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Topic: Support for Equine Affair East ATA booth needed (Read 1545 times)
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kulacrosse
Novice
 Offline
Posts: 7
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If anyone has any ideas how we can obtain funding to support an ATA booth for the first time at Equine Affair East, Nov 7-10, please let me know. We are thinking of trying to get support from single Trakehner owners by encouraging them to create a display 11"x14" or less for the back wall of the booth in exchange for a $25 donation. More ad space can be reserved by breeders or other interested parties for additional support. We have a TV/VCR to bring if we have videos to play. Does anyone have any other ideas? The money isn't exactly pouring in and we are currently funding most of it ourselves even though we are all non-breeders and AAs. We expected to volunteer our time and pay for our own hotel and meals, but not the booth itself. The ATA can only provide limited funding. Any suggestions, help, or donations appreciated. TIA Stefanie Moses moses@alum.mit.edu and Dawn Cabral DAWN_M_CABRAL@fleet.com
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Lara, Gryphon Farm
ata
Gold Medallist
Offline
Posts: 291
Trakehner Cowgirl
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Hi, Stefanie and Dawn: One thing that worked well for me is asking regional stallion owners to donate $50 in exchange for booth display of their stallion video and brochures, handouts, etc. Equine Affair East is a great venue to get exposure for these guys, so they should jump at the opportunity. I also found that breeders (hi, Ingrid) were interested in participating via brochures/handouts and videos of sales horses. Most of these folks have their emails available on the ATA site under stallions or farms/breeders. With those interested in participating, you'll have plenty of videos to play - the videos is the number 1 crowd draw, performance videos especially. Just a note, you wouldn't believe how many people with part-Traks were interested in the ATA saddle pads, take plenty of those to help boost your sales. Another good idea is having a daily raffle (people usually only go one of the days, so daily is a good plan with a designated time for drawing) - prize should be something universally liked/needed by horse folks, like a nice bucket full of brushes, fly spray, polos - or something nicer like a wb-size leather halter. You can sell tickets for whatever price, $1/piece or $5 for arm-length??? Whatever your prize is worth asking.. Just make sure EAE doesn't have any special requirements for a raffle. Good luck and have fun! 
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kulacrosse
Novice
Offline
Posts: 7
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The office will cover $200. A breed exhibit booth costs $500 plus $40 (if I'm remembering correctly) for electricity and that is just the start. We assume we'll top $600 just including booth costs after all is said and done. We snail mailed everyone on the ATAs member list in New England quite some time ago with no response. We've gotten a couple of interested parties through email and posting on appropriate BBs, but we are still a long way from covering just the money being spent directly on the booth. Besides Dawn and I, there is one other that has been very involved. Everyone else we manage to con into volunteering time at the booth will have to pay for a pass into Equine Affair - I'd really like to be able to cover their passes as well. The three of us have always expected to pay for our hotel and food costs, so we are excluding that from our funding goal.
Thanks for the note about the saddle pads, we'll have to make sure we get a few extra. If we understand the ATA correctly, we will not be getting any extra funding from breed item sales. We really wanted to do a raffle and we may still do a free one because the ATA offered to donate a membership, but we are not able to have anything but a free raffle. I didn't deal with it directly, Dawn did, so I don't remember the specifics, but I think we would have had to have a special permit that would have basically voided any potential profits.  Thanks for the idea though, keep them coming!
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Lisabeth
Novice
Offline
Posts: 48
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Be sure to inform the ATA office and have them include this in the newsletter.
Also, how much short are you? That will help determine what to ask people to give.
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kulacrosse
Novice
Offline
Posts: 7
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It's been in the newsletter already, they don't exactly give it a very prominent spot, however, it's just in their calendar even though they are aware of our funding issues. We are assuming we need a minimum of $600 (not likely to cover extra passes). The only money we have in hand is the $200 from the ATA which we just received. We have received verbal offers within the last couple of weeks for another $200. So, assuming everyone puts it "in writing" we need at least another $200.
I really hope it works out, we were all gung ho about this and are really looking forward to talking to everyone about this wonderful breed, but, well, no one likes begging for money...
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Sovereign Farm
ata
Gold Medallist
Offline
Posts: 481
KALUA by Heling
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Unfortunately sometimes you have to beg for money to get things done  I would pick up the phone and start personally calling stallion owners or large farms in your region. In my experience, people just forget to send in money or information or pictures or whatever you need from them. Just keep your enthusiasm! I find it tends to spread (although slower than you would hope)!!!! Good luck!
Heather
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Tannenwald Trakehner
ata
Old Hand
Offline
Posts: 935
TANZBRISE by Windfall out of Tariana
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How about asking the ATA to put a little blip on the front page of the website asking people who want info displayed to contact you (as was done for the event Lara attended)? That can only help.
On the raffle idea, I wonder if you could get some breeders to sponsor that and have it be a free raffle, yet have people enter by answering a short questionairre (ie, how did you learn about Trakehners, what disciplines are you interested in, will you be in the market in the next year, would you like a Trakehner breeder to contact you, etc). Then the info could be pooled and contact list provided to sponsoring breeders, who could follow up and send information to those folks if they so chose. Would that fit into the rules? If you got even 10-20 from each sponsor for that information it might buy a decent little prize and subsidize the booth as well.
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kulacrosse
Novice
Offline
Posts: 7
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Great idea!  It hadn't even occured to us that information would be valuable to breeders. Dawn will be excited about the idea - she really wanted to do a raffle. So, besides contact info and the questions mentioned, what information is pertinent? I'm assuming some would be stallion shopping, others horse shopping, so we need that distinction. Maybe, what attracted you to the Trakehner breed?
I'll get in touch with the ATA webmaster to see if she would be willing to advertise for us - good thought.
One other thing I forgot to mention. I am bringing a laptop and downloading the ATA website plus the websites of those that sponsor the booth in advance to allow people to browse the sites offline.
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kulacrosse
Novice
Offline
Posts: 7
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Thanks for all the great ideas and offers of support! The ATA webmaster generously provided us a spot on the webpage - thanks for the idea! We are going ahead with the raffle and plan to make names and contact information available to $75+ sponsors. We are still several hundred dollars short, but are trying to be optimistic that as the date approaches we'll be in everyone's thoughts.
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