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Standing Down On Chase Race
It has become evident over the last three days that we are not going to be successful in our bid for a $25000 dollar grant in the Chase Community Giving race. There are several reasons for this:-
1. For sure a number of people are liking the page instead of voting or objecting to liking the app. This doesn help. BUT we had both these problems in 2010 when we came within 30 votes of winning.
2. What we did NOT have in 2010 was a position where we had to stay in the top 100. In 2010 all we had to do was stay in the top 200 for the grant. If this was 2010 we would still be well in the race. Chase split the competition into two this year. One for charities with operating costs of over $1,000,000 and one for those with operating costs under that figure. The first contest ocurred earlier this year. We qualified for this round but then so do MOST US charities. The fact that some of the big hitters aren't in the current competition doesn't help us much. We are still up against the vast majority of US charities and expected to raise our overall position by 100 places in half the time.
3. It's not a good time. In 2010 the Chase race occurred well before the Left Coast Eisteddfod and we were able to capitalize on the buzz for the upcoming event. This year it is well after the recent hugely successful L.A. event which makes it all the more difficult to generate enthusiasm.
4. A number of key players who were willing to render massive assistance last time round are not available ( for a variety of reasons ) to assist us this year.
All in all it looks like a case of three tries for a Welshman i.e. we'll give it a go again next year. I do not intend to spend the next ten days fighting a losing battle when there are so many other more useful things to do. This will not affect our plans for the forthcoming 2012 West Coast Eisteddfod which is still subject to an initial costing exercise. Of course the extra funds would have been handy BUT we didnt have Chase money in 2009, 2010 or 2011 and the Eisteddfod went ahead 
Open for comments:-
Diolch Peter...I hope you didn't burn too many bridges
Well, I'm sorry this didn't work, and after threatening every friend I have with disgrace if they didn't vote, but the rules do actually work against charities this size. It's a tough nut to crack.
Firstly I'd like to add a thankyou from all at AC to everyone who worked for and supported us in the recent Chasebook Face race. We didn't take the decision to pull out lightly BUT based on a comparison with the situation in 2010 when we so nearly succeeded it seemed that the goal was just not achievable in the allotted time span.
Assuming that we do this next year ( and that will depend at least in part on the third factor which you didnt mention in your comment: timing ) we will prepare well in advance. Obviously we will be watching closely to see what Chase are up to.
( I should add, we knew what the rules were this time but thought we should at least try for a few days to test the response. As for the 'big hitters' I spent a fair amount of time on the phone, IM and email BUT it just wasn't coming together on the scale it would have needed to. Given that we only had 11 days left when we decided to quit, I didn't think that there was time enough to build a new coalition of the willing on the scale of the 2010 effort. )