Relay For Life - August E-news

Here is the latest installment of Relay For Life E-news, good to see that there is movement on a good number of the issues that we raised with the management group. We need to make sure that we maximise any opportunities mentioned here for our respective areas. Happy reading.

Please remember that if you need to communicate directly with Anthony or any of the other CCV staff please include myself as a cc on your note so l am aware of any issues or requests that are being made. In most cases approaches to the CCV should be made through myself or Rod Ryan (Regional Co-ordinator) Rodney.Ryan@cancervic.org.au= . This will save the CCV staff from being flooded with 1000's of queries from 100's of committee persons.

----- Original Message -----

From: Anthony Keogh

Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2006 6:52 PM

Subject: Relay For Life - August E-news

Hello and welcome to this edition of Relay For Life e-news. With second season Relay events just around the corner many preparations are now in full swing. The following established events are presently being organised for second season and include:

In second season we also look forward to re-establishing our Healesville event, which was last held in February 2004. This season also marks the merging of two events - Frankston and Mornington (Rosebud) with a new venue and new committee planning this combined event in the township of Mornington.

In addition to these events our Relay staff have been working hard to activate local communities in the following areas to establish new events, including:

2006 Relay For Life State Conference - Saturday 2^nd September 2006
Invitations are currently being printed for our annual State Conference, which is again to be held at the VicHealth building (Pelham Street, Carlton.) With many new committees on board in 2006 and some incredible achievements and milestones to be celebrated from second season 2005 and first season 2006, we look forward to a very enjoyable and valuable day.

Ideally two to three representatives from each committee will attend and accommodation will be available for those committee members needing to travel significant distances.

Weekly Team Update Reports
All second season event committees as well as first season event (2007) committees with at least one registered team, should now be receiving the new and improved weekly team update reports.

The new report format is easier to read and includes additional columns of information as well as listing the last-to-be-received registration last on the report. Importantly, from an administrative perspective the new report format significantly reduces the time taken to generate these reports, thereby allowing Relay administration staff to deal with other Relay matters.

Weekly update reports are produced on a Wednesday afternoon and it is the task of your Relay Coordinator to send these to you (via e-mail) by Thursday lunchtime (or a mutually agreed time.) Please contact your Relay Coordinator if you require additional update reports or have specific delivery requirements of these reports.

Team Registrations
Currently all team registrations and kit dispatches are being processed in a 5-day turnaround time or less. With a number of process improvements recently implemented, I expect this turnaround time to continue and will endeavour to inform Chairmanagers of any arising issues that may impact upon this.

As committee members are usually the first to be notified of any registration or kit delivery delays, I would appreciate your feedback concerning any of these matters directly. You may telephone me on 9635 5463 during work hours or 0414 189 494 at other times.

Relay For Life Website
The RFL website has been a source of frustration for committees and registering teams as well as staff. Whilst a number of stopgap measures have been implemented to address the individual issues as they arise, problems are still being experienced.

All known problems with the website have now been tabled with the web managers and have now been given appropriate priority to ensure adequate solutions are quickly implemented. I anticipate most of the issues to be addressed by the end of next week, with a report on the status of each issue to be received shortly.

PR & Media Support
I am pleased to advise that PR staff of The Cancer Council Victoria will be increasing their support of Relay events for this coming season and all committees will receive direct input and assistance from these staff.

However, because the PR staff support a number of TCCV fundraising programs, PR hours are a finite resource. In order to maximise outcomes resulting from available PR hours, we have assigned PR priority to various events, based on their need for assistance in attracting local media attention. High and medium priority events generally include new events as well as metro-based events where the likelihood of receiving print or electronic media attention is low, as well as events where no dedicated committee PR person is available. Lower priority events for PR support are those events with a history of attracting significant positive attention through their locally based print or radio media partner.

Some of the PR & Marketing initiatives for second season 2006 and first season 2007 include the following:
Print Filler Ads - being created for all events and distributed to local media by our PR Department. Specific event details are included for regional events, whilst generic information is included on the metro-based advertisements (a metro media reaches potential participants for multiple upcoming Relay events.) Copies will be available upon request. Filler ads are unpaid advertising placement, so placement is at the discretion of the newspaper, and cannot be guaranteed.

