Chief deputy district attorney Jeff Rosell announced Oct. 28 that unless additional information is forthcoming, no charges will be filed.

“We recently received follow-up investigation by Scotts Valley Police. Unfortunately, there is still insufficient evidence to determine who is responsible for the theft,” he said.

Both Scotts Valley Police and the D.A.’s office had been cautious about their chances of prosecuting a suspect. Although police confirmed the investigation named a single individual, no name was released.

The evidence is circumstantial and faces a high burden of proof, attorneys warned previously.

The stolen money — about $13,500 in cash and $12,000 in checks — was raised by the Harbor High football team over the summer and was being held by the team’s coach in his office when it was taken from his locked desk in late August just as school began. The coach was eliminated as a suspect after passing a lie detector test, Scotts Valley Police earlier confirmed.

Nothing else was taken or disturbed in the office.

The loss is covered by the Santa Cruz City School District’s insurance policy, district officials have said.

During challenging economic times like these, successful fundraising is vitally important because it gives athletes the resources they need to achieve their goals.

Here are some costly mistakes that doom most fundraising campaigns:

MISTAKE #1: Asking your athletes to sell products or services

Expect dismal profits and a lot of aggravation if you select a fundraiser that requires your athletes to sell products or services. Why? Athletes HATE selling stuff. They find it time-consuming and uncomfortable.

Selling is challenging even for trained professionals with years of experience. For student-athletes, it is nearly impossible, and very few reach their sales goals. Some athletes succeed, but the majority will fail.

Avoid selling if you want to have a profitable fundraiser. It has caused more campaign failures than anything else.

MISTAKE #2: Letting a fundraising company take 50% or more of YOUR money!

The magazine publishers, cookie companies, and candle makers love to turn your athletes into a sales force for their products and they get to keep half of the collections. What a great deal … for them!

Can you imagine collecting $5,000 and then dumping $2,500 of it in the trash?

Also, don’t be fooled by promotional sales pitches that promise you’ll “earn up to 90% or more,” because that usually requires your athletes to make an unrealistic quantity of sales. Make sure to read the fine print. Any offer that sounds too good to be true usually is.

Remember, the total amount of money you collect at the end of the campaign is a meaningless number. The more important number, and the one you should always focus on, is the amount of profit you will keep after paying all expenses. Aim for profit margins of 65% or more.

MISTAKE #3 Asking supporters for less than $20

Before you select a fundraiser, do the math and you’ll quickly see that you are wasting a great opportunity to maximize profits when you collect less than $20.

Simply work backwards from your goal and it will be clear that the huge quantity of low dollar amount transactions makes it nearly impossible to succeed.

For example, if your team of 15 athletes needs $2,000, you would need to sell 4,000 candy bars for $1 each – amounting to 267 sales per athlete. Likewise the same amount would require 333 car washes at $6 each, equaling 22 cars per athlete. It’s not happening!

It’s a common mistake: a family friend – who would be happy to donate $50 or more to your cause – buys a $5 raffle ticket and your team loses out on earning an easy $45 extra.

MISTAKE #4: Organizing multiple fundraisers during the same season

This approach never works: selling cheesecakes in January, holding an auction in February, hosting a bake sale in March, selling Easter baskets in April, canning spare change at the mall in May, and so on.

Too much time spent fundraising wears everyone out. Each fundraiser does worse than the one before because coaches, parents, and athletes run out of time, patience, and enthusiasm. We call it “fundraising fatigue.”

Instead, focus on a concentrated effort to accomplish your goal in one shot that takes hours instead of days, weeks or months.

People work much harder and with more energy when they know that a fundraiser will be completed quickly. You’ll find that everyone is supportive and more productive. One quick and profitable campaign per year allows you and your athletes to concentrate on their schoolwork and winning games, not on becoming fundraising professionals.

MISTAKE #5: Allowing fundraising participation to be optional

Don’t be a fundraising wimp! If you’re taking a team trip or purchasing equipment, every one of your athletes is going to benefit. So, why would you allow participation in your fundraiser to be optional?

Equal participation should be a requirement. On every team, there are always some athletes who refuse to pull their weight or parents who don’t want their children to contribute. When this happens, your response should be the same as it is when an athlete announces he or she won’t practice, but still expects to play in the game.

Coaches who demand full participation – and require that every athlete give his or her best effort in competition and in fundraising – always get the best results too. Coaches who present a fundraiser as an optional project and without any importance usually fail miserably.

