Adam's bike challenge. Stage 11: The God particle and fundraising ideas

Adam Bradbury

23 January 2012

Spamming my mates and their mates to sponsor me on Friends of the Earth's Big Green Bike Ride is all very well. JustGiving is a brilliant fundraising tool and it's working pretty well for me. (I particularly relish the fact that for every £5 donation that's gift-aided the chancellor forks out an additional £1.)

But I'm torn. Part of me feels it's cheating - a bit too easy. Yet I'm still less than half way to my target with only about 100 days to go.

So I'm diversifying the business model.

Biscuits

A lovely colleague spent one Sunday baking bicycle-shaped biscuits. She left them on reception with an honesty box. By mid morning not a crumb left and £25 in the bag. This is about knowing your target audience - Friends of the Earth staff and volunteers are Team GB's biscuit-eating eventers at the 2012 games.

Bric a brac

Another colleague and I formed a merger and opened a giant retail park in our social room. We'd put out a call to all staff to bring in unwanted christmas presents. An amazing assortment of stuff came in - from brand new books and DVDs to a northern European camouflage onesie (what kind of friend gives you one of those?), a herb dryer, cuddly toys. And something like a desiccated udder that's supposed to entertain four cats at a time. In one hour we took £100.

Bear suit

As if pledging to cycle 500 miles in 6 days weren't enough. Our magazine tsar applied a range of psychological headlocks to get me to agree to wear a polar bear suit for one leg of the ride if supporters donate £5,000. For £10,000 I'll do two stages and so on.

I think my family is faintly embarrassed. One colleague has shown a touching concern for my health (heat inside the costume, chafing etc).

My own worry is this. Believe it or not the polar bear suit is not made from a real bear. It's 100% man-made fibre. Imagine the friction induced when pedaling 80 miles. The electrostatic energy could power the large hadron collider.

On the bright side, even if The Elusive Higgs Boson particle remains elusive, maybe I'll discover The Elusive Last Chunk of my Fundraising Target.

If you'd like to help me do that the best way is via my JustGiving page.

Thank you.

Adam Bradbury, Publishing & New Media team

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