A sponsored ring is a great excuse to spend time doing something you really enjoy; it needs to be a special, memorable occasion – capturing the public’s interest and making a donation a foregone conclusion! The event can be simple and easily verifiable – even record-breaking; or more elaborate and maybe almost impossible to monitor – but the idea behind it should be easy to explain, and you’ll need to describe your own role in a way that makes clear the effort you’re putting in, and why your project is worth sponsoring.
Our local Branch decided to turn St George’s Day 2016 into a three-fold commemoration: a celebration of the Queen’s 90th birthday, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, and a memorial to local ringers who died in WW1. We wanted an activity involving as many towers as possible – preferably all 50+ towers with ringable bells – and using a good number of our 250 ringing members, in order to promote our secondary goal of fostering interaction between members and towers. We used the activity to raise funds for the Guild Bell Fund and ART.
We chose to create a ‘rolling ring’. Starting early in the morning, ringing rolls around the Branch from one tower to another, with ringing at one tower overlapping with that of its neighbour, throughout the day, until the final tower stands silent – in the early evening, in our case, and the celebratory get-together starts. People’s involvement varied. There were those who rang in many different towers, chasing from one tower to another in their cars, whilst others rang only at their home tower. The organiser promised her family never to organise another ringing event for 10 years!
There are other ways of being sponsored: a more simple arrangement might involve asking people in your area to sponsor their local tower – say for the accurate ringing of a Quarter Peal during the local summer fair. This would suit people who are happiest in familiar surroundings with people they know, but who want the extra challenge of performing in public; replacing the ropes in your tower might be an appropriate aim. Alternatively, an individual sponsorship that requires you to complete 50 methods in a year (simple in concept: not so easy to complete!) might be suitable for a Scout wanting to attend Jamboree, for a Post-16 pupil wanting to raise money for a gap-year trip, or for an older person who wants to honour a special anniversary with a memorial. It helps to have certification to show who you’re ringing for.
Fundraising is a fact of life for many activities, and sometimes it seems you’re always asking people for money! It may help to think of this instead as a tailor-made opportunity to spend a whole day ringing, and decide to make your own contribution: how much is a day’s worth of entertainment worth to you? And don’t forget to take photos and report the event to local press and the Guild, as bell-ringing needs all the publicity it can get!
If you hate begging for sponsorship, why not think too of a way to raise money yourself (by selling home-made cakes, plants, books, biscuits, knitting, allotment veg or artwork) so your donors at least have something to show for their gift.
Please remember that there are strict rules governing Gift Aid reclamation for donations from people other than yourself, so don’t forget to check how to comply with these.
Completed one of your 50 things?
If you’ve completed one of the 50 Ringing Things, tell us all about it via Facebook or write a blog!