First Walk for PKD planning meeting for 2008

Last Thursday night was the first planning meeting for this year's Hudson Valley Chapter Walk for PKD. It was also the first one ever for me, as I attempt to get more involved in the chapter happenings.

The big change for this coming year is that there will be two big "professionally run" walks which will be held in New York and Los Angeles. These will be held in October instead of September, when the rest of the walks around the nation will be held. Because of the proximity of our walk to New York City, some of the changes they are making for the New York City walk will impact our walk, including the elimination of the registration fee and a requirement to raise $100 in donations in order to receive a T-shirt. While I welcome the elimination of the registration fee, I'm not sure how well received the "no T-shirt unless you raise $100" will go over. Heidi mentioned that of the 247 walkers we had this past year, only 65 raised $50 or more. If all goes the way the PKD Foundation envisions, those 180-ish other people will become motivated to raise more money. We'll see.....

We also found out there will be no walk in Albany this year. This is pretty disappointing, as the Albany walk raised over $34,000 last year. Hopefully, some of those walkers will be willing to make the trip down our way, or to one of the walks in western New York.

The bulk of the meeting was spent describing the various walk committees which are in place, who's in charge, and what help they need. For me, since I'm about 50 miles away, I think I'll focus on things that I can handle from a distance - helping to obtain sponsorships, raising publicity through the media, distributing posters and fliers and things like that.

Upcoming meetings over the next couple of months:

Tue, April 15 - Walk for PKD Planning Conference Call
Wed, May 7 - Walk for PKD Planning meeting
Wed, May 28 - Support Group meeting
Tue, June 3 - Walk for PKD Planning meeting