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Achieving Success from a Gift

By Stf/C Nigel E Hargreaves, SN


How do you benefit the community, involve most of your squadron members in the activity and GROW your membership all in one day? The answer is considerable planning, and a will to succeed!

Last February, one of our members received a message that the Arden J Greer Charitable Trust was looking to put some of the trust income back into the community and asked if there was a project that we, Sebastian Inlet Sail & Power Squadron, could devise that fulfilled the trustee's requirements.

It would have been easy to say OK let's give life vests away and the project would be complete. What we wanted to do was tri-fold. Firstly maximize our purchasing power, secondly explore every avenue of publicity possible and thirdly educate and keep the public safe.

Having just returned from the Annual Meeting in Jacksonville the week before where Mustang Survival Inc signed an MOU with USPSŪ, the old gray matter thought that giving the "fanny pack" life vest to the public would be the way to go. However knowing that a lot of grants can be found out there if you have "matching funds" we decided that the two for one dollar ratio should be investigated. In no time at all we had doubled our spending power.

An approach was made to Shane DeWitt from Mustang Survival, and we explained the project ideas, after a couple of phone calls Shane indicated that the company would like to get involved, suggested the appropriate vest for our needs offering "very generous" pricing and also agreeing to embroider our logo on each vest then shipping the entire order at their cost.

Having met our first objective, it was time to look at what publicity and promotion we could achieve. The normal ideas came to mind like adverts in the newspaper, announcements on the radio etc. but then every organization tries that, and your hands are tied as to when and IF they are included. So we wrote editorials, appeared on live radio "phone-ins", secured free advertising from Scripp's newspapers, joined the Sebastian Chamber of Commerce and using their monthly newsletter distributed fliers to all businesses. We printed postcard size fliers and had our members out on the boat ramps for three or four weekends prior to the giveaway putting them on windscreens.

Another major promotion factor was working very closely with the City. A past National Law Officer always used to say "Take your lawyer to lunch"; another possibility might be "Take your Mayor to lunch!" The Mayor agreed to the Squadron making a presentation at the City Council Meeting and then declaring the week of our "giveaway" Sebastian Safe Boating Week. The Council Meeting was televised, the Mayor participated (reading scripts we had written) and the Police Chief and Sheriff were on hand to receive the first vests for their Marine Officers.

Our final objective was the safety and education aspect. We had decided to give these vests away to boat captains, or owners, on production of their vessel registration papers. All of this was going to take place on the Spoil Island immediately opposite the Sebastian Yacht Club and only accessible by boat. The documentation would be checked on shore, a receipt being signed by the captain agreeing to wear the life vest at all times while operating his/her vessel. The recipient would then take their boat over to the island or use the squadron shuttle service pontoon! The form they signed also asked about their boating education and whether we could follow up regarding courses, membership etc.

Determined to make the most of this day, we offered our bi-monthly BoatSmart class for the same weekend, moving it from its normal location to the Sebastian Yacht Club and brought in our VSC examiners as well.

At the end of our day, sixty five boats had life jackets on board; a closer working relationship had been cemented between the Indian River Sheriff's Department, the City Police Department, the City of Sebastian and our squadron; and one more thing happened - a closer camaraderie between our squadron members and the knowledge that, if we get this opportunity again, the support will be there too.