Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category
It has been three weeks since our fundraiser was held and we are now ready to announce the final figures. The two day kitesurfing event was one of the highlights of the festive period and, despite falling in the middle of the election troubles, saw a large number of visitors. With over 300 people turning up for the Hawiian Night.
Everyone at Forty Thieves Beach Bar welcomed us with a great enthusiasm and helped in the redecoration of their bar. With Colobridges hanging from the celing and posters on every available post, it looked great. We set up shop selling our t-shirts, postcards and ethical tradecrafts and were joined by Lalesso an ethical clothing company who make European style clothing out of traditional Kenyan Kangas. This enterprise set up by a Diani resident proved insanely popular and we became clothing merchants for two days! The kitesurfing was amazing, with international level competitors wowing the crowds, and us, with their speed and gravity defying jumps. All we could do is sit back and watch.
The two days of competing were followed by a Hawiaan Party, the proceeds of which went to The Colobus Trust. This party was huge with many locals and vistors from both up country and abroad enjoying themselves in typical coast fashion.
By the end we were very tired and very happy. The total raised is nearly KSh 200,000 (USD 3000) which is a phenomenal amount. Obviously, this would have never been possible without the help of numerous people. Money raised came from our many areas so there are so many people to thank that we are afraid we can only mention a few. Firstly, to Boris and his team at H20 Xtreme who put the whole event together. Secondly, to everyone at Forty Thieves & Ali Barbours who were of constant help before, throughout and after the event. Thirdly, to the girls at Lalesso, who donated all the profits raised by their sales at the event. And, lastly, we would like to say a big thank you to Lindsey Kennaway. Without her help we would never have achieved what we did. There are also so many others whose names we have not mentioned. Especially those businesses who donated prizes to our raffle. We are sorry we cannot mention you all personally. Some of the money raised has been spent on maintaining our property here. Unfortunstely we are unable to buy many of the items on our wishlist as the money needs to be saved to secure the trusts future in these difficult time. This is due to the numerous cancellations we have had from our volunteer program, which is where most of our money comes from. So, please if you can support us during this tough period, please, please do. Thank you all, Gwili
Today we’ve continued on with our regular activities here at the Trust: In the morning we conducted a Colobus Check with the new volunteers, and this afternoon we have once again sent a group to do de-snaring in the forest. We have also sent out renewal notifications to everyone who has sponsored a Colobridge or adopted a Colobus monkey from our troop in the past in the hopes that we will get more funding for projects. There is a second troop in the area which we are now trying to name and photograph, so soon we will have new monkeys that you can adopt. For more information please see our Adopt a Colobus page. Many thanks to all of you who have joined the Colobus Trust cause on Facebook using the causes application. The cause has now over 40 members and it is great to see that more and more people will know about Diani’s Colobus Monkeys and what the Colobus Trust does. And please join if you haven’t done so yet. Isabelle
It’s the start of a New Year and we are planning on starting afresh here at the Trust. New projects are under way, including the building of more water troughs in the forest for the animals during the dry season, and building a taxi shed by the Colobus Trust cottage. We are now also discussing and making solid plans for the release of the ex-pet vervets being rehabilitated (see Sal’s ex-pet vervet post). Our annual fundraiser at the kite surfing competition at Forty Thieves Beach Bar was a great success, as we have raised around 80,000 KSh from the sales of our raffle tickets as well as receiving part of the proceeds from the entrance fee for Hawaiian Night at Forty Thieves and half the proceeds from the sale of Lalesso Clothing items which were being sold throughout the event. With regards to the political situation, we have only been indirectly affected by it here in Diani. Last week was when the situation was a bit more tense, especially in Ukunda and Mombasa. Some governments have issued alerts for their citizens to leave Kenya, and so last week we lost 4 volunteers who decided to go home early. Here in Diani we had only been affected by food and fuel shortages, as well as the lack of cash in ATMs. But thanks to our wonderful cook Jared we were able to make do with the little that we had. Right now things seem to be mostly back to normal and we’ve even had two new volunteers arrive this week. All of this still cannot take away attention from the plight of the colobus — road traffic accidents and electrocutions have continued and will continue to happen regardless of any other problems we may be facing, so this week we have resumed our work and once again Diani’s primates are our primary concern. Isabelle
Today is Christmas Eve, and the tradition here at the Colobus Trust is for the staff and volunteers to have a special Christmas luncheon.We are looking forward to the party and the afternoon off. The kite surfing competition is fast approaching as well, and we have made quite some progress with the raffle. We have around 40 prizes, big and small, to give away on the 29th; and we are still receiving them from last-minute donors. We’ve also officially started the sale of raffle tickets, at 200 Ksh each, and in only a couple of days we’ve already sold roughly 50 tickets! We hope to sell many more during the event. Here is the current prize list that we have for the raffle:
Isabelle
