It’s building toward a beautiful day outside–great weather to be training for the Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk. I started my serious training last week. At my age, it’s start early or pay for it later–as I discovered last year. So far, we have five Walkers signed up–four from last year and one new.

If you haven’t signed up yet, today would be a good day to do so. Walk organizers have announced a new incentive I’ll get to in a moment. Our goal this year is 60 Walkers–and we have a long way to go before we get there. If you use the code word TEAM you can get $5 off your registration fee.

We moved comfortably into the top 25 teams with last year’s effort. We were in the top 10 Honor Teams for the year as well. Jillian Emmons was ninth among first time walkers, and we had eight Pacesetters among our 48 walkers.

The Walk Chair, Zack Blackburn, and Quincey Spagnoletti have gone out of their way to be helpful as we work toward moving to six figures this year. I’ve spent some time talking with the captain of Team Neuro, which routinely raises over $125,000 a year, picking her brain about how they consistently do what they do.

Her emphasis was on recruiting lots of people for the team. And so far, we are slightly ahead of where we were at this point last year. But we are behind on money raised to this point. That’s largely my fault–I’m $6000 behind where I was this time last year because my winter fundraising letter didn’t get out until last week.

I’ll make up that ground in the next few weeks, but if we are going to make that six-figure team goal this year, we’re going to need to build up our Pacesetter roster as well as our membership roster. So here’s that incentive I talked about earlier: be one of the first 100 participants to reach Star Pacesetter (raise $1,500 or more) to earn two tickets to the July 26 Boston Red Sox vs. Detroit Tigers game. Make sure you check out the How to Raise $1,500 worksheet. 

Here’s a to-do list for the next few weeks:

1. If you have not signed up yet for this year’s Walk, do it today. Remember the code word TEAM will get you $5 off your registration. If you were a Pacesetter last year, you need pay no registration fee this year.

2. Make sure you have changed the date of the Walk on both your page and your personal calendar. The Walk is officially set for September 27. The original materials said September 20.

3. Start training for the Walk distance you plan to do. Starting slow and early will get you there more easily.

4. Start your own fundraising projects. Remember, I will come talk to any group or fundraiser you put together. Just let me know where to be and when. You can also use the letter in my welcome letter or use it as a template for your own. My letters routinely raise $3-5,000 for my Walk.

5. Recruit other Walkers. The more Walkers we have the larger the amount our team will raise.6. Visit our NETwalkers Alliance Facebook Page to read what others are doing and post what you have planned.7. Let me know if you want to be a co-captain for a particular region or distance. Because of our past record and the size of last year’s team, they are letting us have some extra captains to help us stay organized.

As always, if you have questions or need anything else from me, feel free to email me (walkingwithjane@gmail.com or hproudfoot@verizon.net)