acsrelay.org Relay For Life Blog

acsrelay.org Monthly Newsletter - The Relay Times

2007-10-10T05:18:00.000-04:00

Folks,

Each month I'll blog post some ideas on things that you can be focused on to make your event the best that it can be!... I used to send out variations of this newsletter for the Relay Ideas and Information Site I have maintain, http://www.acsrelay.org , as well as for the Relay Link extranet site we had for the South Atlantic Division. Thanks for all the folks who have shared great ideas in the past to create a brighter future for Relay For Life!

Going forward, I'll post this newsletter as the "Relay Times" on http://www.relayforlife.org as well as on the acsrelay.org blog I maintain. Hope you find it helpful! Note that these are my ideas as well as enhancements/additions from a wonderful cast of volunteers across the nation, and several wonderful staff leaders in the South Atlantic Division. Thanks for all the folks who have shared great ideas in the past to create a brighter future for Relay For Life!

Find below the October 2007 installment:

Relay Focus Areas of the Month

1. Team Retention

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.

2. 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.

3. 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 goal.

Fundraising Ideas

And fundraising with kids can be so important too! Here are some ideas for kids from A to Z! Get them involved early and help make it easy for them to do fun things to raise money.

Fundraising Ideas For Kids From A to Z

"Taking Good Care of our Friends in Your Community" Tip of the Month

As the team retention committee is making their contacts with all of last year's teams, make a concerted effort to acknowledge their value to this community's fight against cancer – a nice note and/or personal call to each team is an added touch to show their significance in this Relay.

Other Hints and Suggestions

When on http://www.relayforlife.org:

Talk about your questions and ideas in the Forums - you can reach them in the left side navigation bar - "Relay For Life Forums".

If you have a set of people that you'd like to share information with, a Group is a great way to communicate with them - see "Relay For Life Groups" in the left side navigation bar.

Use the Search box at the top right to search for information you are looking for. Chances are you are not the first person with that question, and that prevents duplication!

Remember to always check with your event committee and staff before applying an idea to make sure that there are not local/state considerations that you must take into account (sales tax rules in your state, particular things about your event or community that would make the idea inappropriate, etc.).
If you have any feedback about this blog and its ideas, please send comments and suggestions to rflvolunteer@gmail.com.

There Is No Finish Line Until We Find A Cure!

Ramesh Moorthy

rflvolunteer

moderator, http://www.relayforlife.org

webmaster, http://www.acsrelay.org

What Do You Want From Relay For Life On-Line?

2007-05-18T23:49:00.000-04:00

I have been involved in many conversations lately about how far we have come when it comes to our on-line capabilities for Relay For Life, and how far we still have to go.

I think it is important for us as volunteers and self-proclaimed leaders of this organization to 1. celebrate that we have more on-line resources than ever (http://www.relayforlife.org , http://www.acsrelay.org , http://www.cancer.org , and more!), 2. continue the dialogue on how we get better.

The fact is we can still improve our reach to volunteers out there looking for a cancer-related cause. Until we have 100% "hits" when a volunteer searches out a cancer-related cause and finds us as an option, we're not set up for the success I want. By having less than that, we leave many needs of potential volunteers unmet. And once a volunteer is giving their valuable time and talent to the Relay For Life, we have an obligation to continue to meet their needs.

On-line can be such an enabler
- it can provide a library of ideas (visit the Relay Library on relayforlife.org) so Relay For Life staff don't have to tie up valuable time searching for information like that to give to volunteers
- it can make it easy to find your event (visit http://www.cancer.org/docroot/par/content/PAR_1_Relay_For_Life.asp)
- I have received a lot of positive feedback about http://www.acsrelay.org 's Chairman's Manual
, which provides volunteers with a list of things every event should do

We need more stuff like above. What things do you want?

I get e-mails every day from volunteers who want these things who find me as someone to go to for help because I maintain http://www.acsrelay.org and moderate on http://www.relayforlife.org

Let's give them a benchmark experience with a charity on-line - 100% success when they search for RFL and ACS related information. 100% information provided; 100% user satisfaction; 100% success in getting them involved in the Relay For Life cause.

What do you think needs to happen for us to achieve this vision? E-mail rflvolunteer@gmail.com with ideas and questions!

Do You Have An Eye For Photography?

2007-04-26T18:52:00.000-04:00

Do people say you have an eye for photography?

