The Offaly Dyslexia Group have been given permission to hold a flag day (or street collection) on August 15th in order to raise essential funding which will allow us to continue with the purchasing of equipment/resources needed. This will take place between the hours of 9am – 6pm in and around the town of Tullamore.
Already we have successfully canvassed both the Tullamore Credit Union which is a popular site for street collectors and the AIB Bank. Although the collection is to take place on a Saturday, the Credit Union trades as usual and the AIB has an ATM facility in its foyer. Both sites are likely to be busy.
It is intended that we, the Offaly Dyslexia Group obtain further permissions required to allow us to collect at several prominent sites around the town. According to the terms of the permit we must have no more than 15 persons actively collecting for us at any given time.
Presently we have eleven children enrolled for our forthcoming September workshops. In an ideal world this allows us a potential 22 collectors to cover the days collections, however, as we all know it is not an ideal world and even with the full complement of parents we need the assistance of many more people.
Collectors must be known to the permit holder and must be aged fourteen or over. We are presently organising distinctive hi-vis vests printed with Offaly Dyslexia Group and our phone number and authorisation cards for collectors.
It is also intended to obtain sealable containers for use as collection buckets, as per the permit granted. These will also be printed up in the appropriate manner, hopefully for use on many more occasions.
All of the above is important, in fact it is vitally important. However, if we don’t obtain the help that we need to make this happen, one has to ask themselves what difference this will all make? The last thing anyone wants to see on a Saturday afternoon is a grumpy and tired street collector who’s been standing there all day!
Currently, we are in the process of contacting our members via text message to advise them of our good fortune and to ask for their help. Next week we intend to ring each of the children’s parents personally to ask for their support personally and then to follow this up with a further text closer to the date.
Also it is intended that we send out a press release to local media in the hopes of getting some free publicity and perhaps more support for our cause. This is especially important considering that we are right in the middle of the holiday season, which potentially could reduce our numbers dramatically.
Donations of appropriate books, software programmes, equipment, time or just common sense and the ability to help us further our fund raising efforts will always be welcome. However, just at the moment we urgently need volunteers to help us out on Saturday August 15th this year…
Should you have an interest in helping us out, either by way of donation of time or funding do please contact us.