(a) Make a club donation.
Every World Championship cycle a handful of r/c sailplane clubs make a generous donation to support the USA F3J Team, and for that we are extremely grateful. At your next club meeting or event can you bring up the idea of making a contribution to the team? If you would like, your club can use the contribution to purchase raffle tickets. These raffle tickets can be given out as thank you gifts to workers or as prizes at events. Or let the club win the prize and then hold its own raffle among the members to see who gets to take it home!
(b) Have a “raffle ticket” night at a club meeting.
Many of us have good intentions that we never seemed to get around to acting on. You can help with this by arranging for several computers or ipads to be brought to your next club meeting – just make sure they are internet capable at your meeting site. Then devote part of your meeting time to giving everyone a chance to go onto the USA F3J Team website and purchase raffle tickets.
(c) Hold 50/50 drawings at club events or meetings.
This is a simple and fun way to raise money for a good cause. You may have seen this done at a local sporting event, and it was a popular fundraising tool with the USA F3P and F3C teams last year. To hold a 50/50 drawing you will need a roll of double-sided tickets and a bucket or box for the tickets. You sell the tickets before and during the meeting or event: 1/$1, 6/$5, 12/$10 and a “stretch” (fingertip to fingertip) for $20. The buyer keeps the “Keep This Ticket” side and the other goes in the bucket. At the end of the event, you draw a ticket. The winner gets 50% of the proceeds from sale of the tickets and the team gets the other 50%. You can do this at all your meetings and events, or maybe pick the ones where you think participation will be highest.
(d) Hold a fundraising contest/fun fly.
Pick one of your events this year and announce that all proceeds will go to supporting the USA F3J Team. Instead of asking for an entry fee, ask for a donation for the team. Most people are generous by nature and will give more than they would expect to pay for an entry fee. Or consider putting a new event on your calendar – The Team USA Fun Fly. The fun fly can be a contest consisting fun tasks. Here are some ideas (this works best if pilots are required to flly the same plane for all the tasks):
• The longest hand-toss (distance): no thermal turns allowed!
• Parachute drop: closest parachute landing to the groundside line wins
• V-landing: Pilot stands at the pointy end of a skinny V marked on the ground – closest landing to the point of the V wins, but landing with the nose outside the V earns a zero
• The longest inverted flight or most loops off a single launch
• Un-timed 3 minute precision, answering three trivia questions while flying for bonus points (timer has a stopwatch on the flight but asks the trivia questions instead of reading off times)
These tasks have been used by the Portland Area Sailplane Society for fundraising events. For more information contact Gordon Buckland at gordon@teamusaf3j.com
Do you have questions or suggestions? Please contact Gordon at gordon@teamusaf3j.com