Fellowship for Students

Welcome to the CMF student fundraising resource pages!

We're challenging the CMF student groups up and down the country to join us in raising money for our national students' conference through sponsored events…and we'd love your group to be one of them.

Now here's where you come in!

What are we raising money for?

CMF's national student conference is the highlight of the CMF year. It brings together around 350 medical students from the UK, Ireland and countries throughout Europe and Eurasia, for an inspirational weekend of teaching that helps them work out what it means to be a Christian in medicine, so it's not just about getting money for an amorphous organisation – it's about helping CMF make disciples of Jesus in the medical world!

Here's some more information on the conference.

What do we want student groups to do?

Our main fundraising event for 2008 is the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge. CMF students and staff will be tackling the three peaks of Whernside, Ingleborough and Pen-Y-Gent in around 12 hours on Saturday 9 August. We're planning to make it a great weekend of fun and fellowship as well as fundraising!

Have a look on the Three Peaks Page to find out what it's all about.

But if that date doesn't work out for your group, don't worry! Here are some more ideas for fundraising events that you could do later over the autumn term.

How will we help you?

In order to make things as easy as possible for you, CMF has signed up to Just Giving, on online fundraising tool that lets you build your own fundraising webpage really easily, enables you to take online donations and lets CMF reclaim Gift Aid, increasing the value of donations.

It's amazingly easy and you can see what students have done previously at www.justgiving.com/brightonrunners and here's an example of one ready for this year at www.justgiving.com/cmfthreepeaks-staff ­- you can even link your fundraising page to your Facebook profile!

Here's how to set up your fundraising webpage. There are also template sponsorship forms for you to use.

How much do we need?

We subsidise our student conference each year by around £20,000. This year we are aiming to raise £10,000 to help cover that very worthwhile investment.

This may seem daunting on its own, but when you break it down it's quite manageable. That would need ten medical school teams raising £1,000 each, or 20 teams raising £500 each, for instance. There are over 30 functioning CMF student groups around the country!

Even if some groups might feel that they're too small and struggling to raise £500, don't worry! Everything that's raised will be a great help, and anything you're able to raise will really be appreciated! Just go for it and do what you can…

See what other med schools are planning.

Where will the money come from?

Between the members of a CMF student group there will be lots of people you're in contact with:

• Family members
• Churches
• Friends and other students

Many of these would be potentially interested in supporting the work of CMF – they don't even have to be Christians, and if they have a personal link with you and can see that you're passionate about what you're raising money for, many people will be willing to help.

There are lots of rich CMF doctors around the country, and some of your local ones will be very willing to help you. We are, however, using several other means to fleece our generous graduates, though, so this is also an opportunity to spread the net way beyond the usual CMF suspects.

What's the next step?

If you're interested in joining us for the Three Peaks Challenge on 8-10 August, you'll need to get booked in as we need firm numbers for accommodation. Email Matt Stammers, who is helping to coordinate this project on the National Students' Committee.

See what other schools are planning.

If you're not able to do the Three Peaks but would like to do something else over the summer or autumn, talk to Matt about your ideas too. We really value you as student members and this is a great opportunity for local groups to give back to the wider CMF some of the support and help that you've had during your time as student members, as well as having lots of fun together.

Go for it!

Matt Stammers
National Students' Committee Rep – South East

Avril Stirzaker
National Students' Committee Chair

Mark Pickering
Head of Student Ministries