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Hello Everyone, Perhaps I should give you a little background on me. I am Meg Duggan, I am the Executive Director of the Parkinson Association of Greater Kansas City which is one of the largest chapters of NPF - however, for about 10 years we have had our own 501c3 and do all of our own programs, services, advocacy and fundraising. I am in the game because my sister, Cindy, was diagnosed in her late 30's. I am all about Parkinson's-just ask my husband... Though I love to do programmatic and advocacy stuff, my job has morphed into lots of special event planning and fundraising, I guess because I am good at it. I also firmly believe that we need money to do nearly every important job ahead of us, and that raising money is an excellent way to raise our overall profile. I have been on board for 3 years and have quadrupled our operating budget. I oversee 5 major events per year, without a development office, but with a decent budget and lots of fabulous volunteers. I have plenty of time and energy to devote to another project. I know that NPF/TPF is interested in developing a signature, national event. I also know that they have a lot on their plates, and that if we bring them something already conceived and formed, we will have their attention. I think it is important to have at least one of the nationals at our backs so we can seek national sponsorships and media coverage. What I envision is a walk that is national in scope and local in process. Perhaps all these walks take place on the day of the Unity Walk - perhaps we call it the National Unity Walk. Maybe then everyone could get involved; APDA, NPF, Parkinson Alliance etc. I think we need to send out, to every support group and every chapter, a basic template for holding a walk/run. The national entities/sponsors could use their considerable power to design locally imprintable entry forms, race numbers and T-shirts. We all decide on a a single name and date (difficult due to varying weather conditions, but really a must). Each local group finds their own sponsors for water, food, race timing, T-shirts - most of the associated hard goods, etc., with the help of our template. The template also covers things like insurance binders, an event timeline, number and use of volunteers, stuff like that. Working in concert with the national group, we all harass our local media for coverage. If there are, and I think there are, currently 100 different groups each having a PD related walk/run, my suggestion is that we simply run under the same name and with the same colors and logos. I don't even care who gets the proceeds, let APDA chapters support APDA, NPF NPF, locals keep the money for programs and services. Maybe we all just say "Raising money for education, services and to find the cure for PD." I just know that if we all band together we can make a MUCH bigger impact on a national scale. God knows, we need to make some noise! We have been planning to do this same thing, on a much different scale, in our own catchment area next spring. We plan to supply our 36 support groups with imprintable brochures, T's and a template and hold "our" 5K (Race to Planet Cure - don't ask) all across Kansas and Missouri. Our plan is to let each support group keep their proceeds, we will do the sponsorship spade work to ensure that their costs are borne, in the main, by us. We are talking about maybe 500 people in Kansas City, 100 people in Manhattan Kansas, 30 people in one place, 5 or 10 people in smaller, rural areas. Maybe the whole thing raises $25,000 -- maybe twice that. Who cares? The point is to develop some cohesion, unity, strength in each other. The longest journey, you know. I see this an eminently doable...get a national on board, let them develop national sponsors (an airline, Walmart, etc.), get our "how to" template written and distributed, pick a date, name, logo..., get our national to design and make available and downloadable, printable brochure, race forms, T shirt slicks. Get Hallmark to donate a couple thousand somethings for a certain level of pledges, get Walmart to donate a few thousand something elses for a different level. Look at the Memory Walk, they have really marginal stuff and no one seems to mind! I think we could hold our first event early in 2004 - and generate some press and excitement in 2003 during the planning stages. Anybody want to try this approach? Feedback please! Thanks, Meg ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn