| To reach our financial goals we ask our members to come up with innovative ideas to challenge friends, family and colleagues to encourage everyone to put their hands in their pockets and support the Wooden Spoon.
If every current member were to raise £5 each for Wooden Spoon this year then we would have an extra £55,000 to allocate to local projects to support disadvantaged children and young people.
We encourage our members to try any of the easiest and most innovative fundraising ideas as detailed below to help us help more disadvantaged children and young people.
These activities put the FUN in FUNdraising!
Sponsorship
Want to lose some weight, give up smoking or get fit? Get your friends to sponsor you for the benefit of your health and for disadvantaged children. It is a great incentive and everyone gets to feel better!
Local Lottery
Take a Wooden Spoon 100 poster and ask your local pub, sports club or office if you can do some light hearted fundraising. Sell squares for £1 each to punters who write their name in each individual square. Once all the squares are sold, cut them up and draw out the winner. The first prize is £25 and the other £75 goes to Wooden Spoon. It is easy, fun and it works! These posters are available from the Wooden Spoon office on 01276 410-180.
Activity Days
Is there an ice rink, go karting, paint balling range, quasar centre, water sports club, ten pin bowling alley, golf club or ski centre near you? Would they be willing to offer their facilities at a much reduced, or at no cost during an off-peak period? Work with the venue to generate publicity for both them and for your efforts for Wooden Spoon and everyone wins. Ask friends to "donate" a admission fee for a one off event to benefit Spoon. What could be better than a chance to spend leisure time with friends and colleagues while having fun in the name of charity?
Hosting Events
How about asking your local pub or hotel if they would be willing to offer their facilities for an evening to support your event, such as a skittles evening, quiz night, barn dance, sporting dinner etc? At these events you can charge for entry tickets and host raffles and auctions.
How many times over the next few months will you be hosting dinner parties, BBQ’s, golf games, fancy dress parties and the like? Entertain your friends and ask for their support in exchange, or ask them to donate the cost of a bottle, instead of buying one – you could even get them to buy more through Charlie Womersley at Manwood Wines!!
Sporting Events
The year is packed full of great sporting events that will encourage gatherings of friends such as the Cricket World Cup, Six Nations and Rugby World Cup. How about holding a sweep stake around games or running a book on the final score and donating some of the winnings to Wooden Spoon. Not that we would encouraging gambling of course!! Or even more adventurous, you could participate in one of Spoon’s challenges or take up one of your own, such as a parachute jump! All details and support can be obtained from the Wooden Spoon office at 01276 410-180.
Gift Aid
Increase the value of your pledges by 28% with a little help from the Tax Man! Gift aid is tax relief for single cash gifts from UK taxpayers made to charity. It effectively increases the benefit of your donation to the Wooden Spoon by 28%. It allows Wooden Spoon to reclaim 28p on every £ given with a signed declaration. Wooden Spoon can provide you with all the details, sponsorship forms and gift Aid forms to help you maximise your fund raising.
GAYE – Give As You Earn
The easiest way to contribute to charity on a regular basis is to 'Give As You Earn'. Ask your employer if they will adopt Wooden Spoon as their charity of choice this year. Many companies will even match fund your donations to your chosen charity as part of their social responsibility plan. You can drum up support with like-minded and charitable colleagues. The Wooden Spoon office can provide more details of this scheme.
Increasing Membership
We presently have just over 11,000 members. If every single member signed up another member we could easily beat our target. In addition we would have acquired an additional £165,000 minimum from membership fees. That is the equivalent of 7 new playgrounds, a sensory unit at a specialist school, and wheelchair facilities at 4 public buildings!
Make it your goal this year to help the Spoon in supporting disadvantaged children and young people.
For more ideas on fundraising, please call the Challenge Office at 01889 582 889. They will be happy to offer advice, tips and support.
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