We’ve got two great things to announce! A big hand-over of money to the LAA which all helped raise, now that we’ve got all the money together that was owed, and the formation of a new LB aspect, the Charity Council! On top of that is a break-down of our past charity efforts to ensure transparency for previous efforts.LAA CHARITY MONEY HAND-OVER
As you should know, for the 2007 Christmas LB Party we held the brilliant Mystery Auction (a special thanks goes out to our sponsors on the night for the item donations) and members Ben & Terry did their own fund-raiser effort by dressing up as christmas characters on the night. We can’t thank those who contributed to this enough, you’ve outdone yourselves! These two events have raised a great amount, a whopping £2699.50. On top of this we also have charity money from previous efforts to hand-over, bringing the total we’re proud to present to the LAA next week to a fantastic:
£3024.85!
HAND-OVER EVENING - COME ALONG!
We’ll be having the official hand-over of the money at next week’s Borough Market LB Meet. This is on the 27th. We invite everyone to come down and meet the LAA crew, who will be attending with their super-fast bike and car response vehicles. As we all helped raise this amount, we think it only right that you be a part of the hand-over and be there to get in the photos/video. The hand-over will take place at about 8pm.
A huge thank-you goes to everyone who pledged to this total, you’ve allowed us to up our game and help out the brilliant folks at the LAA do their job. If you’re not sure why the LAA is so vital to us, then go here.
LONDONBIKERS CHARITY COUNCIL FORMATION
As LB grows from a two person operation to a twenty one person operation as it is now, it’s clear we need more help to achieve the things we set out to do originally and to take on new projects. One area where we’ve had good intentions before but not had the resource or means to do properly is charity fund-raising. This is clearly something very close to peoples hearts and deserves to be done right.
To this end, we’ve formed a team that will be responsible for all future charity efforts LB and its members undertake. They will have complete autonomy and discretion when it comes to idea creation, planning, excution and administration. They will report only to the core LB team. Funds will be kept kept seperate from the LB accounts and payments will be handled through a third-party charity organisation called just-giving.com. This means complete transparency of the efforts and accounts will be available to all members through a new part of the website that will document all the efforts.
More than this, it means that we’ll actually be able to take on new charity projects more often and get some proper money raised for our official charity, the London Air Ambulance, and also other charities as determined by the Charity Council.
The Charity Council is currently made up by an all-female team as seen below. Please welcome them to their new roles. I can’t wait to see how we do through 2008!
GsxrAngShewoolfSincereTricksie
PAST EFFORTS
We’ve held past charity fund-raising efforts for the LAA, and have not fully documented them on the site as best as we can. At the time this has been due to trying to manage what is essentially a full-time job in our space-time. As LB tries to grows out of its amateur form and into the proffessional organisation is is now, it’s the right thing for us to document those efforts here and explain what happened to them.
21.12.07
Christmas Party Auction + Ben & Terry Dress-Up
http://londonbikers.com/articles/e1f73a06-4d57-48d7-b390-4d0477f198f8
See above.
25.06.07
Breakthrough To Breast Cancer Handover
http://londonbikers.com/news/2fbea15a-2e0e-4da0-b2a3-74eb171cde17
£640 from event, paid.
16.02.07
SMS LAA Donation Line
£22.35
Unpaid - Third-party responsible for money never paid, despite attempts to recover it. Will be paid out of pocket now.
02.12.06
Charity Calendar
£123
Unpaid - Will be paid now.
2006
T-Shirt Charity Donation
£200
Unpaid - Will be paid now.
05.03.06
Christmas Party + Infinity Motorcycles Raffle
http://londonbikers.com/news/cac8d5c7-81e7-444d-b3b0-434a92bf6f58
£140 in party, £148.68 in raffle, £288.68 Total
Paid.
This means £345.35 wasn’t paid before now. The reason for this is simple, clerical error. LB up until recently has been funded entirely out of the pocket of myself. This means that there has been a considerable amount of money going into and out of my personal bank account as we’ve paid for services, products, received money for merchandise, charity efforts and the like. Combine that with a personal life and you’ve got a recipe for an accounting nightmare. I’ll make no excuses for this situation and hold my hand-up to having not addressed this before now. If anyone finds this unacceptable, then all I can do is apologise sincerely. I’ve found it difficult to address everything that LB is involved in. It’s a big operation.
Going forward from here, the unpaid amounts will be paid and the Charity Council will take over all charity efforts and administration, meaning this won’t happen again and we can start to take our charity efforts to the next level and make a real difference for the brilliant charities we pledge to.
The 2007 LB Christmas Party - Awards & Charity Auction
http://londonbikers.com/articles/e1f73a06-4d57-48d7-b390-4d0477f198f8
Full Christmas LB 2007 Party photo-gallery:
http://londonbikers.com/galleries/gallery/203b08b2-6623-4cee-bcb4-0e326255322c
Numpty!