I can't beleive I am going to do this, but I p it the 3-Day Walk

The BBQ Pit
1

…and I’m one of the walkers.

I raised over 2200 dollars in support of breast cancer research and prevention. I understand that they want as much of that as possible to go toward the actual cause, so they’ve done some cost-cutting, including not moving the campsite for the first 2 days.

But some of the other stuff is just nuts. I tried to download the safety video. Due to some sort of glitch, the video itself didn’t download, but they told me I had to take the test to make sure I saw it. With no way to get it to show me the video again, I took the test.

So, guess what you’re not allowed to do while walking during the 3-day.

Well, running, for one, but that makes sense, since it’s the 3 day walk.

But how about something as mundane as listening to music? Nope, apparently that’s too dangerous. I don’t know why, it’s not like I’m going to listen to some hateful music and suddenly go to town on my fellow walkers, but nope, no music. (I, of course, will be bringing music with me and flauting this particular rule.)

Also, no talking on cell phones while walking…hmph, well, it’s not like everyone’s going to have batteries that will last the duration of the 3-day, so I don’t really see the point to stopping someone from calling friends and family to say “I’m almost at cheering station #1, you can see me go by in a ferw minutes!”

But finally I can’t beleive they have the balls to charge people for parking. And for clean towels. People, get fucking real here…each of us just handed you 2200 dollars from friends and family who support us in supporting this cause. Charging TWELVE FUCKING DOLLARS per person so we could have 3 clean towels is preposterous. I could buy 3 clean towels of better quality than I am sure you’re going to give me for 12 dollars. Especially since I paid NINETY dolalrs just to REGISTER for this damn event. Ninety dollars that doesn’t count toward my fundraising total.

I can’t beleive I’m pitting these people. I’m really a beleiver in supporting the fight against breast cancer (And all sorts of cancer) but to do this to us just insures that I’ll not participate in the 3-day next year.

2

It’s considered dangerous to listen to music while walking possibly because you cannot hear outside noises, like cars, or what not?

3

Maybe…except I do it every single time I go out walking by myself (and so does just baout everyone else I’ve ever seen walking for excercise), and when I do that, I’m not surrounded by thousands upon thousands of other people on a marked trail. Besides, you don’t HAVE to listen to music so loud that you can’t hear outside noises. You can listen to it at a nice volume that just gives you a way to help pass the time.

I mean, at this rate, it seems like I have to talk to other poeple for about 8 hours per day, and I’ll tell you that my voice won’t hold out for 8 hours of conversation.

4

But if the walk is anything like the ones we have here, it is on some sort of track or foot path.

crazyjoe, have you considered writing a letter to the chair of the walk group and explaining your points? You might make a difference.

5

Is this the Avon walk? A girlfriend of mine did all of them last year.

6

Not all of the route is on walking paths and hiking trails; some of it goes on public streets.

http://www.the3day.org/site/pp.asp?c=ciKTLcPRLvF&b=1509127

So at certain times during the proceedings, you’re part of a huge crowd of people all traipsing in a disorganized fashion down a public thoroughfare. So the organizers need to have everyone paying attention to potential shouted bullhorn instructions, which you aren’t if you’re busy talking on a cell phone or have headphones over your ears.

Actually, I don’t see why you should expect them to provide you with free clean towels for three days. By the same token, why not expect them to provide you with food, water, and Band-Aids, too? :confused: IOW, why does “towels” in particular push your hot button?

At $12 per person, if there are 200 people walking, that’s $2400 out of the fundraising proceeds that has to be spent on towels, or approximately the entire contribution of one single person, which means that somebody’s walking just to pay for everyone to have clean towels.

Which seems a bit la-dee-dah to me. But YMMV. :smiley:

And that’s $2400 that isn’t going for breast cancer research. :wink:

7

Right, because following the huge crowd of people and doing what they do won’t be an option. Besides, uh, I can listen to music and drive at the same time, I have to think it’s about 200 degrees less dangerous to listen to music while walking.

Perhaps you’ll want to look up a little more about the walk, but they provide food, water, medical care, tents and shower facilities. Why wouldn’t I expect them to provide clean towels? Part of the reason we have to raise 2200 each to participate is to help cover exactly these sort of costs. I don’t have the option of saying “well, I raised 2212, please take my towel fes out of my contributions like you do with everything else.”

