speed mark

[swallowthree]

Speed mark are running a fundraising football penalty session at our school. 50% of sponsor money goes to school, 50% to speedmark. Does anyone else know much about this organisation. Looks like a bit of a scam to me. would rather give the money to school.

Our school did this last year - and I was shocked that Speedmark took 50%, so I gave DD the bare minimum sponsorship.

The event itself was well organised, the children loved the special equipment and the school raised a reasonable amount.

I suppose that the advantage to the school is not having to organise/hire equipment/buy prizes etc.etc. Just handout the leaflets and let Speedmark come in and do the work.

We've had them in this year. We knew up front that they took 50% so it wasn't a shock.
It was well organised and the chap that did it was fab with the kids (and even coaxed the teachers up to take their kicks - which the kids enjoyed).

What was a bit of a pain was keeping track of the different amounts of sponsorship that the children had raised, and then tracking whether they then brought in that same amount. It took a fair bit of coordinating by the PE person who had organised the thing.
Also not helpful was the fact that all the kids goodies arrived in bulk boxes (but not all at once) and then it was down to school to go through and sort out who had earned what depending on the amounts they had raised.
Oh, and the balls that arrived were generic ones and not the mitre balls as advertised on the leaflets.

We had Speedmark. The Head booked it as a fun event and even sent a letter home explaining that they did not expect/want anyone to raise more than the bare minimum of sponsorship.
Of course some of the uber Mummies more competitive parents raised more to get their "free" football.

We've got it tomorrow at our school! I'll let you know how it goes. My kids don't seem enthralled by it - despite the goodies they get when they a raise certain amount of money.

You could always 'ditch' the sponsorship form and secretly donate the money to the school. Who would know?????

We have had it. The kids love it but I think it's a rip off so only ever sent in the bare minimum.

I donated bare minimum on the sponsorship form, stuck a bit more in the PTA/School Fund pot and then bought DS some Match Attax cards myself.

Hi my son recently took part in a sonsorship event which was absolutely fantastic, the agent was brilliant with the kids and my son came home very excited and happy that day, I had never heard of speedmark before and when my son came home with a sponsor form i looked up their website and was quite impressed with what i saw and saw it was a good way for schools to raise money for themselves due to government cut backs on budgets and it made a change to raise money for the school rather than charities which you never get to see what the money is spent on and also the kids get to win prizes aswell, i would recommend them to schools

Speed mark have been into my kids school 2-3 times over the years. It seems its a bit of a tradition now.

The kids love it. One of the other parents actually used to work for them and run the days in our school - he used to run the school football team too and everyone really got behind it - maybe more because of his involvement?

Although they do keep half of the monies the kids do get some fab prizes which all come out of the money speed mark get so if you look at it like that it not bad at all.

The Heads (past and present) at our school really enjoy it and the money raised though the years has really gone to benefit the school well.

In all, i'd have no qualms about sponsoring my kids for this.