Raffle item letter critique

[reedman]

Alright folks,
Please help me word smith this to best meet our needs. I plan to send this out via e-mail ASAP to all of the vendors on the list that gordon provided. After a few weeks I will followup with phone calls, starting with the bigger companies first. If anyone can recall who was good to us in the past, I would like to move them toward the top of the list as well. This should ensure we get as much as possible for the auction.

___________________
Dear Sir or Madam:

The Puget Sound Aquarium Society is asking for your support in the form of an item or items that we can raffle off at our June Meeting. The proceeds from this auction will allow us to continue to bring in some of the leading speakers in their fields to share their knowledge and experience with us. Some examples of speakers we have had in or will be bringing in are Eric Borneman, Sanjay Joshi, Anthony Calfo, and Charles Delbeek. This also allows the knowledge to be attainable by those who need it most; people new to the hobby.





The Puget Sound Aquarium Society is a non-profit organization, created to provide Seattle and greater Puget Sound saltwater hobbyists an open topic forum in order to learn, to share experiences and to disseminate knowledge.

​

Our club is committed to the preservation of the world's reefs while at the same time maintaining a sustainable hobby. We feel that this is possible through the education of our members on animal husbandry, as well as strongly encouraging coral propagation and aqua culturing of reef animals in the home. This hobby/passion has progressed to the point where, amazingly enough, many of our members have tanks that are literally filled with corals that have never been in the ocean. All were "farmed" by aqua culture facilities, or in most cases propagated by fellow hobbyists in the area.



If you have any questions regarding this enquiry or how you can help the Puget Sound Aquarium Society please feel free to contact me.



Thank you for your support of this great hobby,

Reed A Moss

Vice President – Puget Sound Aquarium Society

[email protected]

253-951-1761

 

[Alice]

Very well worded, Reed.

One thing I always kept in mind when writing these letters was "What's in it for the company making the donation?" Do we offer to put their name on the webiste? On a sign at the auction/raffle? Can they send literature about their company that we can make available to our members? I know these companies don't donate out of the goodness of their hearts, lol.

For all I know, the larger companies may not even read the letters over very well, but instead just take the first X amount of requests received and make their allotted number of donations for the year. Smaller companies though, it may make a difference if they feel they will earn some product/company recognition.

Just something to think about.

 

[mojoreef]

Yea I have to agree with Alice reed, you need to put more in about the donators, brag a bit of the membership, as in over 300 on the list, you can also say that we will advertise thier name and donation of RF, and thats another couple K. Put a little more huuuummppp into what their donation can do for them. Also I believe that a bunch of them donated last time to, make mention of that also.
Dont ask any of RF sponcers for donations, let me take these ones and squeeze them a bit.


Mike

 

[MtnDewMan]

One more comment ...

When saying you will mention it on RF, make sure you mention that your main club forum is on RF and you can get the word out via that route. I would stay away from just globally saying you will announce all on RF as our sponsors may not appreciate that too much.

 

[Alice]

I was thinking more along the lines of mentioning it on the PSAS website....but hey, if you guys wanna offer....

 

[Gordo]

Good letter Reed! Just a couple thoughts that I'll ramble off.

• I might change the line with June meeting to our annual raffle. If I read that the raffle wasn't until June I might not send a item right away.
• It might also be good to include a date that we would like to receive the items by. Maybe 2 months from the date you send it out.
• Do we want to wait until after the holiday rush is over so they might have more time to look at our request? This also may help if they only take so many requests a calendar year.
• Rolling on with Alice's suggestions you could let them know that when raffling off the item we could say "This skimmer was donated to us by Skimmers-R-Us”. Encouraging them send literature about their company will also give them a reason to donate.

As for vendors, Euro-Reef sent us a skimmer for our last auction. If I still have the spreadsheet I’ll email it to you.

 

[Alice]

On the timing of the letters, sooner is better. Many companies assign only so much $ to donations for the year, and once it's gone, it's gone.

 

[Alice]

Oh, and definitely keep a log or spreadsheet on who donated what, who's holding the items and how the items were distributed. I caught a bunch of grief once in PDX because several people didn't remember we had given a donated wet-dry away as a door prize rather than raffling it off.

 

[MtnDewMan]

I was thinking more along the lines of mentioning it on the PSAS website....but hey, if you guys wanna offer....

Definately use the PSAS forum to list out all of the participants. Tough call on any of the general forums. The PSAS site is a definate, now that you have a true domain based web site too.

 

[reedman]

Thanks!

I also think that we should send the e-mails out ASAP and follow up with phone/letters. I am trying to do most of this via e-mail as there is zero cost to the club for that. If we start mailing letters we have the postage expense.

So we're OK posting who is donating what in the PSAS forum here on RF?

Who & what address are we having them send items to? I can have them sent here, but I want everyone to be OK with that before I put the address down in the e-mail/letter.

I've tried tot incorporate everyone's suggestions in the draft below. Fire away again. The better the letter is worded the more we can expect to receive.

____________________
Dear Sir or Madam:

The Puget Sound Aquarium Society is asking for your support in the form of an item or items that we can raffle off at our annual raffle. The proceeds from this raffle will allow us to continue to bring in some of the leading speakers in their fields to share their knowledge and experience with us. Last year this event allowed us to bring in Eric Borneman, Anthony Calfo, and Charles Delbeek. We are hoping to collect any donations on or before the 1st of April to support our event calendar.



