Coasting For Kids media round up, benefiting Give Kids The World

RatherGoodBear said:
It's not difficult for all the CF parks to communicate with each other.

If only that were true. ;)

The same day thing is something we had a lot of debate over. Certainly it's easier from a promotion position (i.e., I'm not here plugging a different park every week), but it also takes away the scheduling flexibility of each park.

Cedar Point Group Photo that Tony took with his phone.

http://twitpic.com/2a3dxm

Jeff:

Curious why you removed your sponsor/donate link from your sig?

It was never in my signature.

Really?? I must be losing it.. Ugh.. Ironically school is making me feel more absentminded.

Jeff said:

RatherGoodBear said:
It's not difficult for all the CF parks to communicate with each other.

If only that were true. ;)

The same day thing is something we had a lot of debate over. Certainly it's easier from a promotion position (i.e., I'm not here plugging a different park every week), but it also takes away the scheduling flexibility of each park.

It also sounds more impressive saying that it's happening at 11 or 15 or 25 parks on the same day. Which could lead to some bigger media outlets covering it.

I also think it helps with reporting on the totals. Within a few days, you're able to say that Coasting for Kids raised X number of dollars. If you had dates all over the place, you'd know that they raised so much at Kings Island in June, and so much at Dorney in July, but you wouldn't know the total amount until October. And by that time, the riders and donors from the earlier events would have forgotten about it.

Hopefully, things went well at all the parks this year which will make things easier to coordinate next year.

I think it is a good thing they are doing. I do think participants should not be allowed to wander off to other parts of park, IMO. They signed up for a fund raising event to do a specific thing and wandering off just seems unfair to the others willing to stick it out. Taking a break and going to restroom is fine. It is also unfair to people that got turned away to full roster. I thought about doing it, but couldn't get the day off work. I would be really po'd if I got turned away and then heard there were empty seats due to others walking around park.

(Roll eyes)

I definitely couldn't take sitting on Racers for more than a few hours. Sorry about your luck.

And just to rub it in, I had a blast at Kings Island! I rode almost everything at the park. I don't think that there were very many people who stayed on Racers the whole time. A few stayed, because their goal for the day was to get as many consecutive Racer rides as possible. Everyone already raised the money, so whatever happens after that is not important.

I knew there would be some people with CoffinBoy's attitude. The reality is, this event was not about the coaster marathon. The event was about raising money for an amazing cause. There were people raising money for this event, who didn't even show up at a park. The "marathon", along with the prizes given out were more of a perk to raise interest in the event, and encourage people to raise more money for GKTW. Even at the start of the CP event it was stressed that we didn't need to stay on the coaster all day. They said it was fine if we "rode it once" and that's it. In fact, Bryan Edwards from CP raised over 1000 dollars, and due to his fear of coasters, he only rode the last ride of the day.

Of all the people who donated to me for this event, I don't think one of them would be in the least bit upset that I only rode for 6 of the 10 hours. The event raised around 30,000 dollars and boosted the awareness of GKTW, whether 1 rider or 60 riders were on the train at the time. Mission accomplished.

^ That's a good word you used: "perk." The coaster marathon isn't really the function to raise money; rather, if you raise a minimum amount of money, you win a free coaster marathon.

I do have a friend though who was considering signing up less than a week before the event, throwing in $50 of his own money to guarantee entry, and raising what he could just so he could join us. But since registration was cut off for CP, it was too late at that point. Then the morning of the event, we only had 42 riders to start with, and by 5:00 even fewer. Oh well. Guess he'll just have to not be so wishy-washy next year. :)

The actual riding serves little purpose beyond making it pressworthy, and perhaps offering some incentive to get people involved. And here's a newsflash: the number of people who actually enjoy riding continuously is not large.

Not at all. I found myself meditating and trying to nap while on Gemini. I'm so glad I walked away for a while, and to be honest, I probably would have stayed away and done more had the park not been so packed.

You could say the motivation was "something to do". :)

To loosely add something to Birdhombre's story (but from a different park), on the day of the event, two guys visiting Kings Island donated $50 each to be allowed to marathon Racer. That was really cool.

And I only rode part of the morning marathon, from 7-10am. I went back and rode 5 times after that. I may have rode 35 times total, I lost count.

I thought you all might want to check this out. Southwest Airlines decided to feature a brief article I wrote about the Dorney portion of the event. It seems even they were willing to acknowledge that Dorney is where it's at, seeing as they left the revision in there.

Read more about it here.

Are the photos really "courtesy of Carrie" or did they just take them? Just curious. :)

Courtesy of Carrie. I had requested them from her as I didn't have any really good photos of the event itself. Photo 2 was my only submission, but the other 3 were obtained voluntarily per my request.

Edit: It seems Coasterbuzz got some press out of it too! Under the text where Dorney Park was mentioned by name, it seems they opted to put a Coasterbuzz link.

Yes, I provided the pics that Justin asked for. :)

It's pretty cool your article made the company blog. Congratulations!

I've been requesting photos taken of the KI event from Kara (the lady who e-mailed me about the event) several times now, with no luck. To be fair, she did say a few days ago that she whould see what she could do. I'm holding a newspaper story until I have a photo to go with it. GRRrr... It may already be too late to print the story. That was weeks ago.

It was a really fun time though, and I'll do it again next year for sure. Maybe I'll get my t-shirt from this years event by then to wear at next year's event. :p

I'm taking my Cousin Chase with me for the VIP tour that I won! I'll know within a few days when we can go. A VIP trip report will follow.

I was trying to get photos from Dorney as well, to no avail. I thought a group photo would go great.

Side note: that typo I had in there is absolutely driving me crazy. And no, not the one where Carrie is spelled with 3 r's. I had nothing to do with that. ;)

Ah, I just assumed you were trying to roll your "r"s. :)