It’s the end of April, which means I have just short of 4 months before I being Relay. For those who aren’t aware, I am about to finish my Masters and next year I’m sticking around Leicester Uni and working (voluntarily) for UCCF on their year out called Relay. If you want to find out a little more about the year here is a brief overview of it from the UCCF website.
The first challenge of the year is that it is completely voluntary, which means I have to raise all the money I will need to survive a year on my own. UCCF recommends that Relay workers aim to raise between £4000 and £6000, and judging on my outgoings from the past four years at uni I am certainly targeting the upper end of that range. Thankfully I do have a bit of a headstart on this already as I have been working during the holidays, and will be working from July until Relay begins. In theory (although I haven’t sat down and created a budget for any of this time) this will leave me with around £1500 in the bank at the start of the year without any other peoples support. Of course that leaves me with a deficit of £4500 for the year, so this is still slightly scary!
One of the things I intend to set up before I begin Relay is a newsletter which I will e-mail out to people semi-regulary which will contain a general update on what I’ve been doing and some prayer points for anyone willing to support me in that way. Another rather important step I need to take quite soon is to get a general letter written up explaining what I’m up to next year to give to all those lovely people I know who I don’t have contact with over the internet. Technology is great and all, but it’s easy to neglect people because I rely on it so much!
The other important step I need to take is coming up with fundraising ideas. It would be rather pathetic of me to not do something exciting with myself in an effort to raise money, but I’m not feeling very imaginative at the moment so any wacky suggestions would be appreciated.