The Irish ME Association

Yesterday we in Galway, had a collection for research outside of a supermarket (we asked persmission and booked this about 2 months ago).

The Irish ME Association - for Information, Support and Research gets blue ribbon boxes and blue ribbons from BRAME in England. We use these then for the collection.

We did really well. We raised over 1470 Euro for one day (this was a rough count which needs to be recounted and bagged. We didn't count a lot of the smaller change, which could come to a few Euro more). This is about £1150 British Pounds.

We only had a small number of collectors in total across the day, 5 people in all (my parents, my brother and his girlfriend, and one person from our local group). So even with a small number a lot can be done. My parents did a morning shift and a later shift, as the collection was going really well and we wanted to do as well as we could.

We usually had two collectors at a time, though sometimes just one. Whatever way they were standing they we getting people coming in and going out of the shop. They still did well though when there was only one person on.

We had some large donations, one 50 Euro note, a few tenners, and quite a few fivers. Most of it was 2 and 1 Euro coins (though sometimes people give a few 1 Euro coins). We got almost no coppers (5 cent, 2 cent, and 1 cent coins). So people were giving quite a bit when they gave.

So we got 1470 Euro (approx £1150 Sterling) for collecting, starting at just after 10am to 7.15pm. It would be still worth doing even if we had managed to cover only a few hours.

We collected over 1,000 Euro at the same venue last year (and a few hundred, for just a few hours, there the previous year. We would have done more that previous year, but my grandmother died that day so it threw the collection into a bit of chaos, and it meant only my Dad could collect from my family for a little while, when they had planned to do a lot more.

A little tip. It is a good idea to try to get the boxes and ribbons to as many collectors as possible before the day in case something goes wrong with some of the collectors. At least if people have the stuff independently they can do their own time, even if the previous collector does not show up, so they are not reliant on other people to pass boxes and ribbons on to them.).