Folks,

Happy New Year... Happy Valentine's Day... Happy President's Day - been a
while since we've talked, but we're back and better than ever!

The December-January-February acsrelay.org newsletter focuses on the
following topics:
1.  Committee Team Building - as the new year approaches, its a great
time to build the cohesiveness of your committee - check out our tips!
2.  Relay Committee Planning Tools - Here are some basic tools to get
your committee jump started
3.  Corporate Sponsorship DGI's - Here are some great ideas for lining up
your corporate sponsorships
4.  Team Retention and Recruitment - Teams are EVERYTHING!  Focus on finding
teams, and build your Relay from there!
5.  Fundraising How-To's - Here are some great ideas to jump start your team
fundraising!
6.  Using a Myspace page to find those interested in Relay!
7.  Great New Discussion Site - http://www.relayforlife.org !
8.  Viewing Previous Newsletters

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1. Committee Team Building

It's impossible to put a value on building an effective committee!  Since
you will spend up to a year pulling together your next Relay For
Life, having productive working relationships is essential. To that end, we
have a few suggestions to get you from point A to point B:

   * Use Icebreakers! - Your committee will function better together and be
more honest the better they know each other… start every
committee meeting with an icebreaker to help them get to know each other.
Here are some examples:

http://www.acsrelay.org/Darn_Good_Ideas/09-Great_Icebreakers!.doc
<http://www.acsrelay.org/Darn_Good_Ideas/09-Great_Icebreakers%21.doc>

   * Make sure that your committee is armed with information - Your
committee should know what Relay is and have access to information about it.
Distribute the Relay For Life Speaking Points early in your Relay Season to
ground everyone in the basics about Relay:

http://www.acsrelay.org/Manual/04-Speaking_Points.doc

2. Relay Committee Planning Tools

   * Have clear responsibilities for each subcommittee chair and their
committee – Make sure it is clear what the roles and
responsibilities are for the committee vs. staff partner. You will find that
committees work much better when they know exactly what is
expected.  You can download a Chairman's Manual at:

http://www.acsrelay.org/downloadzipmanualanddgis.php

and roles and responsibilities at:

http://www.acsrelay.org/Darn_Good_Ideas/09-Committee_Member_Responsib...

3. *Corporate Sponsorship DGI's**
*
Corporate Sponsors are a key part of our Relay For Life team, and so we
should do our best to round up some great corporate sponsors and take good
care of them! Remember that teams and corporate sponsors often go hand in
hand. Have your team captains ask their companies for support, and ask your
corporate sponsors if they are interested in forming a team for your Relay!
 **<http://www.societylink.org/portal/server.pt?open=18&objID=497469&pare...>
*http://www.acsrelay.org/Darn_Good_Ideas/11-Corporate_Fundraising_For_...
*<http://www.societylink.org/portal/server.pt?open=18&objID=497469&pare...>
 *
http://www.acsrelay.org/Darn_Good_Ideas/11-Corporate_Sponsorship_Broc...
*<http://www.societylink.org/portal/server.pt?open=18&objID=995965&pare...>
<http://www.societylink.org/portal/server.pt?open=18&objID=995967&pare...>
http://www.acsrelay.org/Darn_Good_Ideas/11-Sample_Corporate_Sponsor_R...<http://www.societylink.org/portal/server.pt?open=18&objID=995967&pare...>

 *
*

* 4. Team Retention & Recruitment

*First thing on the agenda for any committee should be getting teams to
return from the previous year. The only way to make sure this happens is by
making personal contact with team captains and asking them to return. Divide
your team list up among the team recruitment committee or the entire
planning committee and call each year's previous team captain thanking them
for their support from the previous year and asking if you can count on them
again for this year. Some team captains may not be able to come back – but
don't stop the conversation there. Ask why? If they have another commitment,
or are just plain tired, make sure you ask if there is another person on the
team who'd be willing to step-up into the team captain role. It would be a
shame to lose an entire team because the previous year's team captain cannot
return for whatever reason

**Team Recruitment Plan *
*Do you have a team recruitment plan? Hold a mapping exercise with committee
to see where your teams are coming from, then target areas in your community
where there are few teams. Develop a list of prospects and determine who
will contact each of them. Here are some links to great tools that you can
use to get started.
 http://www.acsrelay.org/Darn_Good_Ideas/10-Team_Relations_DGIs.doc<http://www.societylink.org/portal/server.pt?open=18&objID=491761&pare...>
http://www.acsrelay.org/Darn_Good_Ideas/10-Team_Relations_Wheel_Of_Fo...
http://www.acsrelay.org/Darn_Good_Ideas/10-How_To_Recruit_Team_Captai...
<http://www.societylink.org/portal/server.pt?open=18&objID=493304&pare...>

 And here is an example of team captain's handbook:

** *http://www.acsrelay.org/Darn_Good_Ideas/10-RFL_Tm_Captains_Handbk_Gre...
*

* <http://www.acsrelay.org/Darn_Good_Ideas/10-RFL_Tm_Captains_Handbk_Gre...>
*Team Retention

What is the #1 reason teams don't come back?  THEY WEREN'T ASKED!!!!  As
crazy as it sounds, we often don't get teams back because a team captain
moves on and no one else on the team is contacted, or somehow we lose track
of someone, etc. etc.  Make sure you keep good track of your teams and make
them feel special for having been part of Relay For Life.  Check out the
Team Relations DGI's above as well as the following to keep your teams
motivated:

http://www.acsrelay.org/Darn_Good_Ideas/10-Team_Building-How_To_Keep_...

