Wearethistle.co.uk Fundraising

[Col]

Just to let everyone know about the new fundraising website that we are working on:

 

http://www.wearethistle.co.uk/fundraising

 

It's still a work in progress but please feel free to have a look around and post any comments/ideas/suggestions here.

 

We are hoping to get everything up and running for the end of the month.

 

Events

We will be listing the latest fundraising events and promoting them throughout the site. These events can be official PTFC ones or fundraisers set up by fans.

You can check all the past events that have been promoted on the website.

You can submit your own event.

 

Fundraising

There is a list of events that you can donate to.

We will have fundraising ideas, information packs, downloadable resources etc. and details on how to set up a fundraiser.

Information on how the forum raises money and how much we have raised so far.

 

Volunteering

There is a volunteering recruitment site where people who are setting up fundraisers can post volunteering jobs and then other fans can apply to help them out. We will hopefully be listing official PTFC volunteering jobs too.

 

Directory

We are working on a business directory where companies pay a donation to be listed. Also working on packages to get them signed up to hospitality, sponsorship etc. and looking at packages for small businesses to share.

 

Shop

This will be a place where fans can buy and sell their stuff with a percentage of every transaction going to the club.

 

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It's still a work in progress, so please keep checking back and we will post updates on this thread when we make updates.

 

Cheers

[Jaggernaut]

Superb idea.

[DazzJag]

Look forward to helping out. I'm a media student and do a lot of fundraising. I recently raised £2000 for Alzheimer's Scotland.

Edited May 19, 2011 by DazzJag

[Davie Thistle]

 

 

[Fawlty Towers]

Great stuff guys

[davemains]

Great stuff guys

agreed and I'm in. Let me know when you're going live and I'll make a donation to be listed in the business section.

[davemains]

agreed and I'm in. Let me know when you're going live and I'll make a donation to be listed in the business section.

How about a business listing where businesses can offer a discount OR a donation to the club if someone uses their product or service? eg give 10% off either as a discount or as a donation to the club?

[Col]

Thanks to everyone for the positive feedback so far. We know there isn't much there just now but we are working hard to get the content uploaded and sort out all the different sections.

 

How about a business listing where businesses can offer a discount OR a donation to the club if someone uses their product or service? eg give 10% off either as a discount or as a donation to the club?

 

Thanks very much for this, great idea. We will maybe make that part of the deal for being listed and scrap the donation to sign up. (although it would still be very welcome )

 

Just a quick update - The club will be advertising jobs on the volunteering site closer to next season, so we will keep you posted about that.

 

Thanks again and please keep the ideas coming.

 

Cheers

[Vom Itorium]

This is a great idea.

 

Maybe someone at the Jags Trust might see an opportunity here to pass on the EastFundraising details and allow a bit of effort to be put in to utilise it to it's full potential in being another avenue to bringing money in for the club. Either that or WeAreThistle should set-up an account on their own if they can and people can start making easy money for the club again.

 

I've a few ideas myself that I'd be willing to help out with so I'll get them jotted down and PM admin with them.

Edited May 20, 2011 by Vom Itorium

[Jaggernaut]

How about a business listing where businesses can offer a discount OR a donation to the club if someone uses their product or service? eg give 10% off either as a discount or as a donation to the club?

Of course that would be excellent, but shouldn't it be offered as long as the client is also proven to be making some kind of effort for the club, either a season ticket ( ), centenary fund member, or something like that? Otherwise, everybody and anybody would "qualify" for a discount!

 

So, maybe even a signing on fee isn't a bad idea.

[twinny]

How about a business listing where businesses can offer a discount OR a donation to the club if someone uses their product or service? eg give 10% off either as a discount or as a donation to the club?

 

I have a feeling this might be something the club is planning. I think it would be a good initiative to have a subscription based club (say £10 a year) where you get a card that entitles you to discounts from businesses and services that have arranged with the club to be part of the scheme. Anyone familiar with snapfax would get the idea. Also, did the club run something like this in the past?

 

This could include anything from food offers in local pubs/restaurants, discounts with electricians/plumbers etc, local shops, special offers at Greaves, chippies/other take away places, the list goes on.

[Jaggernaut]

I have a feeling this might be something the club is planning. I think it would be a good initiative to have a subscription based club (say £10 a year) where you get a card that entitles you to discounts from businesses and services that have arranged with the club to be part of the scheme. Anyone familiar with snapfax would get the idea. Also, did the club run something like this in the past?

 

This could include anything from food offers in local pubs/restaurants, discounts with electricians/plumbers etc, local shops, special offers at Greaves, chippies/other take away places, the list goes on.

More ideas: stress counsellors, psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, weightwatchers, alcoholics anonymous....

[Fawlty Towers]

This is a great idea.