And 12 dollars per person CAN’T be what it costs them to provide towels. Like I said, I can go to costco and buy a half dozen towels for that much, and I have to assume they could manageg to have someone DONATE towels, like the folks donating the tents, medical supplies, food, etc…this is just something they’ve decided we should be “charged” for.

8

Here in Michigan, it seems there was some sort of falling out between the Avon people and the 3-day organizers. Our walk benefits the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Institute and The National Philanthropic Trust.

Oh, and DDG, sorry if I came across a little harshly in my response to you. I’m just s little annoyed by the whole thing, is all.

9

I think it would be interesting to walk with your music.

If some organizer type gives you grief, say, “Okay, if you insist I stop, I will. Unfortunately that’s going to cost YOU and your organization 22 hundred dollars, as I can’t collect from my friends if I don’t finish the walk.”

See what they say.

10

If you’re going to pit these things, why not just get right down to the basics and pit the fact that they’re charity events that rely on the participants guilting their friends, relatives and co-workers into donating to succeed? If you want to donate money to breast cancer research, go ahead. If I want to donate money to breast cancer research, I’ll go ahead (though personally, I tend to donate my money to prostate cancer research on account of that’s what my father almost died of, whilst my mother’s breasts are, too the best of my knowledge (which is limited) fine).

I find the whole charity walking industry kind of stupid and unnecessary. If you wouldn’t hit your friends up for a donation without the pointless three day waste of money, why are you willing to do it with a promenade through the parks attached?

11

Boyo, that would be nice, but unfortnaltely they won’t let you begin the walk without submitting your donations and signing a contract promising to make good on the 2200 if you don’t have enough donations yet.

Jacquilynne, you have some good points, and I struggled in deciding whether or not I wanted to do this walk for precisely those reasons. However, I took a decidedly low-guilt way to approach people about contributing. I sent one email asking for support, either monetary or emotional, and put up the link for the site to donate. I deliberately didn’t want to become one of those poeple who pesters their friends and family into making a bunch of donations.

The biggest reason I did this this year was in honor of my mother-in-law, who passed away last winter from breast canccer. The whole process has really turned me off, though, and I doubt I will do it again.

12

Preach it, Jac.
I’m so sick and tired about being asked to pledge towards walk/bike/cheer/jumprope/etc-athons. If anything, such pleas make me less willing to donate $. I do not see the sense in all that wasted energy. Why not have the participants actually spend the time doing something worthwhile?

13

But if you’re in your car with the music playing, can you hear a traffic cop outside hollering at you, “Hey! That’s one way!”

The point is, they need to be able to say, when someone doesn’t hear their instructions, because he’s listening to other input, and gets hurt, “Well, we told him not to bring his Walkman/cell.”

They only provide breakfast and supper at camp. The pit stops only provide “snacks” (not “lunch”), and water. So if you don’t want to rely on pit stops for water, and you don’t like their snacks, then you have to bring your own lunch/snacks and water. And if you’re going to want tape and Band-aids and other low-key runner’s supplies while you’re walking, and you didn’t bring them with you, and neither did your crew, then you’re SOL.

Umm…because towels are a personal-care item, like soap? Do you expect them to provide soap, too? :confused:

The cost of providing towels to participants is part of what’s called “administrative costs”. Myself, I like to give my charitable dollars to organizations that have the lowest percentage of my contribution go towards “administrative costs”. Fund-raising organizations like to keep their percentage of “administrative costs” down for just this reason. And charging you for your towels is one way of doing it. That way they can tell potential future contributors what a low percentage of their contribution will go towards things like towels, and what a high percentage of their contribution will go towards breast cancer research.

You’re begrudging them their $6 measly profit off your towels? That’s an additional $6 that could go towards breast cancer research. Every little bit helps…doesn’t it? :wink:

And why should they have someone donate towels, too? Along with all the other logistical headaches of lining up donors for tents, food, etc., you think they ought to find someone to donate towels? Again, why not have someone donate soap? And Band-aids.

