The Belleville Relay Committee hosted their first team meeting. This is the information that was covered.

Share your team with all of us (Register your team)
This year, we will be registering each team on the Relay website, even if you registered via a paper registration form. A benefit of this registration is that it allows your team access to online fundraising, team reports, and Relay information available at all times. You can also sign up survivors, order luminaria, and sign up as a corporate sponsor. The site also gives the ACS and committee all the necessary information on your team including survivor info and T Shirt size. If you need assistance in registering your team, just talk with someone on the committee, or contact Jannean Muehlfeld at jmafeld@charter.net or Matt Fournie at rfl_belleville@charter.net or 618-972-2714.

Share Relay with all your friends (Recruit your team)
Once you have your team registered, know about the key Relay dates, and have a team captain’s packet in your hand, the next challenge that a team captain has is getting your teammates on board and signed up. If you are finding yourself looking for additional team members, here are a couple tips to follow:

1.Talk to family and friends, people you know at church, go to school with, or in you neighborhood.

2.Approach any survivors that you know. Most will have an interest in the Relay, all they need is for someone to ask them.

3.When you communicate to others about the Relay, let them know why you Relay, and why it is important to you. Try to personalize the request to join your team and highlight areas of the Relay that you think may appeal to a potential teammate. Your passion about how you talk to people about Relay can be your best recruitment tool.

4.Show one of the Team Recruitment videos to a group of people who you want to join your team.

5.For those that aren’t sure but are considering joining your team, make sure to follow up with them, but make sure to respect their answer if they say no.

6.For those that aren’t sure they want to get involved in a team, give them the handout “How can I get involved” and they may find an aspect of Relay they want to get into.

7.For those that say no to the team, don’t get discouraged as you can always invite them to visit your team on the night of Relay and hang out for a couple hours. Once they see how much fun and how meaningful the evening is, they may be the first one to sign up for next year’s Relay.

As you get your team members signed up, you can fill in all their details on the team roster or add them to the website directly without the paperwork. Just as with the team registration, each team member will be signed up on the website. Each teammate will have their own donation page, and emails that they send out will have links back to their personal page.

Share the work (Have a team kickoff meeting)
When you have a core team put together, find some time to get everyone together. Hold the meeting somewhere that will allow you to have food and refreshments. Make it a social event for the team, with the Relay meeting / Kickoff agenda being covered first, followed by time to socialize and have team members get to know each other better. Some things you will want to cover at the first meeting.

1.Review the basics of what Relay is. Make sure everyone has a good understanding of what to expect at the Relay. If you need additional materials to do this, feel free to let us know.

2.Discuss a team and campsite theme.

3.Give each teammate a Team Member Booklet, Luminaria envelope, Website Flyer, and Team Member Information Flyer. If you don’t have enough of these from your team captain packet, just let the committee or Matt Fournie know and we will get as many as needed.

4. Set team goals for fundraising, survivor recruiting, Luminaria sales, and encourage your teammates to set their personal fundraising goals.

5. Discuss different ways to raise funds for the team and brainstorm about possible fundraisers.

6. If you have the equipment and time to do so, show one of the Relay videos that you can get from the committee.

Share the work (Delegate team duties)
After you have your team together and have set your goals, its time to share the load. Team Captains are the key to any Relay and you have many different responsibilities, but its hard to do it all. Once you have your core team put together, ask some of the members if they would like to coordinate one or some of the specific aspects of the Relay team. Focus on different team members strengths when asking them to organize some of the following team activities.

1. Web entries: Have someone who is web savvy help keep the team up to date with items posted to the website, helping teammates in getting their information updated, running reports from the site, helping teammates to use the fundraising tools on the site.

2. Fundraising coordination: If you have that special teammate that knows how to put on a fundraiser, or is good at coordinating activities to raise money, encourage them to help out the team with fundraising activities.

3. Team theme / campsite décor: For that teammate with impeccable style

4. Day of Relay fundraising: Have someone coordinate the onsite fundraising activities that your team agrees on. This person can make sure that the committee knows what fundraiser your team will have, make sure that all materials are provided, donated, or purchased, and get the word out to other teams during the Relay to get that foot traffic through your tent/area.

5. Day of the event coordinator: Have someone keep track of what each team member will bring to the event and that all items that are needed for the evening’s activities will be there. Once the schedule of events is defined for the day of Relay, this teammate can help you communicate it to your teammates and sign up team members for various activities.

Team captains may want to take on many of these duties themselves and we aren’t here to discourage you from that. But keep in mind the talents and skills of those on your team, and use them to make your team stronger and help you and all your team have the best Relay possible.

Share the information (Keep your team informed)
Through the year all the way up to Relay, keep your team informed on the key dates, schedule of events for the day of Relay, how the team is doing on your fundraising goals, etc. Invite all your teammates to the team captain meetings and give them the chance to get any additional questions you may not have thought of answered. As team captain, you are their source of information and link to the planning committee for the Relay, so set up a systematic way to keep them in the loop.