[Nfb-fundraising] Follow-up on the Cycle for Independence Event

[Ramona Walhof]

Everett, I sent out a message.  I wonder what happened to it.
We had 312 riders; plenty of food and beverage; plenty of help; and raised a 
gross of over 12,000 dollars; net about 8,000.  We are happy.  Best of all, 
we had literally no complaints.  And we learned even more contacts to 
recruit more riders for nexxt year.
Ramona
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Everett Gavel" <EverettG at SuccessfulAdaptations.com>
To: "NFB Fundraising Mailing List" <nfb-fundraising at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 9:41 AM
Subject: [Nfb-fundraising] Follow-up on the Cycle for Independence Event


> Hi Ramona, and all,
>
> So Ramona, how did your event, the Cycle for
> Independence go?  A great success, I hope.
>
> Thanks,
> Everett
> www.everettgavel.com
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 2:06 PM
>
>
>> Michael, it is the Treasure Valley Chapter which is
> in Boise Idaho.
>> I think this is our ninth Cycle for Independence.
> The first couple were
>> pretty small, so it has grown gradually.  We have
> learned, often by trial
>> and error, but it has become a fairly sophisticated
> project.  We use ham
>> radio operators at water stops and in sag wagons,
> vehicles that cruise the
>> routes in case of trouble.  We run three routes:
> 63-mile of metric century;
>> 25-mile; and ten-mile.  We serve lunch of hamburgers
> and hot dogs, etc.,
>> after the ride.  We will add boca burgers this year
> for vegetarians.  We
>> have a local d.j. do the send off for each route.  We
> encourage
>> preregistration, and about three fourths of the
> riders did that last year.
>> We give all who preregister free bike socks, which
> are really bright this
>> year.  We really work to include blind people on the
> back of tandems, but
>> usually only get about six.  We will be on tv with
> the local weather man
>> next Tuesday, which means getting people and bikes to
> the start/finish point
>> before 5:00 a.m.  We use a local Lions club to do the
> lunch and another
>> Lions club lets us borrow their tent which is 15 by
> 35 feet.  They put it up
>> for us and take it down, but it saves our workers
> from the sun.  We are also
>> using some volunteers from the Delta Gamma sorority
> for registration and
>> some other things.  Of course, our chapter members
> are involved in
>> everything.
>> We request local businesses to sponsor the event, and
> generally about 2500
>> dollars come in that way.  Most of the money comes
> from the registration
>> fees from the riders.
>> We provide water, powerade, bananas, and bars of some
> sort at the water
>> stops.
>> We also give away goody batgs.  This year they will
> contain a coupon for
>> coffee, a coupon for a free loaf of wonderful bread
> from Great Harvest
>> bakery, a pen from a local ophthalmologist, baseball
> stuff from the Boise
>> Hawks, mints, Braille cards, a flier about the NFB,
> and several fliers.
>> Some more things may come in, but I know of these so
> far.
>> We give away prizes, winners drawn from the names of
> riders.  So far we are
>> up to fifteen prizes this year, but there will be
> more.
>> We will have the Sensory Safari traylor parked at our
> start/finish point and
>> some other activities of that kind.
>> In other words, it is a big deal.  We involve several
> riders in planning, as
>> well as chapter members.  All this has evolved
> gradually, and it is a lot of
>> work and a lot of fun!
>> One more thing, the Cycle for Independence is the
> first of five rides called
>> the Treasure Valley Charity Bike Series.  That means
> we can do some shared
>> advertising with the others. Our ride is the fourth
> largest of these, so we
>> get contact with a lot of other riders this way.  At
> the urging of this
>> group,  There is a local weekly publication aimed by
> the local newspaper at
>> young adults.  This year it did a bike issue, and we
> bought a page of
>> advertising for 385 dollars.  This is the first time
> we have paid for
>> advertising, but we decided it was  the right place
> and the right time.
>>
>
>
>
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