CycleCharge Official Launch Update

[morphix]

Hey all,

Some of you are probably wondering what's been happening with CycleCharge as things have been quiet for a while after after we had a few technical setbacks with our sticker printing.

There is an announcement on the CycleCharge Announcements page but I thought I'd come here to give you all a little update.. We finally got our stickers printed and delivered this week, and the website is now ready to register Charge Points. So the scheme is officially open for business as from today!

I have done a minor update to the website to show off the new logo and sticker and have made a few announcements.

The next phase is to begin promoting CycleCharge and getting businesses to become Charge Points. To that end, I've produced some promotional materials, which you can download and share.

A big thank you to everyone who generously donated or sponsored us to get the scheme this far. It probably wouldn't have got started without your help.

What happens next...

We're going to spend the next 4 weeks doing some promotional stuff and trying to get some Charge Points signed up. This is where we really need volunteers to help out. Whether it's printing and handing out a few leaflets locally, signing up businesses you know personally, or perhaps e-mailing some.

After that, I'm planning a major update to the website with a new look and a Charge Point Directory and Charge Point Map Route Planner. But first we need the Charge Points ;-)

I think Lynda as Scheme Coordinator will be taking over a bit more now and coordinating the different promotional efforts, trying out ideas etc. I will be focusing on fund-raising as we're now completely out of funds and CycleCharge is now being funded by me! If we can get some big backing that would be great. I'm trying out a few ideas but if anyone wants to help with fund-raising or has any suggestions to offer, feel free. I'm currently preparing an expenditure projection to assess our funding needs.

Well that's all for now!

 

[kitchenman]

Well done Paul and Lynda. Looking forward to helping.

 

[funkylyn]

Well done Paul and Lynda. Looking forward to helping.

It is SO exciting Alan, all the hitches finally overcome, the stickers, leaflets and membership cards look really great and we are raring to go......and all the help you and anyone else can come forward with will be pounced on gratefully......its been a long slog, but one thing Paul and I found out is that we are both stubborn, and determined never to give in, so we kept each other upbeat and ploughed on regardless and are very hopeful , now we have finally emerged from the end of the tunnel, that e-bikers everywhere will find this scheme a great help in the future.

Lynda

 

[flecc]

Paul, I've just done a repeat BACS transfer of a donation to bail you out of the present problem, same amount as before.

Thanks for all the efforts from yourself and Lynda.

 

[funkylyn]

Flecc....thankyou so much, your continuing support is really really appreciated.

We are busy right this minute ironing out things on the site etc......

Lynda

 

[mxer125]

I have joined the "Like" button but i don't like it i LOVE IT!!! Fantastic idea, Great to see things like this up and running, Well done!!!!.....

 

[morphix]

Paul, I've just done a repeat BACS transfer of a donation to bail you out of the present problem, same amount as before.

Thanks for all the efforts from yourself and Lynda.

flecc that's incredibly generous of you, thanks very much! I'm matching your donation myself with a further cash injection too which should keep us going for the next few weeks for the promotional phase until we can do some fundraising. I'm hoping the electricity companies or one or two of these environmental orgs will put their hands in their pockets, one can only hope! ;-)

 

[Hero Eco]

Fantastic work guys!

I'll be in touch for Hero to sponsor, but with my BEBA hat on let me know what we can do!

 

[wurly]

Good work Paul and Lynda.
I'm going to make it a quest to get somewhere in West Bay signed up to the scheme, after all my dismal experiences last time. Armed with professional looking leaflets and stickers, it should be easier this time (hopefully). I sent a bit more money Paul, it's not much, but then if everyone donated something, it all helps.

 

[mike killay]

Donation via Paypal on the way to you.

Mike

 

[morphix]

Good work Paul and Lynda.
I'm going to make it a quest to get somewhere in West Bay signed up to the scheme, after all my dismal experiences last time. Armed with professional looking leaflets and stickers, it should be easier this time (hopefully). I sent a bit more money Paul, it's not much, but then if everyone donated something, it all helps.

Thanks Mel, thats the spirit! If you want some leaflets and stickers sending just drop me a private message with your address and I'll send you some.

 

[kitchenman]

Just tried to register and got an unknown page error! ... Suggest we hold off distribution until the registration process has been tried and tested! ....

 

[morphix]

Just tried to register and got an unknown page error! ... Suggest we hold off distribution until the registration process has been tried and tested! ....

Ah thanks for the heads up Alan. I see the problem now. FIXED!

 

[kitchenman]

Yes. I am excited too but then again I am easily excited! .. regarding the marketing effort and the on the ground work I am going to do. Do you want to keep tabs on what I'm and other people are doing? i.e a co-ordinated effort? Or can we all go off and do our own things? I was going to get the few contacts I have in Alton to register themselves (once that is working!) ... and start getting others ... Was going to set up in the Market Square with my information recumbent tent. There is a spot I have in mind which is directly outside the local newspaper office. I will be knocking on their door unless they knock on mine first! ...Will be taking lots of photos and videos ...

 

[morphix]

Yes. I am excited too but then again I am easily excited! .. regarding the marketing effort and the on the ground work I am going to do. Do you want to keep tabs on what I'm and other people are doing? i.e a co-ordinated effort? Or can we all go off and do our own things? I was going to get the few contacts I have in Alton to register themselves (once that is working!) ... and start getting others ... Was going to set up in the Market Square with my information recumbent tent. There is a spot I have in mind which is directly outside the local newspaper office. I will be knocking on their door unless they knock on mine first! ...Will be taking lots of photos and videos ...

I think Lyn and yourself/those involved should decide on this... but I would suggest that perhaps a good way might be to co-ordinate a leafleting effort in multiple towns to coincide with local press release to local newspapers in the same town for maximum impact. Even if volunteers only managed to get one charge point signed in their town, that would be useful for the subsequent press release to mention that business and start the ball rolling? Perhaps allow 2 weeks for the leafleting (until Mid March) and then do the press release after 2 weeks.

I think though, volunteers should be free to try out whatever approaches and efforts they want to, whether that is going out speaking to businesses with info sheets/stickers, just posting a few leaflets or even just e-mailing companies searched off the web..

We could perhaps spend the next 4 weeks on this and have a review period at end of March to see what approaches work best and then try and adopt a more coordinated/consistent approach after that?

 

[morphix]

I think your enthusiasm is great Alan, perhaps you could become CycleCharge's Public Relations man? Taking photos and videos, blogging etc is a great idea.

If people reported back their ideas and efforts to this forum, that might be a great way to assess progress and help each other out etc.

Regarding the registration on the site for Charge Points... its working now, and Charge Points are asked to create a profile/enter their business details after registering. That's an important stage they need to do else we won't know where they are! At the moment the website is far from ideal in this regard, and I will make this registration/profile process seamless and separate members/charge points when I update the site next month fully. At the moment I don't have much time this month due to exams.. so I've just patched it up as part of the minor updates..

 

[morphix]

Fund-raising

Everyone has been so generous yesterday with more donations which will keep CycleCharge in the black for a couple of months at least. That buys us valuable time to launch the scheme and do some proper fund-raising once the scheme gets underway.

Running parallel to promotion of the scheme, we could start collecting a list of companies/orgs we can approach for sponsorship.. if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to post. I'm thinking all the electric companies for a start, 'bout time we got something back? ;-) I'm not sure about approaching Local Council's for grants at this stage... might be a bit early, perhaps when the scheme is more established in specific towns we could..

In any case I still need to produce an expenditure forecast to assess what funding we will need over the year. This is hard to predict but I can make a basic assessment based on known costs. And once we do a review next month of our promotional efforts, we might get a better idea about promotional costs. I doubt we'll get swamped anyway or have massive requests for leaflets from volunteers over the coming weeks ;-)

The biggest expenditure cost for CycleCharge is going to be postage. Posting out Charge Point stickers/info sheets, and also membership cards to members... So what Lynda and I decided was that it might be better to transfer this cost to members/charge point businesses... we will just ask for micropayments via PayPal's Micropayment service to cover the cost of postage.. will be a fixed charge of 60p. If we get proper funding later, we can review that and maybe start covering postage ourselves.

Of course, if members/volunteers are able to sign up several charge points nearby we can send the stickers and info sheets to the member in one pack to hand deliver to the new charge points which will reduce costs, where it's convenient for members... Anything unused can be posted on to another member where its needed..

Thoughts?

 

[DJH]

Sorry but I'm having trouble signing in to the website. There was some confusion when I initially became a member and I ended up with several possibilities for username..............none of which seem to work now!

 

[morphix]

Sorry but I'm having trouble signing in to the website. There was some confusion when I initially became a member and I ended up with several possibilities for username..............none of which seem to work now!

If you send me a private message with your full name I'll look up your username for you and reset your password... its on my todo list today to add a username/password reminder thingy ;-)

 

[kitchenman]

Ah thanks for the heads up Alan. I see the problem now. FIXED!

Umm .. I can get a bit further now but can't seem to get passed the Nucleus CMS login screen. Its just looking at me! >...