By linking your charity's name with our national identity and by selling our familiar rose emblem to members of the public, your local group can be part of a national event and raise instant cash for your charity.
Charities taking part in Rose day keep 90% of the funds collected. Each group provides the volunteer charity fundraising collectors and identifies suitable areas in which to collect. Alexandra Rose Charities arranges permits and provides all the materials needed for your charity collection event including: roses, charity collection boxes, baseball caps and sashes for the charity collectors to wear, posters and stationery.
Charities taking part in Rose day for the first time are asked to pay a £30 registration fee. This helps pay for the Rose day equipment. First time charities keep 90% of the money raised during the event.
Manor Farm Boys' Club and Alexandra Rose Charities
Much of the ethos of Manor Farm Boys' Club is around participation and self help. We regard fundraising as a powerful youth tool in educating young people around responsibilities in society, helping others, trust and appreciating the value of things etc.
Therefore the 60 or so young people who attend know that they are expected to all contribute to the various fundraising initiatives each year. For us, fundraising has to be fun - otherwise it can be very difficult to encourage the level of support we require to ensure we can raise sufficient each year to continue providing the level of provision that the young people who attend Manor Farm Boys' Club have come to expect and enjoy. We provide refreshments at the end of each vening and ensure staff and management committee members are present to help count the money, listen to the stories and support and praise the efforts of those who have been out on the streets.
A few years ago we were fortunate that we had a retired former staff member who was willing to spend a lot of time researching the number of houses in each street around the Club and break the whole area down into manageable groups of approx 500 houses so we could encourage families of club members to each take an area (or two) to collect. There is a competitive element to the whole thing. We also believe that offering an incentive to young people to give up their time collecting proves very effective. We base this not upon how much money they and their families can collect (as luck can often play a part in this plus some of the areas we collect in are considered more affluent than others) but rather on how many hours they spend knocking on doors with collecting tins. For the past four years we have offered a 'free' day out to a theme park e.g Alton Towers to the top 3 or 4 members in each of our 4 age groups within the club.
Each year we also recruit a number of new members as we go around the houses - a very good spinoff ! We provide a few leaflets explaining about the youth club to families to take with them so if anyone asks about who/why/what - information can be provided. We feel Alexandra Rose is a very good local PR exercise for us as many within the local community know about Manor Farm and are happy to support us. The final stage of the whole Alexandra Rose collecting proess is undoubtedly the most enjoyable. The club members are all invited to make suggestions as to how Manor Farm Boys' Club should spend the largest proportion of the total monies collected. We do expect to retain some of the proceeds to go towards covering the running cost of the club which are fairly substantial for an old Victorian building but the young people can decide on which new items of equipment to purchase. This year they have voted to buy two new table tennis tables and renovate the kitchen and tuck shop.
Rob Webber - Leader in Charge, Manor Farm Boys' Club