As you may have read before we are having a fundraising event in a beach bar called Fourty Thieves on December 28th to December 29th. Up to now we have been quite succssesfull in getting prizes from local businesses. So far we have a half a day deep sea fishing trip on the Sashimi, a one day stay for two at Baobab Beach Resort, a weekend for two at Forest Dream, dinner for two at Ali Barbour s Cave Restaurant, lunch for two at Fourty Thieves, a stay at Flamboyant, a diving trip with Diving The Crab, a designer leather safari bag from a shop called Sand&Storm in Nairobi and lots of small prizes such as cinema tickets or tickets for the water slide park in Nairobi. These prizes alone make it worth buying a raffle ticket and there will probably be many more. The better the prizes are and the more prizes we get the higher can we set the price for the raffle tickets. But do not worry it will not cost too much so we hope that you will join the cause by buying a ticket. Chances to win are not too bad. Toralf colobologist
You may have noticed that we’re updating the blog more often now. We had a meeting with Wildlife direct about how to make a better, more readable blog, and we will try to keep it up. We are now going to make the blog a regular thing, and update it daily (hopefully). We’ve also created a youtube account and a flickr group so that we can put videos and photos on the blog and make it look more snazzy. Anyone can join the flickr group if you have a flickr account, at this address: http://www.flickr.com/groups/colobus/ We’ve also infiltrated facebook and created a facebook group (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5504808955), as well as adding our cause on the Causes application (http://apps.facebook.com/causes/view_cause/42642), so if you’re on facebook please do join us, spread the word and help support the Colobus Trust! Meanwhile at the Trust, we are doing a lot of outreach around Diani: our annual fundraiser is coming up, the Kite-surfing competition which will happen at Forty Thieves Beach Bar on the 28th and 29th of December. We’ll have a merchandise table and lots of activities, including a tombola for which we are selling raffle tickets. We have managed to get quite a few prizes donated to us already, but are still contacting as many local businesses as we can and speaking to them about how great it would be if they could donate raffle prizes to us. We’re also giving out letters to all Diani residents on behalf of the South Coast Resident’s Association, to let them know of a road clean-up which is happening this Saturday. We’re giving out cement bags and asking everyone to clean up the dirt in Diani and make litter history.
This week at the Colobus Trust we began preparations for our annual fundraiser, a kite surfing competition, which will be held on December 28th and 29th at Forty Thieves beach bar in Diani. We are going to receive part of the entry fee for the event, and also raise money through raffle tickets. Yesterday some of us went to Mombasa to contact hotels and other businesses and get them to donate prizes for our tombola and get them to support us in other ways too. It went fairly well, and some hotel managers seemed enthusiastic about the idea. Tuesday was a long day for our volunteer vet Sal. In the morning we picked up a pregnant suni who was having trouble giving birth, and Sal performed a cesarian on it, but unfortunately neither the suni nor the baby could be saved. That same day we received an animal welfare call, which turned out to be a young injured vervet. It was in pretty bad shape and unfortunately had to be euthanised. There were many other things going on this week, which kept us volunteers quite busy. Every day this week as well as last week we received a group of Gap Year kids from Camp Kenya, and our assistant manager Gwili has been working very hard to accommodate their needs while still trying to show them what we do in terms of conservation work, giving them lectures and taking them out in the field. Yesterday we took them on a Colobus diet analysis at the site of the old Colobus Trust, and we tracked a troop of 8 Colobus and observed them eat for a couple of hours. We hope they enjoyed it, I certainly did. Isabelle
Hi I am Esther and I have been working with the Colobus Trust now for 2 years. My job is as a tour guide and marketer, which is really great as it means I have a lot of contact with tourists from many different places and it means I get to talk a lot whilst trying to sell them our eco-tour. In talking to tourists all day I get to hear many stories about Europe and really hope one day to be able to visit that elegant continent. I have also been able to polish my grammer and accent during my 2 years and am trying to learn French so I can speak to even more new people and tell them about The Colobus Trust and listen to further stories of Europe. Esther Msagha - Sales and Marketing
It started as any normal day would. I was seated at my marketing desk in the hotel lounge and had just finished telling some potential guests about The Colobus Trust and our eco-tour when an old mama approached. I was just getting up to greet her in the usual manner of “Jambo, how are you?†when she reached out for my hands and seemed very sad. I went to comfort her and she told me why she was so upset. This lady had not only traveled to Kenya but also to other African countries in the past and it seems that although here in Diani we are conserving the Angolan Colobus in other countries they are not being conserved but killed to make rugs. The mama confessed to me that she had, without knowing the plight of these monkeys, bought one of these Colobus rugs, but now after hearing me talk about the Colobus Trust felt an enormous guilt. The most important thing is that she visited the Colobus Trust and then filled in some forms so that she could keep sending money yearly to the Colobus Trust. She also said she was going to go home and support other organizations which deal with the conservation of natural habitats. For me this was a great achievement because I knew that the information I had given somebody could help to increase and protect habitats to the benefit of all the people and animals that use them. Mary Mandela - Sales and Marketing |
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The Colobus Trust was established in Diani Beach, Kenya, in 1997 to save the endangered Angolan colobus monkey which was a frequent victim of roadkills. The Trust's trademark is Colobridges - bridges over the roads for save overpass. Gwili, a Welsh volunteer at the Trust reports on the day to day activities in an busy local primate conservation charity 