MISTAKE #6: Taking on too much financial risk

Avoid any fundraiser that requires you to pre-pay the full amount due for products or that heavily penalizes you if you fail to reach your sales goal. Be sure to ask yourself, “How much will we owe the fundraising company if we fail to reach our goal?”

Too many coaches pre-purchase food (candy, cheesecakes, donuts, hotdogs, etc.) or custom print their team’s logo on products (sweatshirts, hats, bumper stickers, etc.) only to discover that the unsold items cannot be returned for a full credit.

Your fundraising company should invest in your success, not hinder it.

MISTAKE #7: Neglecting the strong connection athletes share with their supporters

Selling to strangers is always a mistake. An athlete’s family friends, relatives, and adult personal contacts are much more likely to contribute — and contribute in higher amounts — to your campaign than a random person or business.

In conclusion, the most important question to ask when selecting a fundraiser is Which project will generate the largest profit with the fewest transaction in the shortest time?

Do not make your selection process any more complicated than that. I am available to assist you with you and help make your next fundraiser a huge success. Contact me anytime!

Finally, there is a place for nerds and brainiacs on high school sports teams.
With so many schools in Miami-Dade hurting in the pocketbooks, teams aren’t only looking for the best athletes, but also the people with the best ideas for fundraisers. No better example than at Michael Krop High in northeast Miami-Dade.
A few weeks ago, Krop hosted nationally known teen sensation Tiffany Giardina. The singer and her band played to about 400 screaming kids and raised nearly $8,000 for the school’s athletic program.
This past weekend, the school held a benefit golf tournament that brought in $4,000.

High School Athletes Lend Helping Hands
And now the baseball team is about to strike a pose in a new team calender.
“Unfortunately, with everything going on in public education today, we have to find new and novel ways to support our athletics and our activities,” said principal Matthew Welker.
Miami high school sports have turned out some of the best and most well-known athletes in professional sports today, but that matters little when budget constraints require deep cuts. Statewide, sports programs were among the first to be offered up to the chopping block.
Athletics were ultimately spared, but the situation hasn’t improved.
At Krop, players and coaches hope the baseball calenders, which are all PG, will raise $10,000 for the athletic program. The student athletes’ willingness to go vogue only showed a small part of the will to do just about anything to keep the balls rolling, bats swinging, and helmets crashing.
That includes playing groundskeeper on the baseball field. Part of the money raised will go toward maintaining the team’s ball fields, an expense that used to be paid for by the county.
The players spend hundreds of hours pulling weeds, creating their own field of dreams, while getting it in shape for games. In this economic climate, the school is lucky it can field a team. Worrying about the actual field is secondary.
“I would not like to go to that point, I’m going do my very best to avoid that because reality is, many students come to school for those activities and for those sports,” Welker said.
First Published: Nov 2, 2009 2:20 PM EST

When golfer Diana Walker steps up to the tee box Wednesday afternoon, ready to play 18 holes for her school, it’s exactly where she thought she would be on the final day of September — almost.

‘I feel dead’: Eddie Izzard ran 43 marathons in 51 days. (Reuters: Stephen Hird)

• Video: Marathon man (ABC News)

British comedian Eddie Izzard completed his 43rd marathon in seven weeks as his fundraising run for Sport Relief came to an end in London overnight.

The 47-year-old set out from Trafalgar Square on July 27, and 1,770 kilometres and 51 days later he completed the circuit as he crossed the London finish line.

Izzard covered at least 42 kilometres each day but spent just five weeks preparing for the feat. He managed to improve his time from 10 hours down to a touch more than five hours, running a personal best on the final leg.

“I feel dead,” he told reporters at the finish line.

Izzard kept Twitter followers updated throughout the odyssey and his modest support team consisted of his tour manager and a sports therapist.

He also had an ice cream van in tow for the duration, which dispensed free ice creams.

The Rachel Corrie Ramadan Soccer Tournament is now underway in Rafah, Gaza on a field cleared from the rubble of demolished homes. The Rebuilding Alliance, the organization I founded to rebuild war-torn communities and make them safe, just sent a shipment of 16 big boxes of gently worn sports shoes donated by hundreds of people for Gaza. Will our shipment make it through the blockade? Will it make a difference?

