'80 Sportfire for Charity - New topic

[Matt]

To summarize the previous topic, I'm starting a new one. Here is where we are at:

We have a complete 1980 Sportfire ready for rebuild & restoration. PJ has offered to restore it for us, donating his time, and any parts he has on his parts machines.

We will be taking donations of needed parts, and money to pay for the sled, parts, paint & supplies.

We will auction it off at the 2010 Snowmobile Hall of Fame Ride with the Champs dinner. All proceeds from the auction, and any money that may be left over from donations, will be split in half. Half goes to the Snowmobile Hall of Fame, and the other Half goes to the Susan G. Koman foundation, which supports breast cancer research. This is a favorite charity of the Carlson family. We could also have one of the ETD guys ride it that day, and have the "Champs" of the event and/or ETD guys sign the sled (or maybe a large print photo of the sled).

Here are some other ideas that JRC has suggested that I'd like input on:
#1: A t-shirt promoting the event. Proceeds from the sale of the shirts both online and at the Hall of Fame would also go in to the charity pool. Does anyone have a connection with a t-shirt printing company, or someone who could do graphics design for the shirt?

#2: Participants could find "sponsors" to donate a dollar amount per mile ridden at the ride with the champs, similar to what people do at benefit walk/runs. I have no idea how events like that are run, so if anyone knows how that works, let me know.

[WinnipegStPaul9]

All good Matt. I might suggest that we find a "major" sponsor for the T-shirts. That way, all proceeds become profit. Any "major" sponsors lurking out there? I'd start with 100 T-shirts and expand from there. I'd bet everyone of us have a vendor in their community so we should be able to get a competitive price. My last suggestion is that the shirt be high quality. I still have and wear frequently my Hay Days shirt from 2007 and it's still in great shape. Grant Nelson, if you're reading this, could you sort of be our PR person. Your writings are outstanding and we'll need someone to produce press releases, etc. Just some more ideas..DA

[pjr]

Matt~
I might be able to help with both questions, as we purchase our T-shirts form these guys and I've done a "bike-a-thon" in the past where we raised money for St. Jude...

1. Check out this website: http://www.customink.com/ We use these guys to purchase our business promo stuff from, where they are easy to deal with and have good prices. The really cool thing about their website is that they allow the user/buyer to design your own T-shirt right on their website first, that way you can dial-in what you want first, so you know what it's going to look like before buying. Pretty trick, easy to use and they are nice folks. You might even try to solicit them directly for partial/all sponsorship


2. The "bike-a-thon" I participated in a while back used a "donation-per-mile" format to raise funds for the charity, where it worked pretty neat, was easy to do and went without a hitch. Here's how it worked and I'll change it's design in a "snowmobile rider" format to make it easier to understand.

2a. Each rider is given a "pledge sheet" that has the name of that rider, along with their given participant number; written across the top for sheet for identification. The pledge sheet has many columns across it that has the printed name of the sponsor, how much the sponsor wants to pledge per mile, the signed name of the sponsor and the date signed. This info is the "written" authorization of the sponsor for the funds-per-mile to be pledged after the ride is complete.

2b. The rider takes this pledge sheet to everyone he/she knows to get them to sign up and donate whatever amount of money they wish per mile. This can be 1 cent or one million dollars per mile...it's entirely up the the sponsor on how much they give. Then the rider takes this pledge sheet and writes down the beginning odometer reading of their sled before they begin as a reference point, signs it off as accurate and hands the completed pledge sheet to the organizer of the event so they can keep track of them.

2c. After the event, the organizer takes the ending odometer reading from everyone's sled who participated, writes that number down on each respective rider's pledge sheet and signs off on it. From there, the rider then tallies up the "donation-per-mile" amount each sponsor authorized to donate to find their total donation amount. (I.E. if you sponsored $1.00 per mile and you rode 10 miles, your total donation would be $10.00) The rider then takes the tallied sheet to their sponsor, shows them what they've accomplished and collects the total money donated for that respective sponsor, for which the rider will turn back in to the charity fund. Each sponsors usually get something in return for helping out; like a sticker, food coupon or something as appreciation for donating, plus they can use it as a receipt for charitable donation tax write-off purposes. In other words~ give them a receipt of *some kind* when you take cash, just to eliminate any possible chance of confusion later on.


That's how it works folks! It may sound complicated, but it really isn't because it keeps everyone honest with all the signatures, it's fun to do for the sponsor as well as the rider and it makes good money for the charity!

Hope that helps.


pj

[Matt]

Thanks for the explanation PJ.

