[nabs-l] Few questions on Student seminars....

[Cindy Bennett]

We hold our seminar in Raleigh. This is a central city that is easy to
get to from the whole state, and most of our leaders in NABS live
there. But I do think that if you start having one every year, moving
it around wouldn't be such a bad idea.

We try to charge as little as possible for students to come, so that
way more can come, and they can spend other money on transportation.
We colaborate with the local DSB offices, that is division of services
for the blind, not sure what it's called in New York, and some of them
are willing to bring vans of students to the seminar so that
eliminates the transportation costs. That being said, we have not done
an overnight seminar, so we have never had to think about hotel costs
and more than one meal.

The money we use to run the seminar comes from a yearly fund raiser
that we do. We work with a vendor who graciously donates snacks to us
and make snack packs for our state convention. They are a hit. Some
other popular fund raisers are the Belk days cards. Basically, they
give organizations $5 off gift cards, and the organization charges $5
for them. So people are giving $5 to the organization instead of Belk,
and then they go to Belk on the designated Saturday and get $5 off.
This is most effective if you sell them near the store on that day.
One thing my local chapter did was get a local Apple Bee's to do a
pancake breakfast for $2 a person. The chapter then sold tickets for
$7, and a lot of people heading into work saw the sign and stopped in
for breakfast. At school, psi chi has done a couple of fund raisers
with restaurants such as Moe's and Buffalo Wild Wings in which you
tell people to place their receipts in a bucket by the register and a
portion of the profit from each receipt in the bucket at the end of
the day goes to the organization. This can be a bit tricky, because it
means you have to get people to go out to eat, and sometimes the
restaurants aren't very supportive of you going to the restaurant and
telling strangers to support you, because it means more money that
they are giving the organization. To me, the best fund raisers involve
projects that the division does not have to spend a lot of initial
money on, but I know this can sometimes be difficult.

I know Wall-Mart has a grant for nonprofits, and I know a couple of
local chapters in North Carolina have received it to put on various
events, but I don't have any personal experience with it.

A key thing would be to try to get as many presenters to come for free
as you can, or to get NFB members with various expertises to present.

Good luck!

Cindy

On 11/5/10, Alexander Castillo <alexandera.castillo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello All, here in New York, we are thinking of having our first
> student seminar in a long time. Before we do so, there are a couple of
> questions that some of you might be able to assist us with.
>
> What sort of funding is typically used to put on a seminar? As I
> understand things, we are able  to apply for funding from the
> Imagination Fund, however, are there additional resources that are
> used? Have any of your divisions put together a seminar in which some
> participants were sponsored by a  state agency? If so,  what steps did
> you take to have these students sponsored?
>
> What does your typical agenda look like? We are looking at three main
> points of focus; these would be Technology, education, and other
> useful resources.
>
> Like most of your states, New York has students spread throughout the
> state: What sort of locations are regularly used to hold your
> seminars?
>
> Looking forward to your answers.
>
> Thanks for reading,
> Alex
>
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-- 
Cindy Bennett
uNC Wilmington Psychology major

clb5590 at gmail.com
828.989.5383