Hope you are getting the double amount of sleep so that you draw on your reserves during the build period!
Here in California, our team is still fundraising. In the process, we have run into some “interesting” people and we have had some funny things happen.
Share your funny fundraising expereinces. I’ll go first.
We were walking from store to store giving our speal about how we are poor kids who need money and how we learn a lot from robotics, etc. We went into one store (a “designer” dress store for large women") and asked to owner for money. She responded that she had no money to give, but wanted our help with something. Afraid to say no, my partner and I agreed. She had jammed a tape into a record/tape player and wanted us to take it out. I told her that I might break the record player in the process, but I would try. She gave me a hammer and told me to go at it. After a few good bashes, I succeeded in breaking the record player and getting her tape out. She then proceeded to “donate” this record player (as old as the stone age) to our robotics team because she thought that we could use the parts out of it to build our robot. Hummmm. All that trouble for no money! Oh well. All in a days work…
We had a big pasta dinner fundraiser that we spent weeks planning. We had sold over a hundred tickets, decorately the multi purpose room, set up a display of our year, got appreciation gifts for all the sponsors, and had a video to show. We had everything EXCEPT PASTA!
Yeah, I finally let go of the power and let other people be fully in charge of the fundraiser and due to miscommunication we had all the food, even the pasta sauce, but no pasta. I didn’t realize til about 15 minutes before our dinner was supposed to start so I had to send out people to go buy pasta, send another group to start boiling water, and then try to entertain all these big corporate sponsors and parents so they wouldn’t notice that we didn’t have food…all while trying not to hyperventilate because I just get stressed out like that. I ended up running back from the kitchen to our main area in my heels with buckets of pasta with the other people, it was craziness. And the room where we were mass producing pasta didn’t have windows so people almost passed out from the heat. Definately one of those horror story incidents that you just have to look back on and laugh.
I just thought i would share this funraising idea. Today, i was onine with my friend(& fellow firstie), Amanda, and we were looking for fundraising companies. Randomly, we found this idea:
Pink Flamingo fundraiser
Products needed: Approx 10 pink flamingos
What to do: Place the flamingos in various yards around your neighborhood with a note around the neck including contact information and the following message: For a ten dollar donation, we will take this flamingo and place it in the yard of your choice. (etc etc)
Theoretically, this could resut in unlimited profits, but i just thought it was very entertaining.
*Originally posted by Mimi Brown *
**What to do: Place the flamingos in various yards around your neighborhood with a note around the neck including contact information and the following message: For a ten dollar donation, we will take this flamingo and place it in the yard of your choice. (etc etc)
**
“If so, we offer the largest per person donation in the quickest amount of time. We are looking for quality people to be members of our live studio audiences. In exchange for your group’s participation, we offer a donation to your program. Forget about the car washes and bake sales…earn more money by being on T.V. instead!”
*Originally posted by Mimi Brown *
**I just thought i would share this funraising idea. Today, i was onine with my friend(& fellow firstie), Amanda, and we were looking for fundraising companies. Randomly, we found this idea:
Pink Flamingo fundraiser
Products needed: Approx 10 pink flamingos
What to do: Place the flamingos in various yards around your neighborhood with a note around the neck including contact information and the following message: For a ten dollar donation, we will take this flamingo and place it in the yard of your choice. (etc etc)
Theoretically, this could resut in unlimited profits, but i just thought it was very entertaining.
~mimi **
You know, that just might work. Is there anywhere to get cheap pink Flamingos?
we did a community sponsor walk around to shops and businesses… didn’t do that well…
got $50 from one company; from a “tim hortons”, the cashier girl told us that the franchise thing would make it very hard for us to get anywhere, so she just gave us a 5 dollar bill from her own wallet.
funniest one was where two of the girls went into a small cafe, the owner told them they wouldn’t be able to sponsor us because they weren’t doing very well in business anyways, but then offered them each a cookie and a cup of coffee… does that count as “fund raising?”
Yeah well we were doing car washes…people on the team were complaining that they were getting wet. ITS A CARWASH!!! Not that funny but in a sad way it is.
if ur school has limited parking for students a quick way to raise cash is to hold a parking spot raffle. have teachers that carpool give up their premium parking space. sell tickets for 5 bucks a piece. our class council did this and made a butt load of money.
*Originally posted by Jeff_Rice *
**There’s a problem with the flamingo thing. It’s called trespassing. I’m a juror in peer court and I see all you trespassers. **
Cmon, I’m sure people won’t take that as trespassing. Peer courts, bah! It’s just like people putting small flags on your house on the Fourth of July.
Last year we didn’t do any fundraising for nationals because we were odd however by some miracle we won and so we were allowed to go. We had only a few weeks so we immediatly set off to work, however our school told us we couldn’t go!( we would miss 2 days of school :mad: ) So we stopped the fundraising only to find out two days before nationals we could go because our parents complained enough and we wrote various letters to the newspapper. So we ended up paying our own way:(
P.S. this year our school is willing to pay for some of it themselves out of the universal fund for the inconvenience last year and we have been fundraising since last nationals and have made enough for everyone and then some to go (to bad we yet to have a robot to take)!
*Originally posted by MisterX *
**Last year we didn’t do any fundraising for nationals because we were odd however by some miracle we won and so we were allowed to go. this year our school is willing to pay for some of it themselves out of the universal fund for the inconvenience last year and we have been fundraising since last nationals and have made enough for everyone and then some to go **
We have NO money for nationals. Our schools just recently had a meeting and made sounds like if we won they’d find money for us to go. I’m not counting on it tho.
Im not sure if this qualifies as “funny”, but it sure is a strange situation. My team, Jesuit High School team 1097, is a rookie team so one big task this year was raising money to go to regionals. I suggested that we make a presentation to CyboSoft, where my dad is the CTO. Now, the weird part was going into the office, where I know everyone, and acting like some professional speaker while not being too personal or informal. Plus, I had to wear a nice shirt and tie, and everyone there knows that I hate dressing up. And of course, my MOM AND DAD were in there listening to the presentation…
But we got 1000 dollars, so I guess it was worth it.
hopefully this year our sponsors will be even more generous, since my team won the rookie allstar award at the sacramento regional. Go us! And congratulations to everyone who was there for making it the best (and only) regional that I have been to!
i believe the marching band did that around here, but some started to get stolen so they stopped it.
*Originally posted by Mimi Brown *
**I just thought i would share this funraising idea. Today, i was onine with my friend(& fellow firstie), Amanda, and we were looking for fundraising companies. Randomly, we found this idea:
Pink Flamingo fundraiser
Products needed: Approx 10 pink flamingos
What to do: Place the flamingos in various yards around your neighborhood with a note around the neck including contact information and the following message: For a ten dollar donation, we will take this flamingo and place it in the yard of your choice. (etc etc)
Theoretically, this could resut in unlimited profits, but i just thought it was very entertaining.
Last fall, while going around town seeking out potential sponsors for Brunswick Eruption, another team member and I entered an ice cream parlor. Upon our first look, the store was devoid of any customers or personnel. We then walk to the counter, ring the little bell, and yell, “Hello?”.
To our surprise, we hear a voice shout from the rear of the store, “HELP ME!!! I’M BACK HERE, BEHIND THE COUNTER!” A little wierded-out, we go behind the counter, and walk to the very back of the store, where there’s a ladder lying on the ground. We look up, and find the lone employee sitting on the edge of the stock freezer. We kindly pick up his ladder, and after he climbs down, hand him our sponsorship letter, and give him our spiel about FIRST, Raider Robotix, and BE.
It’s just like people putting small flags on your house on the Fourth of July.
**