It sounds like the donation-per-mile idea is pretty straight forward, but it would require someones attention on an already busy, full-schedule day, plus the lead-up work of getting the info out to everyone, and the post-event work of collecting the donations. If someone wants to take this on, they should probably contact Loren and work with him to make it happen. It's not something I'm going to get involved in.

[grantnelson00]

I would be happy to do press releases! I have some experience with doing press releases for small towns trying to get into the Minnesota Tourism booklet. I just need a few headlines and I can interview (via email or phone) to flesh out whatever we want to say.
Please email me at grantnelson@gvtel.com with anything you want written up as it is spring and I check my email more often than the jdsleds website (although I will make up for that this winter)

Thanks again for asking me to do this, Don.
Grant

[WinnipegStPaul9]

Update: 6/1/09 The seller of the Sportfire and I have been trying to get together to arrange pickup or delivery of the sled. While the sled is from Ortonville, MI, the owner is traveling this weekend to Huntington, Indiana which is very near me. However, his travel plans and my available time have been a problem. Cam graduates Friday night at the same time as he can meet me. He also offered to let me come to Huntington on Saturday but again, my Saturday is pretty full. Top all this off with the fact that my mother-in-law's funeral is today and danged........I'm busy!! I think I'll email PJ and see if he's available to meet and pickup the sled. While I wasn't going to pay until I saw it I may have to Paypal him now. I'll let you know and post pictures as soon as I can. DA

[JD600]

DA and PJ,

Thanks for all the time and money you have put into this little project. Sorry to hear about your mother-in-law.

DE

[WinnipegStPaul9]

The "Charity" sled is sitting in the bed of my truck! It's pretty solid but will need most of the normal items for great restoration job. In a few days I'll start taking pictures of it and post needed items. DA

[WinnipegStPaul9]

Here are a few pictures. I have a total of 48 pictures at this time. I know there's a way to post them to a place like photobucket ( I have an account there) but I don't know how to post them so everyone can see them. Anyone?

Grant Nelson we need to talk about producing a piece that we can use for "corporate sponsorship". You can email me at bison1112002@yahoo.com or give me a call at 260-609-2833.

Here's my funny story of the day: After unloading the sled I wondered if the engine was stuck or not. Now this sled has obviously sat inside for sometime, hence the bird doo-doo. I thought if the engine isn't stuck then at least I can get a baseline check of compression. Here's what I learned......................the kill switch does NOT work because the engine started on the FIRST pull and I had to use the key to shut if off!!!!!!!!! I was so surprised that I forgot then to check compression!!!!

Oh, another good thing (don't worry I'll have plenty of bad news I'm sure). The suspension is working very well and has a goodly amount of travel.

I feel that we really have a nice piece start with. We need to decide the following: Are we going to use only NOS parts to restore this sled or not? Is our goal to restore the sled to "factory" build or more of a restoration??


DA

[WinnipegStPaul9]

Sorry, I forgot to mention that it's in our best interest to get this sled done as soon as possible. It should appear at as many shows as we can get it to so that our project receives much needed publicity. The more publicity it receives, the more corporate help we can get. The Klotz headquarters is located a few miles from my home. I'd like to see if they would help by donating some oil that would in turn be added to the sled when auctioned off. We need the help of any and all snowmobile vendors that could help us and vice versa. DA

[JD600]

DA,

It would be awesome if the entire sled could be reconstructed with NOS parts if possible. The only problem with that is that the paint, no matter how close a match it is, is still not Deere paint. Just my $.02. Looks like a good start!

DE

[WinnipegStPaul9]

This morning while starting the tear down process, I checked compression. There is 145psi on BOTH sides. Looks like no issues there. I will continue to take pictures during the tear down, tag parts,and bag parts. Soon I will be posting items that we'll need during rebuild. I will tell you that a new NOS hood without decals would be great and of course a new windsheild ( Jeff???). I would like to use the lower profile style but will go along with your wishes for clear or smoked. Stay tuned. Oh, I know that there are some out there that want to donate parts, etc but do it anonomously. If that's the case they can contact me directly at bison1112002@yahoo.com. We are definately going to need cash donations but those will go through Matt. Contact him directly.

[WinnipegStPaul9]

It just dawned on me that I don't have a service manual for the Sportfire. Does anyone have one and be willing to loan it to me for the duration of the build? DA

[JDT]

WoW Don, I hope Mr Deere does not see this post . He will be all over you!

[webman]

I have one on vintagesnow.com if you can't find one.