The highs and lows of planning a fundraising party

Wednesday night was the night, people dressed up as their favourite children’s book character (see below for some pictures), prizes were won and fun and merriment was had by all. It was also one of the most rewarding nights of my life. I had helped plan this; I had helped raise over £300 for charity, not bad for one night!

The party planners

 

Even though the night itself was a success there were hard times along the way, it was not as easy as we made it look on the night! Trying to get people to donate food and prizes, even for a charity event, is difficult. Quite a few larger companies have a designated cause and won’t donate to other charities. About 50% of people approached didn’t respond, while I knew from the start that not everyone would be willing to donate something it was so disheartening to get rejection after rejection. None of the cake companies that I approached were willing to donate anything, however, when I started looking at family and friends I managed to get a few good prizes, success at last! (see below for a selected list of sponsors) When the whole planning group put all of the prizes together on the prize table it was actually really full.

'Cruella' winner of the fancy dress competition receiving her prize

 

Here is a selection of generous sponsors:

Lily Oak

Kirsty Ferry

The Front Room

Aubergine Hairdressing

 

Things learnt for future fundraising parties-

• Be aware that while the cause is important to you it’s not necessarily important to potential sponsors
• There are highs and lows, prepare for some stress outs
• Get a good team of people to plan the event
• Have a good theme, children’s book characters is a good one as you can create a good costume with minimal effort, or for the more creative types you can go all out
• Start planning well in advance and have regular meetings to discuss progress
• Get a good venue, the function room we used was long and thin(ish) with it’s own bar so drinks were handy and the shape of the room meant people could cluster in groups without the room looking empty, and most importantly it was free!
• Have a flexible timetable with events planned, for example, we had a guess the number of sweets in the jar which was a good icebreaker as someone went round all the tables asking people, a quiz and a raffle

The 'Wallies'

 

Library or hospitality business???

Today I attended yet another training seesion which was originally designed for the hospitality/tourism sector. This is just one of a series, first it was Welcome Host which is customer service training aimed at the tourism sector. Described as mandatory training as part of my libraries bid for Customer Service Excellence I was a bit apprehensive about sitting through yet another training session telling me how to be good at my job which I had been doing for 5 years at that time. However, this was a bit different, it covered things such as body language and emphasised the importance of this rather than just what you say, it was more holistic than other training sessions I have been on.

This was shortly followed by Welcome All, this is a follow up to Welcome Host but focuses on disabled users. Again this was aimed at the tourism sector but was mandatory training. This didn't really cover anything new, the only newish thing about it was that there was the opportunity to see things how visually impaired people saw things by way of glasses which changed our vision to fit the different types of visual impairment, for example, tunnel vision.

Today it was roving training, my library is following the trend of taking the service out to users rather than forcing them to come to the enquiries desk. This training was aimed at the hospitality sector but tailored to suit library needs. I have never 'roved' before but am looking forwards to starting. The session itself was interesting, but again highlighted the shift away from the traditional library.

I personally love the 'traditional' library with books from floor to ceiling on wooden shelves with moving ladders, the stereotypical librarian perched on a seat behind a tall desk who knows everything about everything and total silence. This is my dream place, however, it is just a dream. As a job I don't think it would be the sort of place I would enjoy working at, I like being approachable, I like talking to people, while I like silence on the silence floors the whole building shouldn't be silent.

Now there is more emphasis on being customer friendly, the students are no longer students who come to find knowledge, they are customers. They must be treated differently, we should approach them rather than wait for them to approach us. The librarians no longer rule the library the students have significant input into how they want their service to be run and what to include. We have a Facebook page and Twitter account to communicate with the customers using media they want to use rather than using notices only in the building itself or an email to their student email accounts. Now with the students paying even more to come to university there will be even more focus on how to help them, hence the roving service, and what they want out of the service rather than the library simply telling them what was available.

Whilst there does need to be a balance between staff and student input it can only be a be a good thing to listen to the students, they have always been vocal about telling us what they want, what they like and what they don't like. At my library the students were vocal about wanting the library shop open whenever the library was open, this happened, along with an increase in catering facilities provided. Perhaps treating the library more like a hospitality business is the way to contact with customers which, in reality, is the only way a business will thrive.


(picture from www.english.heacademy.ac.uk)

Experience through Volunteering

Months between posts then 2 in the same day!!

I have always preached about the value of volunteering, you can learn so much by simply donating your time. It doesn't cost you anything and you gain so much, plus, you don't have to go through the dreaded interview, there is no wrong.

The latest voluntary thing I'm doing is helping to arrange a fundraising party through CDG. What I have gained through this-

• Project working - my job does not involve any sort of projects, despite repeatedly asking to be picked for projects I have yet to see my name come out of the hat. I now have experience of working as part of a project team.
• Liaising - while I do some liaising as part of my job and through CDG as Website Officer I am now developing my liaison skills, especially important when you're trying to get freebies as prizes!!
• Time management skills - I am helping to organise a party, a raffle, do my job and have recently moved into a flat which needs gutted, it would have been impossible without good time management skills.
• Networking - again, it is often overlooked but I have worked with people I would not normally even meet so it's been interesting.
• Advertising/publicity - I have helped to advertise this event by creating a Facebook event and promoting it on CDG event pages.

I have gained and developed valuable skills through something which I am actually enjoying doing, organising a children's book themed fundraising party, how many people can actually say they developed professionally by doing fun activities? My advice, if you haven't already tried it, sign up to a voluntary group and get involved, especially if you're in a situation where you feel you have done as much as you can within the confines of your job. Your time will be appreciated.

Organisation restructure - opportunity knocks?

It's been a while since my last post, mainly because nothing has changed or struck me as worth writing about after 23 Things. Now a restructure has dropped a fantastic opportunity at my feet, finally a chance for more personal and professional development!!

I've reached the stage where I have done all the training offered by HR, I have done the MSc and updated my training every year, jumping on any new training sessions offered in-house. I am now suitably qualified for a higher position, however, despite getting close at interviews I have not yet had that life changing phonecall to say 'Becky you got the job, when can you start?' So needless to say when the emails started going round saying there was a restructure and the circulation team (my current team) would be merging with the enquiry team I leapt at the opportunity to expand my experience.

To date I have attended a number of 'training' sessions which are more like an overview of what the enquiry team does now and what I will do at a future date. My advice, for all it's not an actual training session, go on as many as possible because you learn things that you did not know, even if it's just a chance to talk to someone you wouldn't normally get to talk to, it's an opportunity to network.

Instead of just dealing with basic library tasks such as issuing/discharging/fines/reservations etc I will be doing 'quick and easy' IT queries, learner enquiries and basically feeling much more useful to customers by not having to refer them to a different department on a different floor. While it will only be lower level enquiries that I deal with it is still an opportunity to expand my knowledge, an opportunity I'm grabbing with both hands.

Personally, I can't wait to start the training and actually do new things, while it will be challenging to start with as new people get used to working with eachother and we have new tasks to learn overall it's definitely an opportunity to be taken advantage of. Of course there are the change-fearing 'moaners' to contend with but how often do things stay the same? If things always stayed the same we'd be living in caves, cold caves, because man hadn't invented fire (that was a welcome development!). We would be stuck walking everywhere because people hadn't embraced the developments the invention of the wheel brought. Wait until you've tried it before you moan.