September 05 ACSRELAY.ORG Update! Great Ideas from 2005 Relay For Life events and starting out the Relay year right!

[Relay ForLife]

Hope everyone is well and that your Relay Season is kicking off nicely!  It's never too soon to get things going for Relay For Life... Many very successful events have activities year around!

There are 3 topics for this month

1.  Great ideas from the 2005 Relay season that volunteers have shared!

2.   Some ideas for starting off your Relay season right!

3.  Having a successful event kickoff!
----------------------------
1.   Great Ideas from the 2005 Relay season! - YOU GOTTA CHECK THESE OUT!

Thanks to volunteers who shared their ideas all throughout the 2005 Relay season...  We have selected out a few that you might particularly interesting/re-applicable to your event!  see them at:

http://www.acsrelay.org/successstories.php

If you have others to share, please email rflvol...@gmail.com...  We'll add a few to the "Success Stories" page, and add all of them to http://www.acsrelay.org so you can find them and use them!

2.   Some ideas for starting off your Relay season right!

a.  Year-Around Fundraising - Many Relay For Life events keep the fundraising activities going year around...   Check out the following list for ideas that you could do between now and your event kickoff for 2006, if you haven't already had it!:

http://www.acsrelay.org/Darn_Good_Ideas/10-Fundraising_From_A_To_Z.doc

b.  Overall Event Timeline - Here is an overall event timeline on what needs to happen when:

http://www.acsrelay.org/Manual/06-Overall_Event_Timeline.doc

c.  Goal Setting - Here's a worksheet that walks thru setting your event fundraising goal...  You can use it to see what you need to do in terms of # of teams, average fundraising per team, etc. to get to your goal!

http://www.acsrelay.org/Manual/07-Goal_Setting.doc



d.  Committee Relations - Tips for recruiting a good and diverse committee:

http://www.acsrelay.org/Manual/09-Committee_Relations_R&R.doc



e.  Committee Profile - (thanks to Stacy and the Vienna Relay For Life) This is a great document you can have your committee fill out on the front end... Talk to them about leveraging who they know to find teams, corporate sponsors, donations, etc. etc...  This sheet will help them (and you) know what contacts your committee has/ can leverage:

http://www.acsrelay.org/Darn_Good_Ideas/09-Committee_Member_Profile.doc



3.  Having a Successful Event Kickoff
a.  Here are some ideas for having a kickoff for your event!

http://www.acsrelay.org/Darn_Good_Ideas/14-Relay_Kickoff_DGIs.doc

b.  Here is sample publicity flyer for an event kickoff (thanks to Stacy and the Vienna Relay For Life):

http://www.acsrelay.org/Darn_Good_Ideas/14-Flyer_Relay_Kick_Off_Vienna_Example_1.doc


Hope these ideas help... If you have questions or feedback please email rflvol...@gmail.com!

Ramesh Moorthy
webmaster, http://www.acsrelay.org
American Cancer Society and Relay For Life Volunteer, Baltimore, MD
"There Is No FInish Line Until We Find A Cure"
-----------------------
RELAY FOR LIFE RESOURCES THAT CAN BE FOUND AT ACSRELAY.ORG:
·   http://www.acsrelay.org/start.php
- An overview of acsrelay.org, and what you can find on the site.

·   http://www.acsrelay.org/downloads.php
- If you are not sure what you want, take a look at Top Downloads...
You'll find out what others have been downloading and might see
something you need!

·   http://www.acsrelay.org/search.php
- A great search engine that searches the whole website, including MS
Word, Excel, and PowerPoint attachments, for any "word" you are
looking for (search for "fundraising", "car wash", etc.).   This
includes all Darn Good Ideas, Best Practices, etc.)!   If you don't
find what you want, please e-mail and let us know!

·   http://www.acsrelay.org/manualandDGIs.php
- The Chairman's Checklist Manual that was developed by the
Mid-Atlantic Relay For Life Task Force, and provides a great list of
things every committee and sub-committee should do...
              -and-
- Darn Good Ideas from around the country!  Includes fundraising
letters, pages of fundraising ideas, flyers, and ideas for every
committee!

·   http://www.acsrelay.org/Forms/
- Forms in Word you can download and modify for your event and email to people!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.acsrelay.org is not the official ACS website and is not maintained directly by ACS.  The ideas and information shared on http://www.acsrelay.org are the ideas of volunteers for other volunteers and are the not necessarily endorsed by the American Cancer Society and are based on basic ideas developed in the South Atlantic Division of the ACS.  As such, please always check with your event planners and staff for your local and divisional policies before reapplying an idea.  Please direct any questions to rflvolunteer@gmail.com