Letter to our friends – brave potential „investors“

Dear Friends,

we’d like to use this website to let you know about our new, brave, seemingly brainless but – in fact – well-considered plan: we decided to buy a unique historical bus RTO 706 to be used for our information, educational, „PR“ and fundraising campaigns (visit the Photogallery to see some pictures of the vehicle).

As most of you probably know, our slowly and gradually advancing work requires big, continuous, on-going support. You definitely can imagine that we really need virtually every single crown (Euro, pound, dollar) to fund the construction of our hospice nursing unit, to run the respite part of our children’s hospice (= renovated building of an old village school at Malejovice, we opened in 2004), to manage our hostel for parents of sick children hospitalized at the Motol Hospital, Prague, and also to maintain all the other charitable, non-profit activities our Foundation has been performing for almost 16 years by now...

We, however, do have quite a strict “Code of Ethics” as far as the choice of fundraising methods is concerned: we’ll never resort to emotionally extortive (although efficient) campaigns based e.g. on showing sad and weepy faces of seriously sick children...

Our Foundation started to work in 1991, and even after those long 16 years, we still meet people who have happened to learn about us just „by chance“ – and they then keep encouraging us to „start informing about the work more efficiently“ as it is „such a pity people do not know you and the work you do“. And they often add: „If people do not know that you exist, they can neither use your services nor give you their support.“

We believe that a beautiful historical bus travelling all over the Czech Republic will safely attract attention of our – often a bit indifferent and sleepy – public, and will help us in communicating our message efficiently, relatively cheaply and on a long-term basis (when compared with media advertising campaigns).

We plan to repeatedly visit – slowly and safely – all the regions of our country: at first as a part of our information campaign „Not to Stay Alone“ (= campaign aiming to support parents to stay in hospitals with their hospitalized children) and the survey of Czech and Moravian paediatric wards; later, the bus can be used creatively in many different ways: e.g. as a mobile library, charity shop, lecturing room, playroom, theatre or a little cinema, etc., etc.

The bus which we now have the opportunity to buy – is in a relatively good shape; there, however, will be some more expenses in addition to the purchase itself – we’ll have to pay for a thorough technical „checkup“ and, subsequently, also for the M.O.T. (that has expired earlier this year), which we need to safely enter Czech roads. We would also like to buy a folding, hangar-like tent to protect the bus (when not in use) from all rains and snowstorms.

Our decision to buy the bus is also backed by the fact we have two men in our team who have long-term personal experience with this type of machines: Mr. Miroslav Sadílek, an extremely skilled and handy technician, who used to repair such buses for almost ten years, and Mr. Martin Řehák, who does also have nearly an „intimate“ knowledge of the vehicle. According to people from the Club of Czech historical buses, spare parts are still easily available – the crucial thing is to have someone who is capable of maintaining the bus.

In addition to the two (just mentioned) members of our team, we also have a volunteer, a recently retired bus driver, who used to drive the RTO bus on one of the local routes for almost 12 years. The bus is now owned by Mr. Jiří Machalický from Kutná Hora: he set the price at 250.000,- CZK (8.700,- Euro) and promised some help and support (unspecified so far) from his Inzertbus company. We address those of you who do know both us and our work long enough to understand that our plan is not a mad idea and waste of money but a well-considered investment that may help us in what we aim to do.

Please help us to raise money for the bus – we’ll do our best to maximize the value of your gift through our work!

Thank you for your trust and your support.

Markéta Královcová
Klicek Foundation's Director

Malejovice, August 18th, 2007