So, with inspiration ringing in my ears, I hastily scribbled down the formula:
Karaoke + Lucky Voice + charities like Refugee Action + singers + sponsorship + singathon = charioke marathon
Eureka!
Instead of pounding the pavements of London for hours on end in fluoro sportsgear, our marathon would require people to sing for ten hours. And like London’s beloved marathon, we’d ask people to be sponsored for the privilege. Excellent.
Now there was just the small matter of a) convincing my beloved colleagues I was not suffering from swine flu delirium b) persuading my beloved Lucky Voice to surrender their premises to a charadee stake-out.
Stage one was a walk in the park, not in small part due to the levels of karaoke addiction among the team. The fundraising bean counters were persuaded by the potential levels of unrestricted income that could be generated through sponsorship while the communications headline chasers were convinced by the potential media interest that an inaugural charioke marathon might attract.
Finally we had dreamt up a fundraising event that pretty much all our supporters could join in with – not just the jocks and the adrenaline junkies.
As the ethos of the charioke vision was all about sharing, I was keen to include other charities in the marathon. So we agreed that I would do most of the coordinating in my own time but that Refugee Action would back it as their flagship fundraising enterprise.
Stage two I was more apprehensive about. Lucky Voice may have been brought to the world by the pioneering philanthropist Martha Lane Fox (gawd bless her), but would they really be able to give up a day’s profits for charity?
So I threw together email, hit send, crossed my fingers and whistled a Kylie anthem to myself.
30 minutes later I received a response from Lucky Voice:
“Love it.”
Tags: charioke, charioke fundraiser, fundraiser, karaoke, Lucky Voice
Posted by Esme Peach