Often we consider the success of a fundraising event by the amount of money raised and the number of attendees who participated. While these are all important measures, are there any lessons that can be learnt from coordinating fundraising events?

One week after the Manton House Dodgeball Competition to raise funds for the Fred Hollows Foundation, Black and White spoke to Jovan Tomasevic (11/MA) and Harrison Ayres (11/MA) about both the setbacks and rewards of organising a College-wide fundraising event such as this year’s Dodgeball competition.

Can you tell me what were some of the challenges of this year’s competition?

Jovan: Some of the challenges included organising the teams and dealing with people not turning up or not having the right number of glasses each day.

Harrison: We had more than enough challenges and they ranged from things outside of our control to simple issues which we should’ve been on top of such as leaving class those few extra minutes earlier on the first day to prepare (believe it or not, we didn’t jump at the chance to leave class).

Jovan: We overcame these challenges by spending more time as a group by readjusting the schedules and materials that we needed for each day. This all payed off massively in the final.

What was most rewarding about the experience?

Harrison: Personally, the two most rewarding things include all the experience I got helping run the event and the satisfaction of such a smooth final day.

Jovan: The most rewarding aspect of running this competition was seeing the competition run so well on the final day. It showed me how our perseverance had payed off and that we had successfully raised both awareness and funds for the Fred Hollows Foundation.

What advice you would give to others running a similar competition like this one?

Jovan: The main advice that I would give to others running similar competitions  would be to make sure that they have multiple backup plans, and to prepare for failures, because nothing will ever always go to plan.

Harrison:  To any one looking to take up a big project or run an event, advertising is key. We didn’t do this too well and if it wasn’t for a few consecutive assemblies and year meetings, we definitely wouldn’t have had the turn out we did.

A shout out to Harrison, Jovan and the Manton team for all their effort and endurance in making this year’s competition happen. It seems that despite hardship, the boys went on to draw in a large enough crowd to raise $800 and teach us all a lesson about effort and organisation. In the end, the boys remained victorious in the final game against teachers in winning the Silver Wench two years in a row.