In return for your donation we would post your business name and item(s) donated on our website (http://www.thepsas.org/) and in our main club forum located on the Reef Frontiers website (http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=8) . Additionally, if you would like to send any literature on products or your company we would happily hand it out to our membership. As we raffle items off, we announce whom the donation is from and what it is. This is very targeted advertising for your company, as all of the people present at the raffle would be reef tank enthusiasts.



The Puget Sound Aquarium Society is a non-profit organization with 300 members and growing. It was created to provide Seattle and greater Puget Sound saltwater hobbyists an open topic forum in order to learn, to share experiences and to disseminate knowledge.

​

Our club is committed to the preservation of the world's reefs while at the same time maintaining a sustainable hobby. We feel that this is possible through the education of our members on animal husbandry, as well as strongly encouraging coral propagation and aqua culturing of reef animals in the home. This hobby/passion has progressed to the point where, amazingly enough, many of our members have tanks that are literally filled with corals that have never been in the ocean. All were "farmed" by aqua culture facilities, or in most cases propagated by fellow hobbyists in the area.



If you have any questions regarding this enquiry or how you can help the Puget Sound Aquarium Society please feel free to contact me.



Thank you for your support of this great hobby,

Reed A Moss

Vice President – Puget Sound Aquarium Society

[email protected]

253-951-1761

 

[Alice]

I keep coming back to this statement:

This hobby/passion has progressed to the point where, amazingly enough, many of our members have tanks that are literally filled with corals that have never been in the ocean. All were "farmed" by aqua culture facilities, or in most cases propagated by fellow hobbyists in the area.

And while it is true and what I consider a good and remarkable thing....online vendors who want to sell corals may not think so. I'm wondering if it might not put some of them off. What do you all think?

 

[reedman]

Thanks Alice.

I can certainly remove that. It was a pure cut and paste from the PSAS mission statement. I can see where an online vendor selling corals might not htink this is a good thing.

Let's get a majority opinion on this.

 

[mojoreef]

Chuck on the RF and/or psas forums and our sponcer I do plan on hitting them up as well, so I am not to sure it really pertains that much. Since we do announcement for all clubs, do you think it matters to much???


Mike

 

[MtnDewMan]

We really don't have many clubs here on RF, PSAS, an Eastern WA club and now a recent FL club. So not much to announce on that front.

I don't see a problem with a general list of vendors providing goodies, I just don't want it to the point of a message of "advertising" is all. Not all RF sponsors will participate in donating to a localized club and it is their choice to do so, but all of them here on RF pay a sponsor fee and thus we need to have some consideration for that.

 

[mojoreef]

Keep the donators list in the psas forum but, we can announce with a link to it.

Reed make sure when you are telling them about our membership that you include all the floks from oregon, canada and so on that come down to.


Mike

 

[reedman]

Here's the latest. I would like to send this out this week sometime to get vendors to look at is before this tax year is over. Then either right after X-mas or New Years start the cold call follow-up to get what we can out of the vendor pool. Let the suggestions fly...this is my first time doing this, so I really appreiciate the help you all are providing.

______________
Dear Sir or Madam:

The Puget Sound Aquarium Society is asking for your support in the form of an item or items that we can raffle off at our annual raffle. The proceeds from this raffle will allow us to continue to bring in some of the leading speakers in their fields to share their knowledge and experience with us. Last year this event allowed us to bring in Eric Borneman, Anthony Calfo, and Charles Delbeek. We are hoping to collect any donations on or before the 1st of April to support our event calendar.



In return for your donation we would post your business name and item(s) donated on our website (http://www.thepsas.org/) and in our main club forum located on the Reef Frontiers website (http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=8). Additionally, if you would like to send any literature on products or your company we would happily hand it out to our membership. As we raffle items off, we announce whom the donation is from and what it is. This is very targeted advertising for your company, as all of the people present at the raffle would be reef tank enthusiasts.



The Puget Sound Aquarium Society is a non-profit organization with 300 members and growing. It was created to provide Seattle and greater Puget Sound saltwater hobbyists an open topic forum in order to learn, to share experiences and to disseminate knowledge. The club has since grown to have members not only in the Puget Sounds region, but all over Washington State, parts of Canada and Oregon.

​

Our club is committed to the preservation of the world's reefs while at the same time maintaining a sustainable hobby. We feel that this is possible through the education of our members on animal husbandry. This hobby/passion has progressed to the point where, amazingly enough, many of our members have tanks that are literally filled with corals that have never been in the ocean. All were "farmed" by aqua culture facilities, or in some cases propagated by fellow hobbyists in the area.



If you have any questions regarding this enquiry or how you can help the Puget Sound Aquarium Society please feel free to contact me.



Thank you for your support of this great hobby,

Reed A Moss

Vice President – Puget Sound Aquarium Society

[email protected]

253-951-1761

 

[Alice]

Good deal, Reed.

Let me know how I can help.

 

[reedman]

I assume everyone is OK with the letter in it's latest format. I will send this out to the vendor list later this week.

 

[mojoreef]

Looks good Reed except the date, we are shooting for june

Mike

 

[reedman]

I put the April date based on Gordon's input. The idea being we will receive the items early enough to see what we have and if some are a little late getting us stuff we will still have them before June.