Message from the Captain (#8)

Ahoy Mateys! This is your captain speaking, mentor captain Art that is. How about this cold weather continuing, eh? Swan Lake was totally covered in ice, a rare event indeed for these parts. I remembered when I moved here from Maine in 1992, I asked the realtor if people ever ice fished here. She looked at me like I had three heads, which I took for a “no.” But I think we could almost give it a try. Although the first time I tried it in Maine, the actual air temperature that morning was -24 F and I have rarely been so cold, so ice fishing never quite caught on with me.

Yesterday during training, a couple of people were talking with me about having a hard time getting started with fundraising. We discussed some ideas, and I also told them to make sure to check the new TNT on-line fundraising webinar. They could not remember seeing that, so please make sure each of your mentees knows about it:

http://bridge.lls.org/tntfundraisingpart/

One person I was chatting with said she knew what to do, just couldn’t seem to get started actually doing it. With recommitment coming up for all events, and past for Mardi Gras, it is really getting critical that people are out there hitting the fund raising trail, doing whatever is most comfortable for them, but some combination of:

US Postal Service letters
Emails and their web site
Door to door visits in their community
Talking to people at church and professional organizations about what they are doing
Fund raisers at work if allowed
Corporate sponsorships
Fund raisers at home and with friends
Fund raisers at restaurants
Car washes (just kidding – ice sculptures would be more like it)
The Silent Auction

Speaking of, I don’t know Cate’s deadline for getting a list of items, their desired minimum price, and value, but I would assume it is very soon. As Nicki can attest, having done a great deal of this a year ago, it is a big job to organize all of the items and get everything set up. Urge everyone to get their lists to Cate, and to show up early Wednesday at Black Fin. And they should tell everyone that they know about it. I hope we have (a) a lot of good items and (b) a great turnout, because it takes both for the silent auction to be a success. Last year, I got nearly 20% of my minimum amount at the silent auction, so they can be really great fundraising venues.

Cate has been sending some great fundraising material in the last few weeks. Between that, the webinar, and your assistance, people should be doing well if they are plugging away at it. Please let me know if you want to get together and chat, or if you want to bounce any ideas off me.

Most of you probably know that I am joining the Summer Team. I was originally thinking Fall and doing the Nation’s Tri, but I really think it is time for me to leave my comfortable captain’s berth and dive into the icy fundraising waters again. I’ll still be working with all of you on the Spring Team as mentor captain of course.

That’s about it from the captain’s chair! GO TEAM!
Cap’n Art