IMO anybody who could get in this big a snit over $6 worth of towels maybe oughta find a different fundraiser next year… :wink: :smiley:

14

I’ll answer this. Disclaimer: I work for a nfp that has these walks, and I still don’t and won’t hit up my friends, ever. I hate the system. But people will not give if they don’t have something to pledge it towards. I mean, there’s a small subset that gives no matter what but there’s a huge subset that refuses to give unless they are entertained first.

And as for the towels, they should get them donated. Actually, the best way to do it is to sell a “towel sponsorship” - some company pays for the priviledge of handing out towels with their logo on it. The one thing NFPs neglect to do over and over again is sell their walkers. You have hundreds and hundreds of people here and access to a bit of advertising. So you sell every bit of sponsorship there is.

15

The idea of the walk/bike/jumprope or whatever the event is is to raise awareness of the disease, bring together people who have survived the disease, provide inspiration to those that are currently fighting the disease or have a loved one that is, and offer information about disease prevention and care.

16

No freaking kidding. If all those people spent three days a year driving cancer patients to chemo, or knitting caps for patients who’ve lost all their hair, or helping with the filing at the local branch of the cancer society, something would actually be accomplished and it wouldn’t cost the charity hundreds of dollars per person to throw an event.

17

Then they can go right ahead and do all that without any money from me, thankyouverymuch.
Actually, I wonder how many of the goals you suggest actually are accomplished to what extent by the activities. I guess I have a prejudice against what I consider inefficiency and wasted effort.

18

Oh yes. Gawd, I wish. Or just send in your freakin’ money. But no, with minimal staff and insistence on keeping less than 5% expenses, we must entertain their asses.

19

There are so many arguments to counter this, it’s not even funny. What if I have a louder than avewrage car, or have the AC on full blast with the windows up? I couldn’t hear him then, either. Of course, if I’m following a big long line of other cars, odds are I’m not going to be the only person heading down the one-way street.

I don’t think so. The don’t provide breakfast the first day, but provide breakfast, lunch and dinner the other days, because we’re not supposed to leave camp or the route during the walk. It’s not like I can stop at McDonald’s or pack 3 days’ worth of lunches.

Come to think of it, I sort of did expect there to be some soap in the shower facilities. I’ll have to review what the suggested packing gear was, but I don’t remember seeing soap in there. Ok, just checked, soap is not a recommended packing item. I only get 35lbs of gear, including a sleeping bag, so this is going to be interesting.

If I wanted to reduce administrative costs that badly, I’d just have a one-day walk and everyone goes home after. That would cut down on the administrative costs quite a bit.

My family and I donated well over 800 dollars to this cause, it seems like it’s the 3-day organization that’s begrudging ME the 6 bucks. Really, it’s not just the 12 dolalrs for towels, and the no music…the little things have added up all during this process. They called to bug me about my fundraising, and suggested that I hit up people I barely see, like my doctor, for a donation. And ask people who do things like bartend or wait tables to donate a day’s worth of their tips to my cause. Pardon me, but the people I know who bartend or wait tables work damn hard for their money and usually need it prety bad, so asking them to give up a day’s income is a pretty shitty thing to do. The whole event has left a bad taste in my mouth.

As noted above, I think someone is donating soap. I’ll bring my own band-aids and other first-aid implements, because they are light and not bulky. Bringing my own towels is going to seriously cut into my luggage space, and I suspect that’s the EXACT reason why they chose to charge for them.

I appreciate your opinions and the winky smiles, but seriously, it’s not the towels. It’s not the music. It’s the whole damn process, which I signed up for on the basis of a lot of people telling me what a great experience it is. It might be great, but that doesn’t mean I can’t complain about some of the stupid shit, does it?

20

Well, if nothing else, you’ve firmly convinced me that I won’t be doing it. I’ve thought about signing up as one of the crew. (They don’t have to do the fundraising). But I’ve never gotten around to it. (Though I did volunteer a bit in the office one year. For some reason, I seem to remember sending out towels to people - but that might be my imagination)

How do they not move the campsite? Are you just walking in a giant circle on day 2? I’m confused.

Good luck with the walk. But next year do something where the entry fee alone is your donation