At our Relay, we have never had one of those arches with balloons that Survivors walk through..Anyone know what I am talking about?  I was just wondering if anyone had ideas about where to get one or how to make one...

Thanks!

 Nick Kissel, Chair

RFL of Midtown Omaha, NE 

Hey everyone, my name is Jacob and I am part of a College Relay at Cal Poly University in San Luis Obispo, CA. We have had problems convincing the athletic department to let us use the all-weather outdoor track to host our Relay. They say that so much concentrated foot traffic will cause damage to the track. I was wondering if anyone else ran into similar problems and how you resolved them? Otherwise, we are confined to a very small grass lawn area which may not be sufficient for our growing Relay. Last year they had about 50 teams and it was very crowded, and this year we have about 75 teams. Please help! jgalvare@calpoly.edu or post a reply.

Our Relay is moving to a different location this year.  We are most excited as the stadium we are moving to is much larger and has a large screen/Jumbotron that we will have access to.  I'm looking for ideas on ways to utilize the Jumbotron to enhance our event.  Of course, we've already discussed using it for our slide show, for showing the Celebrate, Remember, Fight Back video, etc. - but I would appreciate any other ideas you all have.

Have any of held your Relay for Life event at a football stadium with turf.  Our host location just put down new turf and wanted to see what guidelines others used in regards being able to use tents, stage, etc on the new turf.

at our Relay, we cannot use candles (no fire allowed) and we also cannot use sand to weight the bags.  we will be using glow sticks to light the luminaria.

any ideas on an EASY way to weight these bags?   we cannot use tape to affix them to the track because that will leave residue.   we will probably have 2000 luminaria, so using rocks or anything of that sort is way beyond our capacity to acquire, store, or discard.

HELP!!

Shirley, Luminary Chair 

Mooresvilleluminary@yahoo.com

We have always had a 12 hour Relay - which is the norm for our area.  The idea of a 24 hour Relay brings about responses such as - 'we're not ready for it', 'we don't have the participation for it', 'we're too small', etc.  (Our Committee is 45+ people for 2008, Teams last year was 35, but the year before was 60, and income for '07 was around $120k)

Has anyone gone from a 12 hour to a 24 hour Relay?  How'd that go?  What was the Committee response?  What was the Team response?  What was the ACS Staff response?  What did you do right...what would you do differently?  Why do you have a 24 hour Relay?

Those of you who have a 24 hour Relay, why?  How large is your Committee?  How many Teams do you have?  If you've ever been to a 12 hour Relay, how is it different from a 24 hour Relay?  What does a 24 hour program look like?

Does anyone know of any software programs that can "plot" campsites & vendor sites on to our map? I would like to be able to mark little squares representing each team's campsite and the vendor sites on our "satellite" map, and have the ability to laminate it for the day of the event. I would also like to be able to add the names and locations of things such as the restrooms, etc.

Thanks for your help!

Terri

Relay For Life of Bainbridge Island

Has anyone had any experience in building a balloon arch?? We need to build our own to go over a track and need to approximate how long it will take and how difficult it may be. I did get instructions off the internet, but it only illustrates how many balloons and what size etc. Any advice would be very appreciated!

Andrea Whitney
Event Chairperson
Sparta Michigan Relay

  I'm new to this forum so not for sure where to post this but we will be putting up our canopies on pavement this year instead of our usual grassy area so was wondering if any one had any good ideas on how to do this.

My daughter is a 4 year breast cancer survivor so my entire family gets involved with relay, we have 3 teams! I have learned a lot from every one here and Bless you for giving your time to such a worthy cause!

                                   **Becky**

Last year we grew from 50 teams to 85 - this year we hope to have over 100 teams.  We are hoping to anticipate some of the things that will change so we can address them in advance (e.g., more porta potties and hand wash stations).  This will be our third year as co-chairs, so we have some ideas, but we'd love to hear from other Relays about things that they have learned about expanding.  Thanks!