Overall, I am proud to tell you that through hundreds of small and large donations, we installed a portable office unit on the field just before the Ramadan Tournament began. This little building is the first step in developing a community center at the Unity Club Soccer Field, there on the edge of the Ybnah Refugee Camp in Rafah. In addition, proceeds from the GlobalGiving Ready, Set, Give competition (we won first place!) have now been fully transferred to Gaza, via the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, so that some lights are already being installed this week. We continue fundraising through GlobalGiving.com to be able to complete the “Beam of Light Ramadan Soccer Project in Rafah” and extend tournament play (and community-building) into the night.

Why send soccer and sports shoes? Some are playing soccer barefoot on that hard-packed sand. They need shoes, but the blockade means few if any shoes are available and no jobs, no money with which to buy them. Back in the spring, Adnan in Rafah asked for used sports shoes so we put up a big sign at the Rebuilding Alliance office and hundreds of people in our neighborhood donated their gently-worn sports and soccer shoes, and uniforms. More would give too, but let’s see if we can get these through the blockade.

Yesterday, Cindy and Craig Corrie, the parents of the young American who was killed when she stood before the Israeli Army bulldozer that threatened a Palestinian family’s home, and Rachel’s friends with the Olympia Rafah Sister City Project (ORSCP), left Cairo to reach Rafah to join Rachel’s friends in Gaza for the Rachel Corrie Ramadan Soccer Tournament. We scrambled to get the shoes boxed up and sent to Cairo where Craig Corrie tried to pick them up for the mini-bus trip to Gaza. Our 16 boxes (325 pairs) arrived on Sunday. We hoped Customs would release them to the ORSCP delegation to bring the shoes with them through the blockade. As it was, the shoes were released to the Egyptian Foreign Ministry — and just the soccer uniforms already in luggage, were cleared for transit.

I have so many questions about the benefit of sending gently worn soccer shoes to Gaza. Here they have no value, but there, if we can get them through, they could mean a lot. Logistically, used sports shoes are a low-cost way to press through the blockade (no tariffs, no possible security risk, easy to pack and ship). At each step along the way, more and more people join in to help, e.g. lots of schools want to do shoe drives, the freight forwarders cut their price by half and paid for pick-up. The head of a receiving company in Cairo said that he will do all he can to help, “As a Palestinian, a Gazan, and a human being.”

I don’t know if this will be successful … it feels so small in the face of big governments’ (our’s, Egypt’s, Israel’s) misguided, intractable blockade — policies of collective punishment. I take a leap of faith (sometimes just a fragile thread) that the outpouring of goodwill here and all along their way matters. As the shipment moves forward, we are developing the grassroots and diplomatic network needed to reach our next goal: to get building materials in. “Crunchtime” is defined as a critical moment or period (as near the end of a game) when decisive action is needed. This is crunchtime for the blockade. May our collective goodwill score the winning point and end the blockade game decisively.

My team here at the office reminds me that, “Small things in life really matter.” The connection between the person who donated his shoes, her shoes to the person who receives them, that connection can brings out the best in us all. Do you agree? What does this mean to you? Please comment below. Over the next week, as the shoes and delegation near Gaza, I’ll update you on their progress — and when the shoes get stuck, I’ll ask you to call your Senators and Representatives and then thank them gracefully when the way opens.

Follow Donna Baranski-Walker on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RebuildingAll

Only 80 tickets at $20 apiece were sold at the gate, for a total of just $1,600. But as the old saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining.

In this case, it was the generous support of a few that helped bring the total receipts to more than $8,000. That money will be used to lower the cost of user fees for student athletes at Haverhill High School this fall.

Local businessman Fred Habeeb came up with the idea to hold a concert after hearing from local parents who told him they have a hard time affording their children’s user fees. It costs $275 to play one sport this year. There is a $550 individual maximum and an $850 maximum per family.

“We had tremendous support for the concert from the business community, individuals and local foundations, but gate admissions were very disappointing,” Habeeb said. “The bands were great, the weather was beautiful, but unfortunately, there weren’t as many people there as we had hoped.”

He expected a crowd of more than 600 people, but got about half that, including many volunteers who were there. The Elle Gallo Band, Air Tight, the B Street Bombers and the James Montgomery Blues Band donated their services to the event.

“If you look at the number of students in sports, if we had all those parents come to this event, we would have had at least 1,000 people,” Habeeb said. “I know many who came were older people, adults whose children are not in school.”

Habeeb said the bulk of the concert tickets were purchased by several supporters, including the Dennis M. Sughrue Scholarship Committee, which bought $2,500 worth of tickets, and Attorney Scott Gleason, who bought $1,500 worth.

