UKC

Up to now, individual teams have raised funds through events and local collections, but it has not been as easy for occasional hill-goers living outside the areas covered by teams to support their work. BaseCamp changes this. Now a climber in London or a walker from Leicester can support teams in all areas they visit, by joining BaseCamp and paying an annual subscription. In return, supporters will receive quarterly copies of MR Magazine together with an enamel supporter’s badge and a car sticker to promote their involvement. They will also be notified of events run by nearby teams, and given the opportunity to get involved.

It is important to stress that BaseCamp will not replace the fundraising efforts of individual teams, but rather make it easier for those without a local team to contribute.

Read more: http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

This is just the thing MR needs to raise its profile and educate the general public (not neccessarily hill going) about just exactly what it is we do!

Well done to all concerned for getting this moving

Wayne

Woodhead MRT

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com: Am I correct in thinking this applies to MR Teams in England and Wales only.

In reply to gavin kellett:
Yup, as far as i know anyway. It's and MREW thing i believe.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com: Have just read the article. Well done to the Teams in England and Wales.
Please remember that Teams in Scotland, apart from limited funding from the Scottish Exec. have to raise all their own Funds. So when you guy's come up this way please feel free to pop your hand in those pocket's

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

I couldn't see any info on how the money raised is distributed. Out of interest, can anyone elaborate on that please?

In reply to jonny taylor:

Hi Jonny

The money will go to the central MR council for England and Wales, who will then allot it to the teams. I don't have data here as to who gets what and when, but if you drop me an email, I'll find out for you and reply asap

Cara

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:
bump

In reply to jonny taylor:

I think we actually need to raise some before teams can have it Jonny

Wayne

In reply to Anonymous:

Fair enough

Sounds like good news, anyway - good work by everyone involved in getting this off the ground.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

I may be missing something, but it's already pretty easy isn't it?
http://www.mountain.rescue.org.uk/giving/

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

True, but up to now, it's been a one way thing. People have donated, but not really felt part of anything. Most other charities that campaign for regular donations give something back, in the form of a magazine, newsletter, anything just to make the people feel a little more involved. This is what we will be doing from now on.
For example, I've written the database for membership. Anyone within a certain radius of a team is flagged up as such, and will receive notification of when their local team has an event (anything from a coffee morning to a fell running event). The idea is to raise awareness of MREW, and make it more of a 2 way involvement, rather than simply "give us your money".

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

PS, talk to me about it on Friday if you want more info

I do wonder why it wasn't setup before the announcement was made.....

In reply to Ozi:

Because the 3 of us working our socks off to get this off the ground aren't the ones with control over the main website, and we have to wait until the person who designs it manages to put something up.
I know it may seem a little chaotic at the moment, but believe me, it's far more organised than a month ago (when we vaguely launched at the Outdoors Show) and at least I've managed a co-ordinated press release

In reply to Ozi:

Pre-publicity.

It is very very common for websites to be announced with a specific date to go live and more than often that date is missed.....a bit like the publication of guidebooks.

We are human.

Mick

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

Ask and ye shall receive - I'll have the website sorted by tomorrow eve

Personally I would like to see some form of Government support for MRT, perhaps similar to the way the MRT in Scotland are funded but I realise that it is probably never going to happen.

As for the idea of BaseCamp, I realise that some MRT’s will have a bigger budget than others and as a result will probably have to do more fund raising than others. So is BaseCamp going to allocate money equally to all the teams in England and Wales or are teams going to have to bid for funds for various projects etc.

When I donate to an MRT when I come south of the border then I hope that all of the money that I donate will be used for equipment, training etc. However if I pay £24 to BaseCamp then how much of that is actually going to find its way to the teams. The newsletter, badge and car stickers need to be paid for, add on admin cost and my £24 donation has just dropped to £18-20?

Sorry guys but I shall continue to donate (mostly in Scotland anyway) by putting money in boxes that way I hope my money isn’t being wasted on admin etc

In reply to fda:

I'm not sure about total admin costs, but can find out (drop me an email to remind me). Ditto the allocation of funds. I'm pretty sure it won't be a set amount to every team, since each team has different annual running costs depending on volume of call-outs, number of team members, specific needs etc, etc.
For the record, I'm not taking a penny from this, and have been working solid on it for the last 4 working days. In fact, at 10.25pm tonight, I was still doing so.

In reply to Caralynr:
How about having an option for no freebies and the mag/news letter to be sent by e-mail so no printing cost. This way people that want the most money possible (like fda) to go to the teams would still consider donaiting to Basecamp ?

