Fund Raising Idea

[Jill]

There's a thread on the main board now about minis doing tricks.

I have always wanted to teach my horses to do tricks and so far, only taught one trick to one horse (kiss trick) and that was about 10 years ago. I even bought a book about trick training last year, but never really looked at it hard. It is for all size horses, not mini specific (and I know the fundamentals must be the same).

It seems like a lot of members have taught their horses to do tricks from the thread on the main board.

I wonder if these people would be willing to "donate" information about how they taught the tricks and pictures of the tricks, then the rescue could sell it in book / booklet form?

For sure, this is something I'd like to buy

Of course, I have no idea what goes into getting something like that started or printed but it is something that would appeal to me to purchase and probably many other people, too.

 

[AppyLover2]

I'd definitely be interested in buying something like that!!

 

[TinyMiteVillage]

I think that is a great idea or if we could a calendar of the rescues to date we have helped........... I would buy a book on mini tricks..........I have that trick book you are talking about and it is great, but I think one geared for minis would be super...........

My son has been working with his mini, Cinammon (which he bought from our wonderful and my awesome friend Ginny), but he has taught her to walk up and down steps, and is in the process of teaching her to drive with a makeshift harness.........he works with her everyday............Thanks again Ginny!!!!!

I think it would be great to do a fundraiser in February and call it "Sweetheart's For A Cause" and have that be one of our fundraisers. I think it would work what do ya'll think.

 

[rabbitsfizz]

Hmmm....could we perhaps set some ground rules here??? How about "no use or usage of leg ropes. All horses MUST be very willing participants in all exercises??" Some of our younger members would appear to use some rather questionable methods to attain a moment of glory. Some others may be eager to try.

 

[kaykay]

I just love it when people brainstorm!!! Thank you so much Jill for starting this thread. we really do need a spring fund raiser. right now the thanksgiving fundraiser is our biggest but as we can see this year its a rough time of year especially after the hurricanes.

I do forsee a few problems with a trick training book. We have to be so careful of anything CMHR publishes or endorses as different people see things very differently. But im open to it as long as the training methods are humane and in keeping with building a trusting relationship with your horse. NOT force training etc.

Id also LOVE to get a calender done. We have tried twice to get that off the ground and failed both times. It is a HUGE amount of work to put together a calender. Most of the work is selling advertising space on the calender etc. I have even thought of trying to do a calender with NO advertising sold on it-- as this would really simplify it BUT if you dont sell space it costs a fortune to print. So then you have a calender that has to sell for 20.00 plus shipping and im afraid most people wont spend that on a calender.

PLEASE give me all your ideas!! we could really use the help

Kay

 

[minimomNC]

Our club is doing a calendar now, just waiting on the last pages so it can go to the printer tomorrow. We put it together in two weeks and boy it is alot of work for the ones doing the pages. But we sold each month to a farm for $75. That pays for most of the calendars and we are selling them for $15. We are only starting with 100 because we don't want more than we can sell, but so far response is very good. If we need more, he will do them for the same price. The calendar will be on card stock paper and will be in full color. We will also have them back for Christmas. Actually selling the pages was the easy part. Once you get the first ones sold it will pay for more to be made. But you will make a profit on them.

Auction the pages off by month. Highest bidder gets that month. Start now and it will be ready for next year.

 

[Jill]

For what it is worth, I would buy a page in each calendar I'm sure, and the price of $75/page is actually tremendously less than I thought it would be. See, Karen, ya'll could have sold me one for 4x what you got!!!!

Yep, there IS a sucker born every minute

I love to think of ways to market. In my profession, everything I do for advertising requires compliance review, possibly NASD filing, and disclosures a mile long. So, this kind of thing really strikes my creative interest!

As for the trick training, yes, that is true the techniques would have to be humane. I guess because of how I treat my horses, it really didn't even occur to me to use forced techniques (sp?), but I should have realized that some people (some unknowingly) would use forceful or unhumane techniques. But, of course, you'd be selective in what was included in the book. I think there is an opportunity here to put out a product with fairly wide appeal / demand. If done correctly, the trick training should very much build the horse / human relationship.

 

[rabbitsfizz]

I think the calendar and you could sell not only each month but also front and back covers- extra?? and front and back inside- those could have pretty much whatever anyone wanted to say about their farm on them as they would not really be limited for space- not like each month that would have to follow a strict format.

The one thing that bothered me about the trick thing- and I do not like tricks, I have to say, is that in at least three cases fairly newly posted, (youth members) there have been leg ropes either attached or quite obvious, on the ground. The horses, in at least one case, looked decidedly unhappy. Since I have already said this to the people concerned I feel happy about openly stating my reservations.

Now....if it were to be something like "Teach your Mini tricks that s.he wants to do" That I could live with, even though I do not like "tricks".

 

[kaykay]

heres the problem we ran into selling advertising space. the printer was VERY specific about how the ads had to be etc. So we sold some spaces and then the farms would send pics/ads that did not meet the printers specifications etc. It turned into a nightmare very quick so we refunded the money we took in for ads and scrapped it. Also the printer we were working with would not print 100. I believe the minimum was 500.00

Another problem we had was having good pictures of rescues. I felt that each month should have a rescue pictured on it but unfortunately most of the pics we have are not good enough quality to print. Keep in mind alot of our rescues go to various foster farms across the us and very few people know how to take a good quality pic of a horse. Soooo we then were going to sell the monthly pictures to diff farms and that is where disaster struck. No one would send their monthly pic in the format that the printer stated.

So if anyone knows a better way PLEASE tell me!!!

 

[TinyMiteVillage]

I think a February fundraiser would be good also........centered around Valentines Day.........originally I said call it "Sweethearts For A Cause" but I think something like "Sweetfunds for Our Minis" .............I don't know center the wording around the Sweetheart and Minis..............

As far as the calendar maybe Jill could help with the printer she has.......