Or maybe your just a closet photo buff like I am. Either way our American
Cancer Society volunteers have found quite the cool photo sharing place
online. It's called Flickr.

And on Flickr our Relay For Life volunteers have created their own little
corner called the Relay For Life Photo Pool. So far this online photo pool
has 89 members and over 2,000 photos from all over the country.

If you would like to contribute your photos to this pool it's a simple
process.

1. Visit http://www.flickr.com/groups/relay_for_life/
2. Sign in with your Flickr account or Join Flickr if your not a member
(it's free)
3. Upload your favorite RFL photos to your own account
4. Then visit http://www.flickr.com/groups/relay_for_life/ again and hit
the join button
5. Then go to a photo you want to contribute and hit "Send to Group"

In the meantime you can check out some of my Central Texas Relay Photos
here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/relayforlife/sets/

______________
David Neff, CIW
Director of Online Communications
American Cancer Society - Austin Corporate Office
Office: 512.919.1908
Text : 5127895672@messaging.sprintpcs.com

The American Cancer Society has an easy way for you to get involved, stay
involved, and help save lives. Visit www.cancerenews.org to register to
receive newsletters that will come right to your email inbox.

Recruiting the Best Committee

2007-02-21T08:06:00.000-05:00

One of the questions I get often is what to do to recruit the best committee... Obviously, there is no one right answer, but, here are a few thoughts on the subject:

1) Ask people you know and trust – Building your Relay For Life committee with people you know and trust is a great start – surround yourself with people you want to work with.

2) Ask every committee member to bring at least one additional committee member on-board – Your committee members are the best source of other people – ask them to bring someone they know and trust on-board!

3) Post for committee members and volunteers on high-traffic internet sites – Post at sites about volunteer opps with your Relay. Sites include:

a. http://www.volunteermatch.org - Volunteer Match - Largest online site with lots of volunteer opportunities – great place to post – you can expect a lot of responses

b. http://www.1-800-volunteer.org/1800Vol/OpenIndexAction.do - 1-800-Volunteer.org - One of the biggest sites for volunteers

c. http://www.craigslist.org - Craig’s List lets you post all sorts of things, including advertisments looking for Relay For Life volunteers – lots of volunteers look on Craig’s List

d. http://www.networkforgood.org/volunteer/ - Network For Good - One of the biggest sites for volunteer connections

e. http://www.servenet.org/ - Servenet.org - Big site of volunteer opps

f. Google Base - lets you upload volunteer opportunities so they show up on Google! Great idea!
http://google.com/base/help/mktgvolunteer.html?utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-na_us-google&utm_medium=ha&utm_content=volunteer&utm_term=find%20volunteers

g. http://www.bethecause.org/vopp/volunteer.php - Be The Cause - Another site to post volunteer opps, with volunteer registration – particularly strong in Kansas, California.

h. http://www.idealist.org/

i. http://volunteer.monster.com/ - Monster.com’s take on volunteer opps – again a good place to post – they are collaborating with idealist.org for this project.

j. http://www.planetfriendly.net/volunteer/

Your post could look something like this:

WANTED: Volunteers for the American Cancer Society Relay For Life of Towson, MD @ Towson University – Friday May 13 6pm -Saturday May 14^th noon, 2003. An overnight event where volunteers walk/run to raise money to fight cancer. Volunteers needed to serve on event planning committee, put together teams for the event, as well as volunteer the days of the event for setup, support, and break-down. Relay For Life is a fun, carnival-like atmosphere where we will raise over $100,000 in the fight against cancer! YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE AND HELP US FIND A CURE! Contact towsonrelay@yahoo.com or call Sue at 410-555-5555 for more information.

4) E-mail everyone you know – Send out an e-mail soliciting interest in involvement in Relay For Life – you never know when someone has a link to cancer – by e-mailing those you know, you might find someone who has a personal connection and wants to be involved, but has never been asked. You can’t know till you ask!