 

Maybe someone at the Jags Trust might see an opportunity here to pass on the EastFundraising details and allow a bit of effort to be put in to utilise it to it's full potential in being another avenue to bringing money in for the club. Either that or WeAreThistle should set-up an account on their own if they can and people can start making easy money for the club again.

 

I've a few ideas myself that I'd be willing to help out with so I'll get them jotted down and PM admin with them.

 

I would certainly recommend that the wearethistle guys register with easyfundraising as with the large number of registered users the forum has it could certainly generate a very good amount of cash and once registered it is simply a matter of promoting it - it really is easy (hence the name).

[Alan Murray]

I contacted the club a while back with the idea of a business directory on the official site. I thought a yearly fee would be charged so to get an annual income. I thought it could be tied in with discounts of hospitality. I suggested that the club actively promote thistle fans to use the business directory. Key to the directory working is for advertisers to get a healthy Return on investment.

 

If you could get a few hundred fans using Easyfundraising regularly then you are going to bring a fair amount in each month. If done well I would guess around the 10 to 12k per year is achievable. Best to use other affiliate schemes as well, don’t limit it to Easyfundraising.

 

Forgot about a ‘sponsored listing’ for the directory. For extra 20% you get an enhanced listing, just like normal web directories do.

Edited May 23, 2011 by Alan Murray

[lady-isobel-barnett]

some excellent suggestions.

 

Gut feeling tells me it would be better not to get too interlinked with the Club or the official site. I think it would give fundraising thru networking etc that bit more latitude. We don't really know who the Club may be approaching for sponsorship etc and without knowing conflicts of interest could arise.

 

Btw there could be mileage in running a mini e-bay type operation. Could sell all sorts of items (DVDs, books, CDs, Jags tops that a kid may have outgrown etc etc). Drop off item at a central collection point (eg Aitken Suite on a match Saturday). Wearethistle.co.uk Fundraising takes a commission on the sale and, on occasion of using the drop off point, a handling fee. Think it could be a win/win thingy. If you're buying something on e bay you usually have to pay postage so instead of postage you pay wearethistle for using the collection point.

[Jaggernaut]

some excellent suggestions.

 

Gut feeling tells me it would be better not to get too interlinked with the Club or the official site. I think it would give fundraising thru networking etc that bit more latitude. We don't really know who the Club may be approaching for sponsorship etc and without knowing conflicts of interest could arise.

 

Btw there could be mileage in running a mini e-bay type operation. Could sell all sorts of items (DVDs, books, CDs, Jags tops that a kid may have outgrown etc etc). Drop off item at a central collection point (eg Aitken Suite on a match Saturday). Wearethistle.co.uk Fundraising takes a commission on the sale and, on occasion of using the drop off point, a handling fee. Think it could be a win/win thingy. If you're buying something on e bay you usually have to pay postage so instead of postage you pay wearethistle for using the collection point.

That sounds excellent, M'am.

[Col]

Thanks again for more great ideas. We have already taken you up on one of them and have set up the wearethistle easyfundraising page.

 

For those of you who don't know how it works, it's really simple and can raise a lot of money for the club. Here is a very basic overview:

 

Easyfundraising

 

http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/wearethistlefundraising

 

"It's very easy - use easyfundraising to shop with over 2000 well known retailers like Amazon, Argos, M&S, eBay, John Lewis and many more and whenever you buy something, the retailer donates money to us. Yes - it really is that simple.

 

It's completely free and your shopping won't cost you a penny more."

 

All you have to do is:

 

• Follow this link then "sign up"
  
• Once signed up - support the "wearethistle fundraising" cause
  
• Search the retailers via our easyfundraising page and any goods purchased will mean donations going to the wearethistle fundraising website.
  

 

All money raised will then be donated to the club.

 

 

Easysearch

 

http://wearethistlefundraising.easysearch.org.uk/

 

"easysearch is a search engine which allows you to raise funds for your chosen cause, simply by surfing the web.

 

When you search you'll raise funds for your cause - making just 10 searches a day with easysearch instead of Google or any other search engine, you should generate over £20 per year for your cause.

 

We've combined the results from several major search engines - Bing, Yahoo and many more to track down the most relevant results from across the web, which means you'll find what you're looking for quickly and easily every time - in one 'easy' search!"

 

All you have to do is:

 

• Follow this link
  
• Search the web
  

 

All money raised will then be donated to the club.

 

 

Fundraising Search Plugins

 

We have also created a few browser plugins that work on Firefox 2+, Internet Explorer 7+ and Google Chrome.

 

These plugins allow you to add the fundraising website and the wearethistle easysearch search engine to your list of browser search engines.

 

To install these, simply:

 

• Follow this link
  
• Click on the desired plugin
  
• A pop-up window will appear, click Add
  

 

You will now be able to search the wearethistle fundraising website and use the wearethistle easysearch engine directly from your browser, without having to visit the websites.

