With the tragedy of the Hatian Earthquake lots of people wanted to find ways to support rescue efforts.

This is a small news story about a boy of 7 years old who took it upon himself to plan an event to raise money.

I found it inspirational, the support overwhelmingly that the boy got, but the efforts of people around him to say "yes, you can do that" and not tell him no. We should all be encouraged to think big.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hnIcIi8Ebo&feature=player_embedded

We had a great Kick off on Friday night at the VFW. It was full of energy with over 75 people in attendance. Lots of new faces and long time Relayers in attendance.

If you came out to our event you know this year's theme is a hollywood one. (We've tossed around Relaywood, and a few other hollywood names, feel free to post a few of yours). So we had the red carpet, the popcorn, and especially, the stars = YOU.

While the Hollywood theme will be a fun way to come up with new team names, decorate team tents, the REAL theme is making the teams feel supported, successful, and engaged in our event. We're looking forward to a fantastic year, that is all about them. The theme ran right through the kick off!

The Team Development group has been wrangling together some places for teams to go and have team meetings in the community. We'll be asking these places to have a place for teams to congregate, and we'll give them a "Relay For Life" team meeting spot banner. We're also asking that those places participate in Suns and Moons or come up with a Relay item to sell if its a coffee shop or deli.

If you have ideas of good places post some comments!

This year the Relay For Life national team put together some Relay For Life Team Captain modules available online

http://www.relayforlife.org/relay/tcmodules

I went through them tonight and they seem really straight forward and great. These are the kinds of things I'd make sure, if you were a new team captain or recruiting one, that you would share with them. I know I am going to print out a few copies to have with me. The notes aren't bad either.

Also,

We set a theme for the event this year, I'm excited. Now I just have to find some red carpet....

Welcome to the Relay For Life of Thurston County Blog. I'm Dave Stickland, part of the Team Development team.

This space will be for sharing ideas, fundraising information, news on teams, notes from past meetings, etc. For those who are not affiliated with the Relay For Life of Thurston County in Washington State, welcome! My next post will be entitled :What is Relay? with helpful links and thoughts from me encouraging thoughts from you.

We'll have our Kickoff this January 22nd at the Olympia VFW post on Martin Way.

Cheers!