5) Make The Weird Ask – Each week – make one “Weird Ask” – ask someone you wouldn’t think to ask otherwise. :) For example,

a. if your event has a lot of folks associated with the local hospital on the committee and heading up most of the teams, ask your committee to ask one person in the coming week who they meet while they are shopping – the grocery lane checkout person, the person who does their oil change, the person at the drycleaners, or the waitress who waits on them at lunch.

b. If your event is mostly people you work with, ask each person to ask someone they are friends with that you all don’t work with to join the committee, captain a team, or volunteer the day of the event

6) Post Flyers Around Town – Have a Spread Out Saturday, where your committee spreads out all over town and posts flyers, looks for corporate sponsors, and puts out coin cans. Also have them look for event volunteers, committee members, businesses that want to have teams, and donation items for your event (and for a silent auction if you are having one).

7) Promote Your Best Team Captains From the Previous Year – Ask your strongest team captains from the previous year to join your committee, bring what they did that worked, as well as their ideas for improvement. Great team captains recruit great teams… chances are they will be great at recruiting other team captains and will have some good connections. Team captains that join your committee will often work to get their team to “spin-off” into multiple teams

Just a few thoughts to get you started... Please post responses on other ideas or email rflvolunteer@gmail.com !

MySpace, Friendster, Flickr - Social Network and Cancer

2007-01-14T19:33:00.000-05:00

As MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Friendster and others continue to revolutionize the internet space by changing how people connect with each other, it is impacting how people fight cancer.

We all know how blogging has given cancer survivors a new voice on the internet. Social networking is a way for events to have "MySpace" websites to find participants, cancer survivors to connect with one another (a new way to find a support group), and more.

Check out my acsrelay.org introduction to MySpace:

http://www.myspace.com/acsrelay

In just a few days, I have 36 "MySpace" friends and I am sure will have more soon. The cancer "space" in MySpace is amazing - everything from prayers for those fighting, to memorials of those lost; from Relay For Life event websites for those who want to get involved, to those just want to talk about cancer in the context of what it means to their life.

Check out some great MySpace Relay For Life event websites at:

http://www.myspace.com/pittsbororelayforlife

and

http://www.myspace.com/relayforlifecenterville

The bottom line - social networking on the internet is becoming a significant part of the landscape - people are making friends and choosing their charities via sites such as MySpace. Events that have an active presence for their event via MySpace are also going to attract a younger demographic to Relay For Life, a great way to keep future generations of Relayers coming our way.

Go check out these sites and see what's out there when it comes to Relay For Life and the battle against cancer. You might be surprised at all that you find!

Extreme Home Makeover and Relay For Life

2006-12-04T20:38:00.000-05:00

I received an email yesterday from someone who works for the company that is one of the contractors that did the Extreme Home Makeover, Kersteins Designs... There is an article about the project and the family at the company's website:

www.kerstienshomes.com/extrememakeover/meet_the_family.htm

How cool is that!

There Is No Finish Line Until We Find A Cure!

Ramesh

Top Downloads on acsrelay.org!

2006-12-02T21:05:00.001-05:00

Here are the top downloads on acsrelay.org - check them out!

#1	FUNDRAISING IDEAS FROM A TO Z - One of the longest lists of fundraising ideas you'll find anywhere!



#2	RELAY FOR LIFE POEMS - A large collection of Relay For Life poems and links to cancer-related poems.


#3	FLYER - RELAY MINI POSTER - This is a flyer you can modify for your Relay For Life event.


#4	FLYER - RELAY INFO SHEET - This is a 1-pager info sheet you can customize for your Relay For Life event.


#5	MUSIC SUGGESTIONS LIST FOR RELAY - Luminaria, Opening, Survivor Lap, Caregiver Lap, and other Ceremony Song Suggestions is newly updated and bigger than ever... songs for every part of Relay! One of the most comprehensive song lists you'll find anywhere!


#6	TEAM DAY OF CHECKLISTList of the things your team should bring the day of to Relay!


#7	TEAM THEMES AND NAMES - Here are team and event theme ideas as well as team name ideas!


#8	FUNDRAISING LETTERS - These are great examples of fundraising letters used by volunteers that you can customize for your own fundraising!


#9	TEAM CAPTAIN RESPONSIBILITIES - A basic summary of your responsibilties as a team captain!


#10	LUMINARIA CEREMONY SCRIPT - LIGHT BY GROUP VERSION - A luminaria ceremony script for larger events - names are read by group of affected cancer survivor or victim.


#11	THE RELAY FOR LIFE CHAIRMAN'S CHECKLIST MANUAL - This is a manual that has the list of essential things you need to know to plan a Relay For Life event.


#12	ON-SITE FUNDRAISING IDEAS - Here are ideas that your team and event can use to fundraise on site!