 

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No major updates to the website yet but we have pretty much got everything sorted and know how it will work so we can start getting it all set up on the website. Will be doing some work over the weekend, so will hopefully have some updates next week.

 

Thanks again to everyone who has suggested ideas, we are taking note of all of these and trying to incorporate as many ideas into the website as we can.

 

We will probably be looking for a hand with some of the stuff soon, if anyone is interested in helping out. Things like managing the social media channels, managing the easyfundraising activities etc. We would greatly appreciate any help, so please just let us know if you want to get involved and what kind of thing you would be best placed to help out with.

 

Cheers

[Fawlty Towers]

Signed up for easyfundraising/easysearch, great work with this guys

[Fawlty Towers]

The admin guys are doing a very good thing with the fundraising website and in registering with easyfundraising they have given all of us the opportunity to raise some much needed funds for the club. When I was on the Jags Trust Board we had 149 people registered with easyfundraising and the number of people who are registered on the forum (even taking into account fans of other clubs) is greater than the membership of the Trust so I would hope that the effort that is being put in by the admin guys is matched by the supporters and we will see a large number of people registering with easyfundraising soon - there are 2 people so far!

[Willjag]

I've just changed my preference from the Jags Trust to this and it's really easy, log on, go to settings on the left hand side and from there you can change your preferences. You can also support two organisations if you register with a second email address, you can continue to support the trust as well.

[Fawlty Towers]

I've just changed my preference from the Jags Trust to this and it's really easy, log on, go to settings on the left hand side and from there you can change your preferences. You can also support two organisations if you register with a second email address, you can continue to support the trust as well.

 

Thanks for pointing that out Willjag (I knew I forgot something). If you only have one e-mail address you could have wearethistle as your cause for easyfundraising and the Trust as your cause for easysearch or vice versa if you wanted to support two causes.

[Col]

Thanks Willjag and Fawlty Towers for supporting the easyfundraising.

 

We set this fundraising website up in the hope that it would make it easier for fans to get involved in fundraising events etc. and also maybe make it easier for fans to do their own fundraising for the club. We will have resources and ideas, we can give you a page to promote the fundraiser, you can advertise for volunteers, we will promote the fundraiser, you can collect donations and the club earns a bit of cash. Along with a lot of other stuff we hope this can all earn a good sum of money for club on an annual basis.

 

We will try and help out as much as we can, so if anyone has an idea for a fundraiser feel free to PM us or post it on the forum and get others involved.

 

Also like to add - thanks very much to Fawlty Towers who has offered to take charge of the wearethistle easyfundraising activities. We really appreciate the help.

 

Cheers

[Col]

You can show your support of the wearethistle fundraising website by following this link: http://twibbon.com/cause/Wearethistle-Fundraising/

 

...then all you need to do is click on the button for "show your support". You can login via your facebook or twitter and then the website will retrieve your current profile photo and allow you to overlay the wearethistle ribbon on it and use it on your profile.

 

Also, please add us to your social networking page. We aren't the best at updating ours but we try.

 

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/wearethistle

Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/wearethistle

 

Cheers

[Vom Itorium]

Took my first look at the Fundraising site tonight and hats off to everyone involved in settingt up, it looks great. How was the £570 raised out of interest?

[Col]

Took my first look at the Fundraising site tonight and hats off to everyone involved in settingt up, it looks great. How was the £570 raised out of interest?

 

Thanks very much Vom Itorium, we are still working behind the scenes to get a lot of the content ready and are hoping to have it all up and running before the new season kicks off.

 

The £570 mentioned on the website is the money that the forum has raised so far through the sponsorship fund and the Firhill cup. Last time I checked, we have also raised about £7 through the easyfundraising website. The idea is to list how much money the fundraising website and this forum raises for the club and also how much has been raised by fans setting up their own events and promoting them via the fundraising website.

 

We will be looking at setting up our own events throughout the year* but the main purpose of the website is to encourage fans to set up their own events. We are working on creating some downloadable resources to give people ideas and instructions on how to go about setting up different events. We are also hoping to use the forum for fans to get together and discuss different ideas, set up fundraising groups etc. Once you have your event finalised, we can then give you a page on the fundraising website to put the information and promote it. You will also be able to recruit volunteers through the job board and collect donations through the website. If you want to sell any merchandise etc. we can do that through the online shop. And if there is anything else you want please just let us know and we can look at adding stuff to the website.

 

* We will be setting up our own "working group" consisting of about 10 people who will be responsible for coming up with the ideas and setting up the wearethistle fundraising events. The two of us will be involved in this group and already have some ideas but would like to get others involved and get a wider variety of opinion. If anyone is interested in getting involved, please PM us or email [email protected].

 

Cheers