CF Week, Day 5: (aka 'How To Plan A CF Event In Just 12 Days!')

How To Plan A CF Event in Just 12 Days!

Yes, today's CF Week blog post is going to be talking about my nutty idea to plan a CF Event for next Saturday!

Aaaaaaaaaaaarggggggghhhhhh!

As I mentioned briefly in my first CF Week post on Monday, I was hoping to organise a Big Cake Bake very soon. Because Seren had been unwell, I hadn't done anything towards organising it yet, and so that night, I decided that I'd better get cracking.

First, I thought of asking the kids' school if we could hold it there. So I rang up that afternoon and asked what they thought. The secretary suggested that I come in and talk to the headteacher about it after picking the kids up that afternoon, so I did.

The headteacher was really interested in hearing about the fundraising venture, and was very enthusiastic about taking part in such an event, but rather than just providing a venue for me to hold a Big Cake Bake, they wanted to hold their own Big Cake Bake after half term, to coincide with a disability awareness day that they're holding!

Of course, that's great for the CF Trust, but not so helpful to me. So I had to think again.

I wondered about holding it at the church I attend, but the church office wasn't open at the time, and I couldn't get hold of my friend from church who I could have asked, so I thought I'd put that idea on the back burner and try somewhere else.

So I rang around and to my amazement, the first place I tried (a local function room which the kids have been to for a birthday party) offered me their function room for free! The only thing was, they were only free on the 29th of May, all other Saturdays were booked, so ... I had to make the decision, plan an event in just 12 days, or wait for months?

What the heck, plan it in 12 days!!!!

So I said yes, and the room was booked for 2-4 pm on 29th May!

'Seren and Dylan's Big Cake Bake' was born!

So then I had to start organising.

First things first, I needed a notebook to scribble everything down in ...

My Big Cake Bake notebook

Then I hopped onto Facebook and asked people for a) cake donations, b) event ideas, and I got a fantastic response!

People volunteered to bake cakes to sell, and I had tons of ideas for events, like ...

Some of the ideas that were suggested (some have been blanked for privacy, and others wouldn't work in the venue, or like with the lucky dip, would need a lot of donations for prizes)

Tuesday morning, I moved on to the next stage of planning, which was getting in the raffle prizes! I spent hours on the phone over the course of Tuesday ...

And I kept track of all the results so that I didn't miss anyone, or phone anyone twice. My phone results cover 5 pages of my notebook!

And I've been pretty successful!

So far, the local ASDA, Tesco and Morrisons stores have agreed to donate some raffle prizes; Mothercare has agreed to donate a DVD; Waterstones have donated two local history books worth a total of £26.00; Boots and Marks & Spencers have agreed to donate something; a local bakery is donating a Madeira cake with the ...

logo on top;

Greggs the bakers are donating some cupcakes; a local face painting business is donating their time for the afternoon to paint faces for free (so that all the money paid for each face to be painted goes to the CF Trust); a local card shop is going to donate some teddies for raffle prizes; a local department store is going to donate a raffle prize; a local corner shop is going to donate a raffle prize; a local balloon and card shop is going to donate some balloons and possibly a raffle prize; a local sweet shop is going to donate a jar of sweets for 'guess how many sweets are in the jar' game; the local Pizza Hut is going to donate some meal vouchers; as are the local Harvester restaurant and another local restaurant!

I'm also waiting to hear back from various other places about whether or not they'll donate.

I also contacted the CF Trust's Events team that evening, who emailed me a copy of the Big Cake Bake logo, and arranged to post out 200 invitations to the event, 200 price cards for cakes, CF Trust balloons, CF Trust banners, CF Trust bucket stickers, and some leaflets about cystic fibrosis.

So all of this involved lots of ...

Phone work

And lots of researching phone numbers on Yell.com, and lots of emailing. One of the emails was to the local radio station, to get Seren and Dylan's Cake Bake advertised on the local radio, and the other was to Adrian's colleague, who as well as donating some of her fabulous cakes ( like this one ) to the event, she also printed out some posters for me, to help advertise the event ...

Thanks Tracy!

And then, on Wednesday, all that phone work and computer work turned into a lot of ...

Foot work!

I had to walk into town to drop of letters asking for donations for raffle prizes (a lot of places wanted the request in writing, so that they could give it to their accountants for tax purposes), to speak to the local bakery to arrange the Cake Bake logo cake and give them a copy of the logo, to pop into the local newspaper office to get the event advertised in both local newspapers, and to pound the pavements asking for more donations.

And, I put up the very first two Cake Bake posters, in the local library!



And I put a couple of posters up in our window ...



And I popped into one of the local corner shops, who agreed to put a poster in their window, and this morning a friend offered to put some posters up for me too. So these guys should be popping up in plenty of places over the next week! ...



Then yesterday, Thursday, was another busy day again. I popped into the local corner shop and got their agreement to donate a raffle prize or two, and I went into the local sweet shop to request that jar of sweets (I heard back from them this morning to say that they have a jar for me!), then came home and did more phone work, chasing up more donations, and had to go back into town to drop off more donation request letters, and talk to the local balloon shop about their donating balloons etc.

I also decided to start planning which events I was definitely going to have ...

And how many helpers I was going to need on the day.

I worked it out and discovered that I am going to need about 8 helpers on the day to ...

*Run the best dressed cake and best dressed cupcake competition
*Take the in the money and fold the tickets for the raffle
*Run the 'guess how many sweets are in the jar' game
*Run the treasure map game, where people buy a square on a treasure map to find the treasure
*Run the 'guess the teddy's birthday' game
*Supervise the 'decorate your own cake/cookie' table
*Make hot drinks and serve drinks
*Possibly to sell handmade cards if we get some donated to us

Plus we might need some people to help us set up beforehand and help us clean up afterwards.

Phew!

So far I have two definite volunteers for helpers, and two possibles who've said they should be able to help. Eeeek!

And that brings us up to today. Today I've been chasing up more prizes, and printing off more donation request letters, and chasing up the official 'Rebecca really is raising money for us, honest!' letter from the CF Trust, which a couple of businesses have asked for, and obviously typing up this post!

Still on my To Do list are
*Put up more posters
*Rope in more bakers and helpers (I picked up three baking volunteers at Alpha Course last night!)
*Finalise the organisation of the events and competitions on the day
*Get Adrian to draw a treasure map and divide it into sections
*Adrian's going to decorate some gingerbread men in local football team colours to sell
*See if I can buy a little treasure chest online and fill it with chocolate coins as the prize for the treasure map game
*Write to those businesses needing the official CF Trust letter
*Write out invitations to the Cake Bake
*Hand out invitations to the Cake Bake at the kids school, their swimming class, their dance class, and at Church
*Collect up raffle prizes
*Organise some music (and a CD player) to play some music on the day
*Chase up the stragglers who haven't decided whether they're going to donate prizes or not yet
*Visit the venue and check whether they have enough tables for us to use

And I'm sure lots more things will end up on my To Do list too!

And so far, that's ...

How To Plan A CF Event In Just 12 Days!

I'll let you know how the event is shaping up over the next 8 days (argh, only 8 days to go!) and I'll hopefully have lots of lovely photos of the event to post after next Saturday!

Oh, and just one more thing, as Columbo would say ...

My topic for tomorrow's CF Week blog post is ...

An interview with Adrian (A CF Dad's Perspective)

If you have any (preferably CF-related) questions for him, please comment/email me on this post ASAP, as I will be typing the post sometime tomorrow.

Here's the link to the CF Trust's donation page

Or if you prefer, you could sponsor my mad calendar friends to throw themselves out of an airplane tomorrow and Sunday!