#13	BANK NIGHT IDEAS - How to make your Bank Nights a success!


#14	OPENING CEREMONY AND SURVIVOR LAP SCRIPT


#15	RELAY FOR LIFE LOGO LINK - Here's a link to download the Relay For Life Logo!


#16	LUMINARIA CEREOMNY SCRIPT - READ ALL NAMES VERSION - This luminaria script is for smaller events;


#17	RAINY RELAY FOLLOW-UP LETTER - Did you have bad weather at your Relay? E-mail and post this letter to let your teams know that rain or shine, you want them to get their fundraising turned in.


#18	RAIN AND BAD WEATHER PLAN - Some things to consider for a Plan B if if the weather goes bad!


#19	LUMINARIA CEREMONY SCRIPT - READ ALL NAMES VERSION - An example of a script for the Luminaria Ceremony for smaller events, where you can read the names of all those who are honored, and light them one at a time.


#20	FEEDBACK FORM - A form you can ask team captains/participants to fill out to provide feedback on your event!

Remembering Those With Cancer This Holiday Season

2006-12-02T20:31:00.000-05:00

When the American Cancer Society Relay For Life started over 20 years ago, one of the reasons given to explain why it was an overnight event was that "cancer patients don't get the night off from cancer, so why should we?". How true.

Well, those that we know who are battling cancer don't get time off for the holidays either. So one great way many Relay For Life participants honor survivors during the holidays is by turning their holiday letter into something more - a request for donations for the American Cancer Society Relay For Life.

I know several folks who request donations in lieu of a holiday gift - what great volunteers we have! And these holiday letters can be a great way to jumpstart fundraising - these folks raise thousands of dollars with their holiday letter alone!

If you'd like to see examples of fundraising letters, please visit the following link: acsrelay.org Fundraising Letters and scroll down to the fundraising letters.

Happy Holidays!

Great new site out there - http://www.relayforlife.org

2006-08-08T20:00:00.000-04:00

There is a great new site out there with information on Relay and a discussion board that is of better quality than cancer.org's. It also has a place you can make your own blog, and tell your own story!

Check out: http://www.relayforlife.org

And support this great new idea!

Fantastic Idea - Collect One Million Survivor Signatures - Can YOU Help?

2006-04-08T05:09:00.000-04:00

Folks,

See below for a great idea! The Lancaster Relay For Life in Pennsylvania has a drive going to collect 1,000,000 (One Million) Signatures/Names From Survivors!

Can YOU Help? Please E-mail the name/signature of the person or snail mail the signature to Kathy at the contact information listed below

Thanks again for helping!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ONE DAY, ONE NIGHT, ONE MILLION

I need your help. Are you a cancer survivor? Do you know a cancer survivor or someone who lost their battle with this dreaded disease?

My name is Kathy Morgan and I am Co-Chair of the Lancaster Relay For Life in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Our Relay will be held on June 9th and 10th, 2006 at Lancaster Catholic High School’s Rossmere Stadium.

Our goal is not only to raise One Million Dollars for the American Cancer Society but we are also trying to honor One Million Cancer Survivors and/or those that have passed due to this disease by placing their signatures or names on our Wall on Honor at our event.

In order to accomplish this we need your help. Would you please forward our signature form on to everyone that you know that has been touched by cancer so that they can be part of our event. The students of Lancaster Catholic are creating the Wall of Honor and signatures will be arranged by state and country.

To create an honor of this magnitude we need people like you to help get the word out to the nation and the world. Unfortunately cancer touches so many of our lives and the lives of those around us. This will be a tribute to the courageous battle that those diagnosed with cancer have waged against this disease.

As a seven and one half year breast cancer survivor, I applaud anything that you can do to help us achieve our ONE MILLION SIGNATURE GOAL.

Sincerely,

Kathy Morgan, Event Co-Chair
Lancaster Relay For Life
www.lancasterrelayforlife.org
Email: kathymorgan@earthlink.net
Phone: 717-653-2407

“If we did everything we were truly capable of, we would literally astound ourselves” – Thomas Edison

Please mail to:

Kathy Morgan
PO Box 142
Mount Joy, PA 17552
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ClustrMaps - What a cool tool!

2006-03-11T04:17:00.000-05:00

Every so often you stumble upon an on-line tool that makes so much sense and you fall in love with it!

