Photo: Members of the club loading a truck. In the foreground, left, George Tyler [President] and George Rivas [Organiser of Shoebox]. In the background, L to R: John Faircloth, Barry Tyler, Gavin Plews, Norman Cunliffe and Alan Maizels.
Club Case
Study: Collecting over 2,300 Rotary Shoe Boxes in a year
Rotary Club of Great Missenden (GM), District 1260
Report/Tips by George Rivas [ Nov 2002]
1. What are the benefits? Apart from the pleasure to the recipients of the boxes, it involves virtually every member of the Club and a large number of people across all sections of the community. It is an ideal Rotary project. Most of the work is done for you. Of course, there is also considerable potential for PR as in the article below:
Bucks Free Press, 1 Nov 2002
Photo: Members of the club loading a truck. In the foreground, left,
George Tyler [President] and George Rivas [Organiser of Shoebox]. In the
background, L to R: John Faircloth, Barry Tyler, Gavin Plews, Norman Cunliffe
and Alan Maizels.
2. Some history...who do we contact and how did we expand?
The main thrust for the local appeal came through an agreement between GM Rotary Club and Lighthouse. [George Rivas was a member of the Rotary Club as well as the Chairman of Lighthouse]. Lighthouse is a large children's holiday week held annually in GM. It attracts approximately 1800 children. The uptake from this is surprisingly small, but all the same very worthwhile, as it 'seeds' many of the local organisations. Four years ago, in 1999, this appeared to be the ideal group to invite.
In the year 2000, invitation was extended to all the local schools and some of the local churches. Some of them took up the offer.
In 2001, invitation was extended to include all the local churches. Some of them came on board, plus a few more of the schools who had not joined the previous year.
For 2002:
We were able to bring on board, many more of the Lighthouse children (the first information went out in May/June 2002)
Nearly all of the schools bar two (who were initially approached in May of 2002)
All the local churches apart from two (one did not reply and the other sent boxes through the Franklin Graham [Billy Graham's Son] Samaritans Purse organisation.
Each of our club members was given a batch of 100 application forms to deliver to their neighbours in the street/area, naming the members as contact persons. Members were asked to take care to avoid duplication.
We found to our surprise that even without asking, most of the local Brownies, Girl Guides, Cubs, and some of the Scouts groups came on board as well. This is an area we can expand on next year.
3. How do we do it?
We guesstimate the number of boxes we are likely to need and order them in advance. You need an understanding treasurer to advance the money for boxes!
We send out an invitation which has a tear-off slip so that people can let us know their name, address, tel no, and number of boxes they would like to fill
Club members deliver the required number of flat boxes along with a pre-printed note to each address convenient to them.
The note asks all the children/participants to fill boxes with toys or household goods or food. [Unfortunately, this year, the food will not now be going to Romania, where the majority of our boxes are bound. This is due to the new stringent regulations on all aspect of food, triggered mostly by fear of BSE / Mad Cow and Foot and Mouth. Also the Romanians do not appear to like our baked beans very much!]
We ask each donor to place £1.50 on each box to help with the purchase of flat pack box, and to cover our costs of hiring what has now become a 7.5 ton lorry to transfer them all to the Rotary Warehouse in Preston. Not all the donors remember to make this donation, but we receive sufficient to make a small profit. This is divided between Rotary Charities, and Lighthouse, which is also a registered charity.
All the boxes are brought back to a central point on a particular Sunday, and an address is given for those who cannot make this. We then have the added pleasure of being invited into the schools, and in some cases joining in their assemblies, or just attending them.
We tell the press in advance of a day when we would be loading a lorry.
On the chosen day, members form a chain gang to fill a lorry. Then we have tea or wine to celebrate.
Two Rotarian enjoy driving the lorry (which has become enormous to us at 7.5 tons) up to Preston the following day.
4. Where do you find the information?
Together with all the other school work we undertake in the area, e.g. Christmas Story, etc. we now have an excellent data base and contacts in all the schools with their addresses, E-mail addresses, names of head teachers, etc. We always send all communications, by E-mail first, followed by hard copy. This information can be found on your local County Council web site. e.g. buckscc.gov.uk/cgi-bin/idc/sch_detail.idc?
Churches, etc can be found in local libraries, or the relevant church publication. If anyone knows better ways, please let me know.
5. Key points for success:
Having a good data base.
Building up good working relationships with the local schools, churches, etc.
Timing, schools especially work at least one term if not two ahead, sometimes one year ahead!
Writing short but to the point letters that are persuasive!
Good teamwork from all club members.
Enthusiasm, which builds up from success.
6. Future:
Consider expanding to include Scouts and cubs, WI..... well any one got any ideas? Or any other organisations? If we could get hold of all the local WI Presidents, and like organisations, we are sure we should expand our numbers again.
May be make 3000 next year, or even more. How great it would be if we could peak next year, or even in the following year - our Rotary Centenary year!
George Rivas
Great Missenden Rotary
Club
georgerivas@btopenworld.com
If
you would like to see pictures (not ours, but..), visit the Shoebox website:
www.rotary1280.org/shoebox
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