In reply to Pinky:

Yes, great idea. However, at the moment we are struggling to get the basics off the ground. The RNLI pay professional fundraisers to do all their activity. We are trying our best with 3 unpaid people juggling it with work and life. Your suggestion may well work in future though, but let's get the basics sorted first

In reply to Caralynr:

How quickly people forget that MR is all voluntary and that needs to be juggled between work and family life.

I happen to personally know the 3 main contenders in the National Fundraising Group and they are all very busy people - cut em some slack guys before you shoot them down

In reply to Caralynr and Mick:


I've no doubt your working very hard

>Pre-publicity.
>It is very very common for websites to be announced with a specific date to go live and more than often that date is missed.....a bit like the publication of guidebooks.

I just don't really understand why things would be released before they are fully ready (for whatever reason).

To me you run the risk of people switching off a little if they can't get more information readily.

But hey, I don't work in Marketing.. I never really did "get" it .

In reply to Ozi:

I'll give you some more examples: both the BMC and Climber mag have recently announced new websites.....there are a few others as well.

Both the BMC and Climber have missed the dates when they were to go live.

I'm sure they made the announcements in good faith and were informed the websites would be ready at a specific time.

However, many things can crop up.....content takes a lot of time to write and upload....and there are often technical difficulties.

Now in this case...Base Camp......everything is done voluntarily, not commercially. Cut them some slack eh?

Mick

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:
The probably with announcing the launch prematurely is that you can get:

Read announcement -> visit website -> it's not there -> forget about it -> don't return

instead of

Read announcement -> visit website -> like it -> join -> bookmark site -> send link to everyone you can think of

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

Yip.

Although in many cases, further announcements can do the job.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

What a fab idea. I tend to just jam any change etc in any collecting tub that is next to a till, but this is obviously irregular and dependent on me being in a shop (not often!) and having appropriate cash to put in. I don't get out much, but I'd sure be grateful if needed these guys- bit like the RNLI.

I've put the website on my favourites list, so I'll keep an eye up for the joining stuff.

Sxx

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

Lets put it this way, All the people setting up this idea are VOLUNTEERING thier time they are NOT PAID EMPLOYEES.

Cara runs her own business and helps me on the Mountain First Aid courses, in fact she will be at Woodhead MRT all this weekend, on top of this she does have a life

Mike France- The chairman of the Group/Committee, I know him personally, apart from being the Chairman of the Peak District MRO he is the Team Leader of Woodhead AND is a Peak District MR controller, oh then he has a Job to do as well, oh and a life.

Im sure if we could get paid for it full time and do a better job then we would!! but we DONT there are people in this business that dont work this hard and get paid 5/6 figure sums as well!

PLEASE give the guys a break and dont shoot them down before they get off the ground.

Mountain Rescue needs your support

(And so does the Search and Rescue Dogs Association nicking your thread mick sorry

In reply to Comms27:
I'm not shooting anyone down!
Just trying to make helpful suggestions, sorry if I worded them badly.

In reply to Caralynr:
The three that have worked on this, and some others in places have yet again shown how amazing volunteers can be... In my opinion any criticism about timing of release/website would only be relevant if they were salaried fundraisers who only had this to do...

And anything that makes MR funding more self-sufficient and helps address the imbalance between funding of teams in different areas is a great thing....

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:


I'm more than well aware that difficulties can arise, that wasn't my original point...

*I* just don't understand why announcements aren't delayed until _everything_ is ready, whatever the reason for the delay.


This seems to be some crossed lines here, I've no doubt whatsoever how much work has been done on this, and I'm pleased it's being done. Mr personal opinions about MR are that there should be more things centralised (but that's a whole other subject).

There is no criticism of the work that's been done, I just, in my naive understanding of "marketing" wonder if it will happen as Simon so simply pointed out.

Though as you say, further announcements can be made.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

Common maybe, but a bad idea for reasons others have mentioned.

In reply to Ozi:

Another good reason for announcing something and then missing the deadline is that people will complain and this will keep the thread views high and the thread at the top of the pile, so increasing exposure.

People then see 1,000 views and wonder what is that all about and have a look.......so increasing exposure.

Then when the site is up, they can announce it on the thread....and whoosh....bump, it's back at the top.....so increasing awareness.


Everything is never ready.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

or in other words:
<bump>

In reply to Simon Caldwell:
Doesn't have to be 'bump'. Any word will do.





Weasels



see....

In reply to shingsowa:

Weasels weasily waiting for the techy to confirm the new page is up (with downloadable subscription form)... shouldn't be long