ClustrMaps is one such thing - a map of the globe showing where all your hits are coming from! It might be a little techie and over the top (and depending on what your website is about, may or may not help you solve any specific problem), but is so cool! Here is http://www.acsrelay.org 's hit locations:

http://clustrmaps.com/stats/maps-clusters/acsrelay.org-world.jpg

I love seeing all the people from other countries coming to http://www.acsrelay.org - it is very interesting!

Thanks to ClustrMaps for making this possible - for free!

If you have a site out there, you can add a ClustrMaps too! Just visit:

http://clustrmaps.com/index.htm

to learn more.

Great Fundraiser - A Relay Event contest to collect a donation from every state!

2006-02-11T17:33:00.000-05:00

Hey - there is a great fundraising idea posted at the cancer.org discussion board - check out:

http://
www.cancer.org/asp/messageBoards/msg_global.asp?
navToScreen=msg_1_1&navFromScreen=msg_1&txt
TopicPath=cat-4EB2BF92E88949398FB376ED054C4465/
mb-98F45F826E994CB5A86B516AE1AB9A02/topic-
790341F7BCC847A8A32F61AD565D7C40&sortOrder=
130&page=1&txtDiscussionId=
discussion-443B4027EC734D18907BF3A77A1F8ECA

Basically, the Oklahoma State Relay For Life organization has challenged their volunteers to get a donation from every state!!!! Wow!!

What a fantastic idea! A great challenge for your event - challenge your participants to get a donation from every state, and give prizes to the 3 people (or teams, however you would prefer0 who get donations from the most states!!!!! You could also have a prize for the most countries, too!!!!!

Torch Relay! (click on this link for details)

2006-01-24T20:37:00.000-05:00

Torch Relay – This is a great survivorship idea patterned after the Olympics – basically, you have your survivors and caregivers (or if you want, other leaders of your Relay, too) first light the torch, and then take it on a parade… Some events take a loop of your city (with news coverage following along), and then return to your Relay where the torch is kept lit all night… It makes a lap of the track with a survivor for the survivors lap, a caregiver for the caregiver’s lap, and every half hour, it is passed from one survivor to the next, to keep it going all night long to always remind us of the survivors who we Relay for and those who we remember who have lost the battle with cancer… in the morning – a large torch at the event can be lit to commemorate the completion of “relaying”. Each event does it a little differently, but the above was a combination of the best ideas.

Peninsula Relay Torch Relay – This Torch Relay takes a loop thru Hampton and Newport News, VA before returning to Todd Stadium and lighting a very large torch at the stadium! The Torch also makes the survivors lap with a survivor.

Kathy Cawthon and her husband created the Torch Relay for this event… Here are her thoughts about it!:

“My husband and I created the torch relay for the Peninsula Relay For Life when our event outgrew its original site and the committee decided to open a second site in a nearby city. The distance between the two stadiums was about 15 miles, so we mapped out a course, divided each mile in half, and invited about 50 ‘Honored Torch Bearers’ to carry the ‘flame of hope’ from the original Relay site to the new one.

We began with a committee that solicited nominations for the honored torch bearers, and the committee agreed that these should be cancer survivors, caregivers and medical professionals who work in the field of oncology. Once we had our nominations, the committee selected the ones to invite. We tried to have a good mix of older folks, children and teenagers, as well as survivors and caregivers. We had beautiful invitations printed because we wanted to make it very clear to everyone that this was a HUGE honor. Each invitee was given a deadline by which to RSVP, and each invitee was told he or she could ask family and friends to be his or her ‘escorts.’ So a breast cancer survivor carried the torch and was escorted by her husband and children, an elderly colon cancer survivor carried the torch and was escorted by her son and grandson, a doctor carried the torch and was escorted by his staff, a kidney cancer survivor (my husband!) carried the torch and was escorted by the surgeon who saved his life, and so on. There were lots of great stories out there that day.

About a week before Relay, we had a meeting with all of the torch bearers. They were given a special t-shirt (a sponsor donated these), told where their position would be to wait for the torch on the day of Relay and what time to be there (they were told to be there ½ hour early and not to be alarmed if the torch was up to ½ hour late – we had to allow for delays or getting ahead of schedule), and during the meeting we passed the torch around (unlit, of course) so that each of them could see how heavy it was. We answered any questions they had that evening.

