Mentoring e-Mail # 6

Hello, my Great, Gregarious Group of FUNdraisers,

‘Tis your Artful Mentor once more, with another Tuesday message. You are groaning and wondering “Why, oh why, couldn’t I have been assigned a laconic, relatively sane mentor?” I don’t have the answer to that, but perhaps it is to make you better at enduring being around whacky people. I’m sure that there is a reason, even if we can’t figure it out. Certainly, all will be revealed in time.

But fear not this week – I don’t have a ton of things to harangue you about, just a few reminders:

* Silent Auction – remember, you should be collecting things for this. I need to follow that same advice! Respond to Jen’s e-vite if you have not done so already. That date and location again? January 21st, 6PM, Big Al’s on Cox Road. It should be fun and hopefully good fund raising.

* Team Breakfast – following training this Saturday, at Baker’s Crust in Carytown. I have prior plans and so will not be at breakfast.

* If you cannot make training, please let Coach Chuck or Coach Kristi know. I learned last night that Vicki’s dad just died and so she will be away.

* My Fund Raising Contest – who is going to win? What amazing prize awaits? Keep plugging away, as the time is about 50% done – my little contest ends January 4. As a rule of thumb, you want to be close to 20% of your minimum right now. If you have any concerns or questions, need to chat, need to brainstorm, need to meet one on one, please contact me. It will be tight with the holidays ahead but just let me know and we will work together.

* Are you a good gift wrapper? If so, maybe it is not too late to contact a book store and see if you can get a night to wrap there for donations. I am so poor at wrapping gifts that stores pay me not to wrap gifts there, so I have never attempted this myself.

I went running in shorts and a tee last night and it felt great after Saturday’s gloves, long underwear, hat, and three layers on top. I hope that you are getting in some good training as well. Tonight, with this cold, miserable rain, I am just as happy not being outdoors running along.

I was recently thinking about my goals, with fundraising and with training, trying to evaluate where I was with things this season. When doing TNT, we are trying to accomplish two difficult things simultaneously – to raise thousands of dollars for a great cause and to train for and complete an endurance event. We really do set our sights high with TNT, and I came across this quote that expresses it pretty well:

It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
Arnold Toynbee (1889 - 1975)

Give a little thought to your goals and how you plan to achieve them. What steps do you need to accomplish to get there, and when will you take these steps? Set your goals high, and maybe at the end you will not only hit your minimum but be a Virginia Rock Star!

GO TEAM!
Art