“We also had $500 from each of our eight sponsors, and many folks bought $150 books of tickets,” Habeeb said. “And we received $10,000 worth of free radio advertising from The River (92.5 FM).”

Garin Veris, Haverhill High’s new athletics director, said he must bring in $200,000 in user fees this year. He said all fall athletes will see some reduction in their fees. The sale of concert tickets by booster clubs will go to reduce fees for their sports, while foundation money will be spread across the board.

“It’s not a tremendous amount, but any amount we have coming in at this stage is a bonus,” he said. “And we thank Fred and Pete (Shanahan) and the booster clubs and the bands and the community for supporting us.”

Shanahan, the retired Haverhill High athletic director, was one of several people who helped coordinate the concert.

Roughly 390 students have gone out for fall sports, which is about a 10 percent increase over last year at this time, Veris said. Fall sports include football, golf, soccer, girls swimming, cross county, field hockey, volleyball and cheerleading.

Last year, parents paid $170,000 in user fees, while donations from sports booster clubs, individuals, foundations and businesses amounted to $30,000. “We’re not going to cover the whole expense of fees this year, but with community and business support, it is a doable proposition,” Veris said.

Habeeb is already thinking about what kind of show he would try to put on next year, and he expects it, too, would take place at the stadium.

“I want to do it again and coordinate it with Garin Veris,” he said. “We might bring in some big name bands, although the bands this year were fabulous. The bottom line is, if Haverhill residents do not come out to support it, it doesn’t matter who you bring.”

Veris plans to work closely with the high school booster club this year to help all athletes better afford their user fees.

“If we’re on the same page and I’m aware of what each club is doing, that helps me in the fundraising I do as AD,” he said.

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Motoya Nakamura/The OregonianParkrose High School Dance Team. Each student on the team must raise $525 to pay for costumes and other expenses.

At Parkrose High School, dance team members, all dressed in black, lift one leg off the floor, toes pointing downward as they practice. They reach both arms high into the air as if touching the sky.

Or as if praying for help to pay their fees.

For many metro area students, the start of the school year this week is also the start of seemingly endless fees — to play sports, to sing in school musicals, to play the trombone, to get a yearbook.

In most public schools, students pony up a standard “pay-to-play fee” to participate in state sports, dance or other competitive activities of $50 to $250 depending on the activity and the school district.

Then the real costs begin — students and their parents often must pay hundreds more in team fees.

Among the groups hardest hit for cash are dance and cheerleading teams. They typically must come up with $150 to $600 in team fees for glittery costumes, competition entrance fees, hotels, food, shoes, even fake eyelashes.

“We know that asking for money and the fundraising are things that make people shy away from being on the team,” said senior Tessa James, one of the captains of the Parkrose dance team. “It’s a sacrifice. But we learn life skills that we can take with us.”

Dancers often pay more than football players, for example, whose pay-to-play fee typically includes the uniforms and equipment.

“In many cases, dance and cheer teams have to do fundraisers and purchase their own uniforms,” said Mike Wallmark, associate executive director at the Oregon School Activities Association. “That’s not a typical occurrence in traditional sports.”

Participation at the state dance competition in spring dropped for the third year in 2009. OSAA officials and state dance coaches are still trying to figure out why.

This year, some schools have decreased their fees to help financially strapped families and put more emphasis on fundraising for dance, cheerleading and other activities. And many coaches are reaching into their own pockets to pay for extras.

Increasingly, dance teams around Oregon are trading used uniforms and reusing portable floors that belonged to dance rivals to help cut costs. Some cheerleading teams are using tennis shoes muddied in last year’s football games instead of buying everything new.

At Parkrose, dance team members each must raise $525 to be on the team, slightly less than last year’s $550. The team has placed second in the state’s dance show team division for the past five years and is a popular draw.

Students often go door to door, seeking out small businesses and family members to sponsor them and give $50 to $100 toward a year of dance. Even with sponsorships, most teams use those fundraising favorites — candy sales, bracelets, cookie dough and car washes — to make up the difference.

Parkrose junior Ivanna Tucker was concerned when she joined the team three years ago about where she would find the money. Tucker is part of the East Portland school’s free lunch program.

While students who receive free or reduced price lunches pay a lower pay-to-play rate, they still must come up with the team fee.

