[Cash-and-caring] Bike info again

[Ramona Walhof]

Well, I can't send this information from my BrailleNote, so I will
transcribe it here.
Ramona

Planning for bike-a-thon

1.  Set date and show on your Web Site up to one year ahead of ride.  Design
approximate route for the ride andshow it, too.  You can revise it if
necessary.
2.  Prepare sponsor requests in early November of the year prior to the bike
ride. Mail, email, and deliver them to potential donors,  companies in 
medical
profession, sports equipment and apparrel businesses, and to other companies 
with whom you do business.  Follow up with each until you receive a check or 
a definite "no."
3.  Have your preregistration process ready to go as early as possible, at 
least three months before the ride.  For large events, it must be both 
online and by mail.
4.   Design and distribute posters and flyers as soon as preregistration 
begins and follow up with locations where they are placed to be sure they 
are out on the counter or hanging up in a good spot.
5.  Put information about ride on all Web Sites possible:  media, sports 
groups, businesses that might sponsor teams, etc.
6.  Contact other groups that may assist with the event, such as ham radio 
operators for communications, Delta Gammas, Lions, Key Clubs, etc.  Give 
them jobs and ask them to help recruit riders and volunteers for theday of 
the ride.
7.   Plan, order, and solicit give-aways:  T-shirts or bike socks, prizes, 
items for goody bags.  A group can stuff and organize these things a week or 
two before the ride.
8.  Recruit blind people to ride the back of tandem bikes and sighted 
captains to ride in front.  Make  volunteer work assignments.  If some 
riders are not paying the registration fee, make sure this information is 
provided to the registration and check--in officials before the ride.
9.  Plan food and beveridges for water stops and lunch after the ride.  Send 
out press release a few days before ride, and pray for good weather. If 
weather is bad, go ahead anyway.  Your crowd will be smaller, but most 
people will have already paid preregistration, and the sponsors have paid.

10. Have a good time and thank riders, volunteers privately, on the P A and 
in writing after the ride, also on your Web Site.

General comments:  You can talk briefly about the NFB and blindness in 
everything, but keep it brief, elevator speeches or paragraphs in written 
materials.  Carry literature with you and have it at the ride.  Post 
material on posts or on tent or on tables at the ride.  However, the best 
public education you can give is the live blind people who are participating 
in every aspect of the ride.  Shmoozing the crowd is important work.

NFB of Idaho, Treasure Valley Chapter has raised well over 15,000 gross each 
of the last four years.  Our net profit has been between ten and twelve 
thousand each year.  Of course, we are working to increas that.  We plan for 
a third to the chapter; a third to the state and a third to the national 
treasury.  We vote on it every year because it makes the members feel good 
about it.   It's a great feeling to write those checks.

Obviously, I could fill in a lot more details, but this gets the basics, and 
it could be applied to many kinds of events.

Ramona