[Ohio-talk] Important: Student Division Raffle Details

[Emily Pennington]

Greetings, fellow federationists.

I hope this message finds you well and enjoying the fall. I myself am
excited for another school year, and another state convention. As JW would
say, can I get an amen?

Anyway, I'm writing to update you all on the raffle fund-raiser we students
are conducting this year. I know there has been a lot of confusion as to
what is actually going on with it, so I want to explain what's happening,
address any concerns, and tell you how this is going to work.

First of all, I would like to apologize - on behalf of the student division
- for how long this has dragged on and for how many false starts we have
had. We have taken ticket orders since March, so I can imagine many of you
are wondering if you wasted your money. The fund-raiser is definitely going
to finish up this month, so your buying raffle tickets won't be for naught.
We students faced several obstacles and difficulties over the last several
months - in cluding significant changes in leadership, difficulty with
setting up the bank account, and several membership changes - all of which
are factors which contributed to why this raffle has taken so long to get
off the ground. However, we now have a bank account and some good systems in
place which will make this fund-raiser and all future endeavors run much
more smoothly.

Now, let me explain how the rest of this fund-raiser will play out. We will
conduct the drawing at the board meeting on September 20, at which several
members of our division will be present. We will sell tickets from now up
until the lunch  break at 12:00, and I will let you know in the next
paragraph exactly how you can purchase those tickets. I want to let you know
that you do not have to be present at the board meeting to win if your name
is picked; as long as you bought a ticket, you can win. Once again, tickets
are either one for $1 or six for $5.

Now, there are several ways you can purchase tickets from this point until
12:00 on Saturday, September 20. You can send cash or a check in the mail to
my house. My address is 6808 Center Street, Cincinnati, OH 45244. Checks can
be made out to the Ohio Association of Blind Students, and as the division's
treasurer, I will make sure they are deposited.

Secondly, you can buy tickets from any students on the day of the board
meeting. You will not get a tangible ticket; rather, we will take down your
information and give you a ticket number. For instance, if I was the first
person to buy ten tickets, my number would be 1, and I would Braille or
slate ten number ones. If said number were drawn, I would win something. We
are keeping very careful track of who has what number and how many tickets
he/she has bought, so we are very organized in that respect.

Lastly, if you want to purchase your tickets online, you can do so through
PayPal. You do not have to have a PayPal account to do so, and the site is
fairly accessible. For the sake of simplicity, I decided to forgo the one
ticket for $1 option on PayPal, so if you choose this option, you can buy a
minimum of six tickets for $5. Of course, you can change the quantity of
this item, which is one by default. If you upped your quantity to two, you
would then be buying 12 tickets for $10, and so on and so forth. The site
will ask you to fill out your name, shipping address, and credit card
information, and it is pretty simple. Regardless, if anybody would like help
with purchasing tickets through PayPal, please feel free to call or e-mail
me, and I can give you a hand. The link to purchase tickets through PayPal
is:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick
<https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=6FW5ZC
8G45T8E> &hosted_button_id=6FW5ZC8G45T8E

Should anybody need assistance navigating the site, they can e-mail me at

emilypennington at fuse.net

or call me at (513) 668-6866. Again, you can choose to send cash or checks
in the mail, or purchase tickets from a student at the board meeting if
you're planning on coming.

I apologize for the length of this e-mail, but I hope it helps in clearing
up confusion over the fund-raiser. Thanks in advance for your participation;
I look forward to this fund-raiser - and many more student fund-raisers in
the future.

 

Sincerely,

Emily Pennington