> Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Merchandising > I'm not a fan of merchandising as part of a charities function. But if > it is done it should have the saving grace of having a sufficient > markup to help finance the organisation.
Agreed. It isn't something you can do without seriously considering the business aspects. There will be issues like waste and unsold stock. > > Now what would be cool would be Wikipedia calenders. Flowers, sports > events historical events - we could theme quite a few and they'd make > great gifts. It would also be a good article improvement process as > the nominated articles for the calender would be liable to get good > scrutiny and input whist we discuss which should go in the calender. > OK we would need wmf agreement to do this as a fundraiser sold outside > the membership, but there is a well established charity market for > such things. I for one can think of half a dozen calenders that I > might buy as winter solstice presents for assorted friends and > relatives. A calendar is a good idea, and one that can be done with a lot of volunteer input. You need to select articles to feature, or other appropriate content. For a UK-specific audience you'd have to consider the anniversaries and holidays to highlight. This can all be done by volunteers. In theory you could actually handle the distribution with volunteers too. If you reliably handle the sales side and get the data for mailing labels, then you have the finished calendars delivered somewhere and volunteers handle the process through to getting them in sacks to go to the post office. Regardless of how you can involve volunteer labour, you do need a business plan and know who you are going to outsource work like printing to. Other UK charities can probably give advice on how they handle such issues, and I would assume there is scope for working with other chapters to work out how to best implement various fundraising merchandise ideas. A reason I'd really support the calendar idea is that it fits with the WMF principle of sharing knowledge. Brian McNeil. > 2009/9/14 Isabell Long <isabell...@gmail.com>: > > 2009/9/14 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dal...@gmail.com>: > >> 2009/9/14 Brian McNeil <brian.mcn...@wikinewsie.org>: > >>> I would take it as a given that this would be restricted to UK-only > >>> delivery > >>> to avoid trading on the WMF's toes, or that of any other chapters. > >> > >> "Wikipedia" t-shirts should probably be UK-only. "Wikimedia UK" > >> t-shirts may as well be global, although I'm not sure many people > >> outside the UK would want one (unless they buy it at a WMUK event as a > >> momento, I guess, but that would be selling it in the UK, so is > >> irrelevant). > > > > I'd want one, although I live in the UK now so that makes sense! > > T-shirts would be a good idea with just Wikimedia UK written on. > > > > -- > > Regards, > > Isabell Long. <isabell...@gmail.com> > > [[User:Isabell121]] on all public Wikimedia projects. > > Freenode Community Co-Ordinator - issyl0 on irc.freenode.net > > PGP Key ID: 0xB6CA6840 > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia UK mailing list > wikimediau...@wikimedia.org > http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l > WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