Radio CSA (Community Service Announcements) - being created for all events and distributed by our PR Department. Specific event details are included for regional events, whilst generic information is included on the metro-based advertisements. Radio CSAs are unpaid advertising, so placement is at the discretion of the station, and cannot be guaranteed. (Copies will be available upon request.)

TV CSA - via Prime TV: Regional television viewers can expect to see their events promoted through Prime TV as we continue our partnership with Prime to provide support in this regard. As we do not pay for the placement of these advertisements we are unable to control the placement (timing and frequency) of the advertisements. We have however requested that these run during the peak team recruitment periods for events (approx. 6-8 weeks from an event as well as in the two-weeks leading up to each event.) Specific event details of the advertised Relay events are grouped according to Prime viewing areas.

Media Releases: Staff from our PR Department will be updating existing media release templates and developing new releases with information such as, local cancer incidence rates for use by all committees in the near future.

Further support may also be available to a number of events to help prepare stories about local survivors and other local cancer stories. The localizing of such information is a critical factor in gaining interest from media outlets and with this added support from our PR department, individual events will gain great benefits.

Letters to the Editor - approximately one month after each event is conducted Relay Coordinators will be asked to submit summary information about their events so that a93Letter to the Editor=94 can be submitted from Prof. David Hill thanking the local community for their efforts. This has been previously trialled with some events and the positive feedback we have received regarding this initiative has encouraged us to extend this support to all events.

Marketing Support
A number of new initiatives are being conducted for this coming season with regards to marketing of Relay events. In particular our Marketing department has devised an advertising schedule for Metropolitan Relay events, including:

In addition a 30sec TV CSA is currently being created for use in the metro viewing area. Whilst this advertisement takes the form of a community service announcement with no charge for airing, we anticipate it to be shown through Channel 7, with its main message to get a team together and visit the website or telephone 1300 65 65 85 for further details about a Relay event near you.

Relay For Life - Some Logistical Arrangements:
First Aid Arrangements - Second Season events - Planning and negotiations are well advanced with our current first aid provider - Event Medical Services Australia (EMSA) for the on-going delivery of high quality first aid services at each of our 2006 second season events.

Committees are reminded of the following requirements to accommodate EMSA at each event, including:

Discreet On-site Cash collections - A security company organised through this office will again arrange the collection of all money received during an event for all events. All event takings will need to be counted and bagged into the plastic blue envelopes with duplicate records kept by a committee member (Treasurer) and Relay staff member. For security reasons the specific arrangements will be communicated closer to the date of each event.

Whilst our negotiations for this service are with one company, local security services are often engaged to perform the task for each event.

On-Site Security Arrangements - For Season 2 events the arrangement of on-site security services will remain a direct task of the local organising committee. Given the potential for legal and insurance implications to arise from security issues, committees will be required to engage security services to a minimum level set by through the Relay For Life office. The required security staffing levels will be communicated with Relay staff over the next month and committees may then engage suitably qualified and insured providers for their individual Relay event.

To avoid delays in paying for these services, committees will be required to provide supplier details of the company to be contracted in advance of receiving the service. Supplier forms are available from your Relay Coordinator. Invoices for security services should be directed to:

Please note that we cannot pay any invoices addressed to a specific Relay event and invoices received as such will need to be returned to the supplier for re-issuing. Incorrectly addressed invoices will result in unavoidable delays in paying your local supplier.

Thank-you to all for your ongoing support of The Cancer Council Victoria through the Relay For Life program. We look forward to working with you to ensure that your Relay is the best event it can be for the enjoyment and benefit of all involved. Please do continue to offer your feedback concerning this publication and if you have any suggestions regarding topics to be covered, please feel free to contact me directly.

Anthony Keogh
Relay For Life - Project Team Coordinator
The Cancer Council Victoria
1 Rathdowne Street
Carlton VIC 3053
ph: (03) 9635 5463
fax: (03) 9635 5240
anthony.keogh@cancervic.org.au
www.relayforlife.com.au