On the day of Relay, we had a torch lighting ceremony on the stage at the original Relay site around 10 a.m. The first few torch bearers relayed the torch around the track (this is a good place to position torch bearers who are not well enough to go out on the road) and we played inspirational music over the loud speakers (“I Will Walk With You” and some other songs) before the torch left the stadium and was taken out on the road. It was then relayed at ½-mile intervals to the other stadium. It took about 8 hours, I think. We had made arrangements way in advance with city police, traffic engineering and emergency units so that our torch bearers had a clear traffic lane the entire way, a police escort and an emergency vehicle behind. We also had a ‘chase van’ right behind the torch bearer and his or her escorts so that they always had access to water or a ride if they needed it (but no one wanted to ride!). A newspaper photographer donated a day of his personal leave to ride in the chase van and each time the torch was handed off, he got out and took a photograph. When it was over, he gave us the film, we had it developed, and sent each torchbearer a photograph of himself or herself with the torch. It was such an amazing day. People poured out of their businesses to watch and cheer, and one school let all of their students come out to the roadside and cheer our torch bearers on.

We purchased our torch from Midwest Trophy Company in Kansas City, and we had the Relay logo engraved on it. Their website is www.kcmidwesttrophy.com but there may be other companies that you can find on the internet that sell Olympic style torches. One thing we learned was that you cannot light a torch that is already hot. Ours will burn for only about 45 minutes before it runs out of oil. So we lit it at the stadium at the beginning of the torch relay, and then when it went out, we just left it out. When it got to the second stadium that evening, just in time for their opening ceremonies, it was lit again right outside the stadium (the chase van carried extra oil to refill the torch) and carried into the stadium lit. There were torch bearers positioned around the track to relay it around several times (again, this is a good place to position those who aren’t well enough to go out on the road with the torch), and great music was blasting over the loudspeakers. The crowd went wild when the torch came into the stadium! It was awesome and powerful, and everyone was in tears. We had a cauldron that had been made and donated by a local metal works company and it was way up in the stadium. We selected a very special honored torchbearer to carry the torch up into the stadium and light the cauldron. It was a beautiful 11-year old girl who was battling brain cancer. Her father helped her carry the torch up into the stadium to light the cauldron.

The first torch relay was such a success that the original site said, “Now we want you to do it again next year and bring it back!” That was because they didn’t get to see it come into the stadium and the cauldron lit. So the next year we did the whole thing backwards! Now we use the torch as part of our opening ceremonies. It doesn’t go out on the road because there’s really nowhere for it to go. We select 8-10 honored torchbearers each year to relay it around the track (each one carries it about 1/6 of the way around the track) and then 2 or 3 of them relay it up the steps to the cauldron. It is a very powerful moment and a great way to open a Relay. We let the cauldron burn throughout our Relay (it is roped off by the fire department to keep curious kids away from it, and members of the fire department take turns sitting up in the stands by the cauldron until it’s time to extinguish it during our closing ceremonies.”

Check out the pictures – they are very inspirational!

http://www.peninsularelay.org/Torch%20Relay%202001.htm

http://www.peninsularelay.org/Torch%20Relay%202002.htm

http://www.peninsularelay.org/2005/2005photogallerynpn.htm
- some great torch pictures including passing the torch and lighting the big torch!

St. Augustine Relay For Life Torch Relay – Read a newspaper article (courtesy of the St. Augustine Times) about the Torch Relay at their event – 15 people carry the torch in the opening ceremony… and thru the Victory Lap. They pass the torch from person to person who has been touched by cancer, until all the people who have been chosen to be torch bearers are on the track… :

http://www.staugustine.com/stories/050903/new_1523508.shtml

Roanoke Relay For Life - The Torch is carried from the ACS office to Roanoke Stadium – read more at:

www.roanokerelay.org/May04.pdf

Fayette County, GA Relay For Life - A torch to light the luminaria and memorial tribute torches that are sold for the event. The torch starts at the Courthouse, and is relayed with an honor guard of motorcyclists!!!! Each person to carry the torch is a survivor... The torch winds its way thru the city to the event, where it is used to light tribute torches and luminaria. Thanks to the Citizen News! See Luminaria DGI’s for descriptions of the Tribute Torches! See below for the article about this Relay’s Torch Relay:

http://pdf.thecitizennews.com/main/archive-050504/w-02_relay.html

Click on the link above for even more ideas or click below:

http://www.acsrelay.org/Darn_Good_Ideas/12-Survivorship_And_How_To_Keep_Them_Involved_DGIs.doc

Good luck!

