Fundraising ideas?

[LesleighSabre1988]

anyone have any ideas for fund raising? anything that'll bring money (obviously), and/or a crowd, and potentially have the opportunity for newcomers to sign up for the club as well? please share!

[Cardinalred]

Lesleigh and I, if nobody has gathered by now, are members of the same club. To clarify our position a little bit more: Our club has NO member dues. Our primary source of income at the moment are students in our class. We've made up shirts that we sold at the club, and that has made us some profit, but they were mostly (obviously) bought by club members. We're open to any ideas that would help bring in some much needed funds for our club without seeming like a bunch-o-fencing bums...apart from having member dues.

[thekoby]

Look into doing a car wash at a local Wal-mart. They have this non-profit grant thing where they will match any money raised from your car wash. My club did that a few years ago. We didn't charge people a set price to wash the car, but did it for free and asked for donations. After cost of supplies we walked home with $250 in cash, and two weeks later got the non-profit grant check from wal-mart for $500! I can't say that you'll get the same amount, but it would help out to have someone match what you make. Talk to the store manager or the personell managers about it and see what they can do for you, and make sure to bring up the non-profit grant.

[Cardinalred]

That sounds like something that would be within our abilities...

[thekoby]

We even had a small section ropped off next to where we were washing the cars for some of our members to do fencing demos. That drew in a crowd of people as well.

[Cardinalred]

I wouldn't be happy with my weapons getting that close to water....

[thekoby]

Well, if you go to a Super center, like we did, we had the car wash next to the grociery entrance and the demos between the entrances (in the fire lane) so we could have the score box and plenty of room for reels.

But that's just an idea, I'm not trying to make it sound like you have to fence........although, stabbing people is fun :-D

[kuroutesshin]

One of the concepts suggested to our club by an alumnus was "bunny fencing." You take easily-sized backzip jackets and mid-size masks, attach two balloons to the mask to look like bunny ears, and give the two fencers a foil blade mounted on an epee guard.

The object of the game is to pop your enemy's balloons. If you can get a good pitch going, draw people in with a shtick, charge them $5 a go and another two to "try it again sir! You can do it, I'm sure!" Our alumnus does this at local renaissance fairs to draw people in.

Added benefit- signup sheet for "learning more about fencing" will draw interested fencers it. It's a lot like the old Canadian "Mini Fence" program, but more short-term and designed to get people going.