Steve's charity).

It also gives us an air of credibility which I think we'd need to get permission for most of the more interesting Extreme Erging locations (in London, anyway)

[steve the slug]

just to say its a good idea,

i'm still alive and if i can fit it in i will

slug

[Mike Channin]

Sluggy!!!! Good to hear from you. How are you? The world of ELM has missed you, and Mr Sims has had no-one to bait.

For all the new people - the Slug is one of the founders of Free Spirits and we wouldn't be here without him (and the other founders).

[Gooner Neil]

Where ya been slug?

[Thomas W-P]

This has been on "announcement" for some time.

Where are we going with this? webberg looked in to it but it sort of died there. I am locking this thread and we can pick this up in the "Panel".