Luminaria Bag Idea!

2006-01-24T20:31:00.000-05:00

Consider doing Luminaria Bags in Bright Colors! – One way to make you bags stand out would be to have bags in special colors… The Tussey Mountain Relay in Saxton PA is using purple for their survivors’ luminaria bags – “We wanted to do something different this year with our luminaria, and that was to have purple luminaria bags for the survivors to light themselves after their survivor lap, after the survivor lap we set up the luminaria bags then shortly after it is ceremony time. I thought it would be nice to have the survivors place their own bags around the track at random places, then light theirs. Then we could have the others light their matches from the luminarias that were already lit.” – Thanks to Wendi S. for this great idea!

NOTE: For perspective, a 6" x 3 1/2" x 11" bag is slightly bigger than the lunch bag you took to school as a kid :) Here are links to get purple (and other color) paper bags which you could use for special luminaria:

• http://www.papermart.com/templates/12-0-45.htm
• seems like a good site... the Item # you want is 12-580-8 - I think this is the typical size used for luminaria (6 1/4 x 3 11/16 x 12 7/16, or close) - had lots of choices... 12.1 cents per bag up to 400 total, 10.5 cents per bag for 500 or more, in 100 bag increments

• http://stamponthis.com/SOT-Lunchbgstmpd.htm
• - The medium (6" x 3 1/2" x 11") purple bags would be perfect and are 15 cents each

See the link above for more great ideas!

A great blog targetted at youth!

2005-12-16T21:14:00.000-05:00

Josh Davis has created a great blog with great information....

http://relaybuddy.blogspot.com

His goal is to help volunteers that are working in Relay, with a particular emphasis on youth (he's 16 and already blogging away on Relay!!!!). His site already has some great info on it:

A RELAY DICTIONARY:
http://relaybuddy.blogspot.com/2005/12/relay-dictionary.html

ACTIVE FOR LIFE - A great program to get people to be active, which can fight cancer:
http://relaybuddy.blogspot.com/2005/12/active-for-life-challenge.html

Ramesh Moorthy
webmaster, http://www.acsrelay.org
Blogging about Relay at http://acsrelay.blogspot.com
rflvolunteer@gmail.com

Relay For Life Resources On-Line are Multiplying!

2005-12-14T10:51:00.000-05:00

For those of you who are out there looking for information on Relay, there is so much more information available than there was even a year ago... The proliferation of blogs alone means that you can read about Relay for hours on end :) or get to the things YOU NEED TO KNOW quicker than ever... Here are some ways to get to information to help you with Relay:

1. Search for ideas at http://www.acsrelay.org

This is the search engine on the acsrelay.org website - it has access to tons of ideas in the Relay universe - it searches every webpage, Word, Excel, and Powerpoint document on the http://www.acsrelay.org site.

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

2. Search for blogs on Google Blog Search:

http://blogsearch.google.com/

Some great blogs that are out there are listed in the index on the right side of this blog site. Chris Dover and Trish Snyder are some pioneers in this work:

http://chaoticgestalt.net/rflresource/
http://bloggingforacause.com
http://relayblogger.typepad.com/relayblogger/

See at right for the full list.

3. On-line discussion sites

Again, also listed to the right side of this site. http://www.relayamerica.com is a must visit! It has discussions organized by topic and extremely searchable... If you have a question or issue, you can bet you were not the first to have that thought... Search at relayamerica.com before you go posting at blogs or on other discussion boards or emailing and you might find the answer pronto!

Ramesh

Relay For Life Success Stories 2005!

2005-11-10T00:33:00.000-05:00

SUCCESS STORIES 2005!

