hi Philip
the best thing to do is to round up support! I would print about 100 A5 one-sided leafltes , 4 coulors, a friendly picture captuing a frisnldy bunch of people working on a garden..i would set up a number that people can call - just look around the BT website an 0800 number will look a lot better and get more people to speak to you..
It would be easier if you just went around your neighbourhood - i could that for you! - and dropped one leaflet per household.. with around £120 you can get a reliable drop-lealet distributor to reach out other areas (just make sure they do the work properly and dont dump 10 lealflets per household instead of one or bin them altogether)..Most distributors will require a minimum order of say 3,000 to 5,000 leaflets - which means that's how many you would have to print - so a cheaper leaflet than the above would be better! You might as well print a funky postcard but no too funky of course...Set yourself a target, a date go out and do it!
Another thing you might do is to pick up the yellow pages, pick up the phone and call local business - healthy eating, organic shops or what have you - they also want to advertise their product or services to your group and possible pay nothing for it - will you do it for them if they pay your start-up costs such as leaflet printing?
IDEA: why not print a postcard/leaflet with their logo attached to them at the bottom, if they shared the costs with you or made a contribution towards the costs?
IDEA: why not contact your local university student union - you can ask a lecturer to make a 3 minute speech before a lecture in front of 100s of young students at a time! You can then leave 30 cards or so for people to pick up, since not everyone will be interested. When you stand up in front of them, wear a short with your 0800 number (if you rent one from BT you get 1,000 free minutes plus you can play a queue-waiting message before the call is answered in which you can briefly thank you sponsors thereby giving them free advertising to locals prospective customers!!! )and your organisation logo (which will cost you £129.00 from www.smartmerchant.co.uk) printed on the shirt..students can leave a message on www.answer.co.uk so you can call everyone back later! The more professional you look the more credibility you build the more people will be tempted to call you!
If you give me your number Philip, I might as well have a chat with you come down to Bristol if necessary! Yes, I'm serious! I can then contribute the costs of distributing the leaflets and share the printing costs with you on a 50/50 basis- as printing will be more expensive! I should say if you are seious about getting this off-the ground, you should be getting your voice out there with a marketing campaing as suggested above. it's better to plan and think about everything else as you go along or your project will take time to start and you might lose momentum in the process! That's my advice!
Max
