| B P C Revs Up Its Fund Raising |
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British Pedal Car Grand Prix Revs Up Its Fund Raising for 2008: This Ringwood event hopes to increase its fund raising by 15 fold this time around; “Neal Butterworth” editor of the Bournemouth Echo” said “you must not undersell this event. Similar event organisers ensure that all promotional material is of a professional corporate standard.” He went on to say that “Ringwood will be truly put on the map along with its businesses”. How and even why members of the “British Pedal Car Grand Prix Committee” went about increasing the funds raised for charities by this magnitude. The easy part of the question to answer is “why”; with the support & backing from the volunteers of “Tenovus Cancer Research” & “Oakhaven Hospice” and the general will of most businesses to support these very good and worthwhile causes, it was considered that the additional work load involved in raising such funds was worth every spare minute given. Answering “how” is a little more difficult: Two business men, Paul Allis and Jim Stride, of the “Sponsorship Team”, decided that they would accept this challenge. Pulling on experience gained from both business and Round Table, the first meeting was held to map out the next 9 months prior to 13th July 2008. Having firstly decided on the chosen Charities the Sponsorship Team invited the representatives from each charity to separate meetings. Mike Denny, from the Oakhaven Hospice, at first was a touch sceptical about our ability to raise such funds on the back of this event but as we explained our strategy he became quite exited, even animated after 20 minutes of discussing our plans. Then it was the turn of Estelle Wilson from “Tenovus” in the company of Mike Lingham Wilgoss to meet up with the Sponsorship Team. Estelle was evidently enthralled with the prospect of being involved with this community event and listened to us with great interest. We explained that we needed to develop the acquaintance of like minded community and business people in order to spread the word about our aims & goals. The wheel was now turning. The main sponsor “Magna Mazda” came on board in January 2008, offering F1 style trappings to boot. Wave 105.2FM became the events “Radio Sponsors” with afternoon presenter “Andy Jackson” entering the race with his own team running in car No2. Wave 105.2 FM will be increasing the profile of the event throughout the South. In February the editor of the Bournemouth Echo, Neal Butterworth, agreed to become “Media Sponsors” for the event and would sponsor a Bournemouth Echo team, who will now be pitted alongside Wave 105.2FM in the market place. In March “Vizzit Media” donated a professionally designed website to the event. Now Film Crews are jostling for the opportunity to cover the event. Ron Cherrett of “Martins” in Ringwood said that “there was an increased air of excitement in Ringwood this year in the build up to the Grand Prix. Yes there really is a buzz this time around.” The Grand Prix has always enjoyed the generosity of businesses in supporting the event by providing diversion signs, straw bales, transport, trophies, TV footage, lap counting, race commentary and so on…. This year the Sponsorship Team decided that the key to the “fund raising aims” would be to offer businesses both in the locality of Ringwood and further a field corporate business advertising packages which would be very attractive and would suite the spectrum of budgets both for advertising and for charitable donations with all monies going to the charities including the selected charities of the “Ringwood Festival”. The “Team” developed six corporate packages, but before they knew it, both the top two packages sold out raising £4,500.00 alone. There was disappointment coming from other businesses wishing to opt for a top package of a bespoke nature, so the Gold Plus package was added to include “The Race Directors Bespoke Company involvement with the race” in addition to many other benefits. The copy deadline for the full colour glossy “Official Race Programme” is the first week in June. The programme being printed by “Top Copy” is filling up quickly with the likes of Sainsbury’s snapping up the full page gold package. A dedicated email address for all businesses wishing to advertise, sponsor or donate has been created: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it The official website: www.britishpedalcargp.co.uk holds downloadable information for all the sponsorship packages with explanatory colour illustrations which are proving to be very useful. There are many other interesting pages on the site along with amusing short video clips. Speaking of records, all 36 places for teams entering the Grand Prix are full and completely paid up. The Race Director apologises to those teams who are still trying to apply to enter the race. Please call 01425 620062 to enquire about the reserve list has which has been started, if any teams pull out then the first reserve team will be notified as soon as possible. The Sponsorship Team are third way to reaching the “Sponsorship” target and its hope that the good causes, who badly require all the funding they can muster, will benefit from the target being reached and hopefully exceeded. From the Race Director, Cliff Polton, and all the committee we wish all 36 entered teams, all spectators and everyone else involved with this event a brilliant and enthralling day. (By Jim Stride) |