GREAT FOOD IDEA
Power to the People! - This Relay figured out how to make their teams part of having great food! - "At our Relay this year we put food in the hands of our teams. We had a coordinator to oversee everything and make sure we didn't have duplications, but the teams loved it as did all the Relayers because we had anything and everything you can imagine to eat...and it all raised money for the Relay. For example we had, chicken BBQ, pulled pork platters, hamburger BBQ, nachos, soup, hamburgers, hot dogs, hot sausage, french fries, onion rings, pierogies, baked goods, sno cones, popcorn, all kinds of cold drinks, coffee, donuts and muffins to mention some. This was one less major committee chair we needed as the coordinator job wasn't an overwhelming one, plus we didn't need to ask our local merchants for additional donations!!” ! this allows the event to have a great selection of food that people can get for a donation! Thanks to JackieC3579 for this great idea! (8/05)

GREAT WAY TO RAISE MONEY AND EAT AT THE SAME TIME
Cookbooks for a Cure - There are many great volunteers out there who do this - put recipes in a cookbook that is sold at their local event/ or even on-line to raise money to fight cancer. What a great idea! People that are looking for recipes can be found at:

relayamerica.com discussions about cookbooks

JaimeNicole and Wizkid0507 have posted their recipe requests on line for their fundraising cookbooks for Relay! If you have a recipe you would be willing to contribute, please go to the link above and reply to their posts or email them directly! More info is available at the link above. Pat Roach says "I have Celebration of Life I and II for sale at $12 each- 400 recipes!! in each- but I can't take any recipes because that is the end of my publishing!!!!!!!!!! It was such fun! My email address is proach1015@yahoo.com for those who would like to donate for a copy. Cost for shipping is $2.00. They are great- everyday type recipes!!!!! I even included my very best chocolate chip receipe!!!!” Please share your recipes with Jaime and Wizkid0507, and donate to get Pat’s cookbook! It’s for a great cause!

GREAT HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE FUNDRAISING IDEA
Pie In The Face Contest - A great way to use friendly rivalry and teacher/student hi-jinks to raise a lot of money. It combines raising money by "nominating” different people to be the ones who the pies are thrown at, and then making people donate to throw the pies! Great great great! - check out this idea from Jaime D. at Notre Dame! - "I was a team captain! at the University of Notre Dame. My idea, which brought in over $3,000.00 was to have a "Pie in the Face” contest. The contest consisted of faculty, staff, and graduate students. We placed a picture of each (volunteering of course) person on a jar which was kept in the main office of the Biology Dept. If you wanted a person to be pied at the end of the contest you put money in that person’s jar. We kept a running chart (money was counted every day and updated) of the monies in each jar. The top 10 (started with 30) individuals with the most money in their jar had to sit outside in the quad (on a designated time and day) and allow people to buy a pie (whip crème) for a $1.00 (larger pies were $2.00) to throw at the person of choice. What made this so fun was that professors were trying to get out of having to be in the contest by putting money in others so that their jar would not have the most money in it. One professor paid 150.00 just the last hour so he could buy himself out of the relay and put the 150 in other jars to get himself out of the top 10. Others kept adding money into their friends jars to get them pied. Also word of mouth traveled that other departments came over to join in the fun and took up collections in their own office to bring over on the last day. The best of is that we did the actual contest of pie throwing on the Friday before our opening football game day. We were playing Michigan (big game) and Dick Vital was walking by for the pep rally and bought a lot of pies and also paid for his grandchildren to join in the fun and pie our Chairperson of the dept. Even famous people joined in the fun. There was a lot of fun in this contest and hopefully this year can make it campus wide.” Thanks again Jamie!

GREAT WAY TO VIRTUAL RELAY
Second Relay For Life - Drumroll please! And the award for the best Relay that exists but doesn’t goes to!. The Second Relay For Life, which is located at Second Life which can be found at

Second Life

acsrelay.org monthly e-mail updates

2005-11-10T00:01:00.000-05:00

Visit the following link to see the monthly updates that have been published about Relay For Life. These updates provide tips about Relay and how to make it more successful...:

http://groups.google.com/group/acsrelay

You'll find suggestions on things to do for each of your committees - for example, a recap of the most original and best ideas from the past year about Relay:

http://groups.google.com/group/acsrelay/browse_thread/thread/a5cd26558ff31c3e

Ramesh Moorthy
webmaster, http://www.acsrelay.org
volunteer, Baltimore, MD

acsrelay.org Relay For Life Blog

2005-11-09T23:58:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the acsrelay.org Relay For Life Blog - why does this blog exist? To guide you to developments and information related to Relay For Life - Relay on-line resources, other blogs, and other information that you might find valuable! The ideas that are referenced on this blog are found on many different sites, including one I maintain with ideas and info for Relay For Life - http://www.acsrelay.org