Poll - Vote for what Charity we donate to this year

[alpslapper]

xrv_jim is taking the lead on designing the flyer that will be used for the Picture Rally. We need to include the Charity we will be supporting. This will also be included in all the Picture Rally literature and application forms. So obviously we need to agree this one asap.

The poll will run until the 20th March. This gives a little more than 3 weeks for people to get voting.

Obviously all are good causes and we would love to support them all but the one with the most votes at midnight on the 20th of March will be this years nominated charity. I'd also like the charity to be connected in some way to a member or members of the site. So with that in mind there's three to vote on and an option to nominate your own charity. If you do click 'other' please please please remember to state what charity you have in mind.

The 3 Charities on the board are

The Link Family and Community Centre

The Devon Air Ambulance Trust

Pink Way Round - Breast Cancer Charities

Other

[piguglyshandydrinker]

I voted 'other' - how about Cancer Research....

Most of us have known someone that has suffered due to this dreadful illness.

Phil

[Whealie]

What about a charity more motorbike related? There's that one that sends bikes to Africa that Miss P was doing (www.rideafrica.co.uk), for example.
I think the big charities - breast cancer, heart disease etc - have their own events so we should avoid those.
I'm personally opposed to any charity that hires those charity muggers in London who try to get you to sign a direct debit and are rude to you if you refuse, yet are paid mercenaries one day for one charity and another for the next.
There's also road safety charity Brake (http://www.brake.org.uk/), which is a possibility. I knew the woman who set that up after a lorry fell on her mum's car, killing her.
I think we shoud scrap this voting now (sorry Alpslapper) and have a discussion first about the sorts of charities we want on the short list. We also need to know a bit more about them to be able to make a decision.
Otherwise the winner will be "Other" and that isn't going to help.
nb. I chair a charity myself - my union's charity to help widows, orphans and members in need - which means I make a lot of decisions about buying wheelchairs and beds and helping families fleeing domestic violence or facing eviction etc, as well as issues of fundraising. I'm not suggesting it as a benficiary I just think we've gone for headline charities and not thought through how our site might be better linked with a more appropriate charity.
The Charity Commission lists motorcycle charities here:
http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/...a=K&area_of_op=
:
The charities ainclude these:
BIRSTALL URBAN MOTORCYCLE PROJECT FOR YOUTH LIMITED
KICKSTART MOTORCYCLE PROJECT LIMITED
MAG FOUNDATION LIMITED
MOTORCYCLE OUTREACH LIMITED - http://www.motorcycleoutreach.org/
NORFOLK MOTORCYCLE MUSEUM
THE BRITISH MOTORCYCLE CHARITABLE TRUST
THE MARTLETS MOTORCYCLE PROJECT

[Xander]

I think we should make it a motorcycle charity (that is why i suggested the air ambulance) .... But yeah lets talk about things a bit more...

[Simon]

i vote for the LINK

[squirrelciv]

Riders for health for me please Did an end2end run for them last year. Bike related, and a worthy cause. I know it's not a 'home based' charity, but we are soooo much better off than those in Africa. Bottom line, who ever gets our dough will deserve it

[boboneleg]

I would like to see NABD up there. They get disabled bikers back on the road, how would you feel if you had an accident through no fault of your own and it threatened your chances of riding your bike ?

http://www.nabd.org.uk/

cheers, Bob.

[alpslapper]

The reason I put those 3 particular charities up is because we currently have 3 people from here directly associated with them in the form of actively trying to raise sponsorship at this moment in time. I felt we could back them up with any money raised from the picture rally, and let the board decide who we nominate via a poll.

The 'others' can be simply added up and if an 'other' has more votes than one of the named three then thats who we support this year. So if people feel it should be for example the youth bike project then simply name that project and we'll count the votes on the 20th March.

As I said theres no question that all three are extremely worthy causes. All the others we could mention are also doubtless equally as worthy. There will always be the debate of better known versus lesser known charities.

Another key reason for choosing the current 3 that are on the board is time. We don't have it on our side this year. We need to get things organised and ready for May so don't have the luxury to debate things at length for weeks.

I'm hoping that if this year works out we can make it an annual event, have a proper committee set up that will research charities to be associated with and be able to leave a poll up and running for a few months before the event next year so things will be much more unrushed and democratic.

I'm just concerned about the amount of work we need to get done and the time this will take if we're going to make a decent go of this.

Hence taking the rather expedient line of looking at the charities people are currently trying to raise money for and polling for them.

I'm more than happy to scrap the poll and debate this further if people feel this needs to be done - my fear is we'll still be discussing the pro's and con's of each charity on Christmas Day never having finally reached a decision at all.

This year is a bit unusual in that time is against us and we simply WONT be able to run this with the attention to detail that we'd want but if we make a success of this, and run it as an annual event then from next year on we'll be on top of our game for sure

[Sharribee]

I'm sorry alpslapper but I've put other as well, only because I have 2 charities that I do alot of work for and I know breast cancer care is well supported, my other charity is mountain rescue which recieves no government funding in England and Wales and in particular the team which i am a member because we are a really good rescue team. So my vote would go there Western Beacons mountain rescue team (and we pick up of roaders when they are injured so sort of motorbike related in a round about way)

[alpslapper]

Don't say sorry - That's what 'Other' is for

PLease remember to Name the Charity if you tick Other as we'll need to add these up at the end of the Poll.