Lots of things are underway

(Originally emailed April 3, 2006)

All,

Only April and lots of things are underway in preparation for the 2006 Bike ride. We have 7 riders confirmed already with several new riders verbally committed. We’re off to an amazingly fast start! Feel free to use our new team website to sign up for the team at www.sonicstreamers.org You can click on get involved and follow the join team link which is the second link on that page

First thing to point out are some fundraisers.

Friday April 7th. The Arboretum Music School is putting on a faculty recital at the Waunakee Village Center at 333 South Madison Street, with all proceeds to benefit MS. Dinner is at 6:00PM, recital begins at 7:00PM, cost is $18.00 for adults and $8.00 for children under 12. The dinner will be an Italian theme. Short notice I know so please check your schedules and let me know if you can go. I can get plenty of tickets.

Various – Car washes. Dave Barger has offered to organize car washes to benefit the team which could be allocated specifically to those that work the event. For those of you that need extra help raising donations, this would be a great way to get over the required $300 hurdle. He said they made $500 the last time he was involved in one at a location at a Shell station on University Ave. We could make this a biweekly event from 9 to noon as an example so wouldn’t take up the whole day and could really help out the team. Let me know if you can get involved.

Madison Marathon – Not actually a fundraiser but the organization has asked us as well as other local bike organizations if we could provide bike escorts for the top runners. The event is on Sunday May 28th starting at the Alliant Energy Center. I thought it sounded like a fun way to get involved. Let me know if you’re up for a very slow bike ride with 4,600 runners!

Corporate Sponsorships – The deadline for inclusion on the event wide brochure has past now but there are still society-wide benefit levels available as well as team benefits. We have several companies that have sponsored $1,000 or more to be included on our team jerseys and we still have approximately one month left before I need to order them. Corporations may have more interest this year as a celebrity plans to join us. TV news anchor Leigh Mills of channel 15 in Madison will be joining the team along with some of her friends and plans to do several stories about MS, the ride and her preparations for it. I’m sure she’ll be sporting her team jersey full of corporate logos in at least a few of these stories. Let me know if you have any ideas of corporations we should approach or need any help. This can be a very easy way to raise significant amounts for MS so please give it some thought.

More to come….

Ken