*
*

*5. * *Fundraising How-To's

*Now that you've retained those teams from last year and recruited new
teams, it's time to talk about fundraising. Don't assume your teams know how
to fundraise, give them tips and ideas to help them set their fundraising
goals.

   -
   http://www.acsrelay.org/Darn_Good_Ideas/10-Fundraising_From_A_To_Z.doc
   -      http://www.acsrelay.org/Darn_Good_Ideas/10-Fundraising_for_Kids_&_You...

Here's another great fundraising idea, especially for this time of year:

Send a fundraising e-mail on your Relay For Life on-line
fundraising event website (if your Relay uses one) or a hard-copy
Relay For Life fundraising letter as a Valentine's Day Wish.  You can ask
for donations
to fight cancer.  Tell them a bit about what is happening with you, and
add the request for donation as part of telling them what you are
doing. Your friends and family will be glad to know that you are
joining the fight against cancer and remembering those who are facing
this dreaded disease as a "love gram" for Valentine's Day.

6.  MySpace & Relay For Life

MySpace is a new frontier for charitable fundraising - check out:

http://www.myspace.com/acsrelay

In less than a month, I have 62 friends associated with Cancer and/or Relay
For Life for My MySpace page!  It's amazing the information I get via the
blogs they keep, their stories, and so on.  And as a results of being on
MySpace, I share ideas and info about Relay with more people than ever.
Check out my MySpace page as well as the links to my friends in the bottom
right corner.  Basically, it is a great way to "network" for Relay For Life!

7.  Great New Discussion Site - http://www.relayforlife.org !
There is a great new discussion and blogging site out there now developed by
the American Cancer Society, http://www.relayforlife.org - check it out!
Much better organized than the discussion board at http://www.cancer.org,
and also has blogging capability for anyone that wants to set up a blog.
You can also view recent posts (rather than having to look thru everything),
see team development training on video, and more!  Lots of experts from the
American Cancer Society are there to help you, along with 3 moderators
(including myself :)  ) to help answer your questions.

8.  Viewing Previous Newsletters
Sorry we have been "offline" as far as newsletters go for a few months - but
we are back, with more ideas than ever.  If you'd like to see previous
newsletters to look for ideas - visit:

http://groups.google.com/group/acsrelay?hl=en

In any case - hope your Relay season is coming along well, and feel free to
email rflvolunt...@gmail.com with questions and visit
http://www.acsrelay.org to find the ideas you are looking for!

"There Is No Finish Line Until We Find A Cure"

Ramesh Moorthy
*  Moderator, http://www.relayforlife.org - The National Website For The
American Cancer Society Relay For Life - Great Discussion Boards and Blogs!
*  Webmaster, http://www.acsrelay.org - Lots of Ideas and Info about Relay
For Life
*  Blogging About Relay at http://acsrelay.blogspot.com
*  Talking & Blogging About Relay at http://www.relayforlife.org and
http://www.relayamerica.com
*  Squidoo Lens at http://www.squidoo.com/acsrelay/
*  American Cancer Society and Relay For Life Volunteer, Baltimore, MD
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RELAY FOR LIFE RESOURCES THAT CAN BE FOUND AT ACSRELAY.ORG<http://acsrelay.org/>
:
·   http://www.acsrelay.org/start.php
- An overview of acsrelay.org, and what you can find on the site.

·   http://www.acsrelay.org/downloads.php
- If you are not sure what you want, take a look at Top Downloads...  You'll
find out what others have been downloading and might see something you need!

·   http://www.acsrelay.org/search.php
- A great search engine that searches the whole website, including MS Word,
Excel, and PowerPoint attachments, for any "word" you are looking for
(search for "fundraising", "car wash", etc.).   This includes all Darn Good
Ideas, Best Practices, etc.)!   If you don't find what you want, please
e-mail and let us know!

·   http://www.acsrelay.org/manualandDGIs.php
- The Chairman's Checklist Manual that was developed by the Mid-Atlantic
Relay For Life Task Force, and provides a great list of things every
committee and sub-committee should do...
               -and-
- Darn Good Ideas from around the country!  Includes fundraising letters,
pages of fundraising ideas, flyers, and ideas for every committee!

·   http://www.acsrelay.org/Forms/
- Forms in Word you can download and modify for your event and email to
people!

·   http://www.acsrelay.org/onlineresources.php
- On-line resources for Relay For Life.  There are so many websites, blogs,
and discussion boards out there with Relay ideas and resources - visit here
to see a (partial) list of them... Updated constantly!

·   http://acsrelay.blogspot.com/
- A Blog about Relay For Life - go here for some of the latest ideas and
thoughts on Relay.
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http://www.acsrelay.org is not the official ACS website and is not
maintained directly by ACS.  The ideas and information shared on
http://www.acsrelay.org
are the ideas of volunteers for other volunteers and are the not necessarily
endorsed by the American Cancer Society and are based on basic ideas
developed in the South Atlantic Division of the ACS.  As such, please always
check with your event planners and staff for your local and divisional
policies before reapplying an idea.  Please direct any questions to
rflvolunt...@gmail.com