“I was scared to go ask people for money,” Tucker said. “I had some difficulties my freshman year. But my last two years, I’ve gotten better. I think I’ve gotten the hang of it.”

This year, for the first time, she has raised nearly all the money before the start of school.

Motoya Nakamura/The OregonianJefferson High School Cheerleaders prepare for their first performance of the year.
Jefferson High
At Jefferson High School, cheerleading coach Elizabeth Richards spent the day before the team’s first cheerleading performance out at stores shopping for earrings for her team. Richards is also attending school-bus driving classes because she will need to drive the team on a school bus to most away games. For students, the team fee is about $200 each year.

“I try to make sure all the girls come up with their money,” Richards said. “I ask the parents to contact me and talk it over. Some girls were not able to completely come out-of-pocket so we did a car wash to get the rest of the money.”

Sixteen-year-old Goddeua Calhoun, a Jefferson junior, said she and her mother had a long talk about the cost of cheerleading before she joined the team and her mother paid the fees.

“She wanted to know if it was something I really wanted to do or just something to do,” said Calhoun, one of the team’s captains this year. “It’s something I cherish and put my all into.”

Tigard High
More and more coaches must find ways to pinch pennies. Linda Sheron has been coaching dance at Tigard High School for 34 years, and said she knows just about every trick in the book.

After paying a $200 participation fee to Tigard High, students on the team pay $150 to a team fund, then do fundraising during the year to make money for competitions and travel.

And she has learned how to save money from previous years, reuse costumes and borrow costumes from other schools. Usually teams buy their new uniforms in the spring for state competition. This year, Sheron said her team probably won’t buy new tops for fall because of money.

Cleveland High
Both Tigard and Cleveland High School host tuition-based dance clinics for younger students, which helps raise money for the team. Cleveland High School’s dance team hosts Mr. Cleveland, a male student pageant, and charges admission to the event to raise money.
At Parkrose, assistant dance coach Caysie Duax has been getting outfits at bargain prices for nearly a decade. Typically, the outfits can range from $80 to $300 apiece.

Duax, an airline employee, and fellow coaches head down to Los Angeles’ fashion district on discounted airfare rates to buy outfits at $25 to $40 per student.

That cuts down on the fundraising the 38-member team must do each year, which normally totals $14,000 to $16,000. The school creates accounts for the students and helps parents understand where every dollar goes.

“It always seems like a lot of money but if they see what we do, how we do it, they understand,” Duax said. “Everyone has to fundraise. If you want to be able to dance at football games, in front of your school, you can reach that goal. You have to work towards it.”

– Kimberly Melton: kimmelton@news.oregonian.com

6:30pm Monday 31st August 2009

By Nazia Parveen »

A GROUP of Ribble Valley women have come up with a new twist on the naked calendar charity fundraiser.

The 12 ladies have produced raffle tickets bearing just their legs.

Contestants are challenged to match the legs to pictures of their faces displayed on the calendar’s cover in Ribchester shops.

The answers will be revealed during a special event later this month when the full calendar will be revealed.

In the meantime, residents are snapping up tickets – and eyeing up contestants.

The idea was first mooted by the owner of the village sandwich shop, Janis Whitlock, and her neighbour, Billy Sharples, in a bid to raise cash for the Rosemere Cancer Foundation after they both lost close relatives to the disease.

She said: “It’s quite funny because people are walking round staring at our legs and they keep coming into the shop and asking to have a look at mine.

“It really is a fun way of raising money for a wonderful charity.”

Mrs Whitlock, had only been married to her husband Brian for three months when he died of bowel cancer in September, last year.

The 52-year-old, said: “Brian would do anything for anybody and at his funeral the church was packed which is testament to how popular he was.

“The fundraising is a way of helping me and others whose relatives die to carry on.” Mrs Whitlock has already helped raise more than £4,000 for the cancer charity after organising a bike ride, which saw her 21-year-old son, Adam, and 11 other cyclists riding from Cardiff to Ribchester.

She added: “We wanted to give something back to the absolutely fabulous people whowork at Rosemere. They are special and always seem to put themselves out for all the patients and their families.”

Billy Sharples, who helped create the calendar, lost his partner Christine and stepson, Stephen, to the disease three years ago.

The retired decorator, who lives in Fort Avenue, said: “Many of the women who took part have either beat cancer or lost a relative to it so the charity is very close to all our hearts.”

The identities of which legs belong to which women will be revealed at a special event in Ribchester Sports and Social Club, in Church Street, on September 19.