As anyone who is a small business owner knows, you could book yourself solid with "donations of your time" .... this is not to say that we don't want to support charities. Quite the opposite in fact, we love helping charities. Charity work IS great exposure... potential customers LOVE to see that you support their preferred charity and would rather hire you based on that. HOWEVER, you have a business to run! You aren't just "donating your time" as you well know. You are booking yourself during time when you could be doing paid work, you are probably using supplies (balloons, face painting, etc) that cost you money, you are definitely using up gas in your car, wear and tear on your costume and/or props, and using up your own makeup. You can of course choose to donate all of these costs if you would like to a charity of your choice, but you can't do it for everyone that asks.
So, do you just choose one or two to make those donations to or do you find some other way to help out the charities without bankrupting yourself? Not all charities will take you up on these offers, but some will and you can feel good that you are helping out their events, getting some visibility (while not devaluing your services), and still making a little money for your work. Don't feel bad charging them something, they have to pay for other things too... halls will usually give them free rent, but only if they sell a certain number of plates of food at the event... that kind of thing.
I offer my services to ONE charity free every year. My husband is involved with the Returns for Leukemia bottle drive at Ontario locations of The Beer Store and I help out with those events.
For all other charities, these are the options:
- Donate a Gift Certificate to their auctions - I often donate a $50 gift certificate to charity events that are not looking for me to be present during their event. Since my smallest party packages are $75, it means that I will still be making some money from any bookings that result from this. To be completely honest, I've given out at least 20 of these and have only ever redeemed ONE of them. But it gets your name out there and someone probably gave the charity some money in exchange for it.
- Discounted Hourly Rates - Take off a percentage of your usual hourly rate to accommodate their reduced available funds. You decide how much you are willing to take off, it really is up to you and it doesn't have to be a huge amount. They can charge for tickets at their own rates, but many charities want your services to be free so that their patrons will donate all the money they brought.
- Charge the public and give some back - I often do face painting and charge the public at fundraiser events, then give the charity a percentage of the money. They don't have to put anything out of their budget (you are raising money for them instead), but you are getting compensated for materials used. There is a bit of risk involved with this as you are still using up time, gas and costume wear and tear at the chance that you won't make any money (or at least not very much), but many charities prefer this option because it makes them money instead of costing them money. Be sure to put out a sign that says "X% will be donated to XYZ today!" Again, the amount of the percentage is up to you and what you feel you can afford. I recently changed mine because I have gotten so busy that I'm turning down multiple paid events because I already agreed to appear at charity events (it is now costing me money, so I needed to be making a little more from the charity events than I was).
I hope this has been a helpful and informative article for you. Don't feel bad charging something, you need to eat too. Here's an amusing video: Donating Clown Services
Perry Noia the Scaredy Clown :oD
Sunday 24 April 2011
Thursday 21 April 2011
Title and Topic change....
Hey everyone, I will be leaving the old entries on here (because I still think they are interesting) but I will be changing gears from where I was to a more business side of what I'm doing, what I'm learning and perhaps what mistakes I make in the hopes that you may avoid making the same ones.
It will probably be a little easier for me to "find material to blog about" and won't be just rehashing material and links that can already be found all over the web.
I already gave a bit of background into how I became a clown in my first blog entry, but a question that I have seen posted now and then from new children's entertainers is how to come up with a name for your character. I can't speak for everyone, but I can share how I came up with my own name...
Back in university (long before I had ever even met a clown let alone thought of becoming one) I frequented a little place called "the U of Moo" .... no, it isn't a real university. It was a unix based, virtual community on a server at the University of Windsor. To my knowledge the server is still running in some forgotten closet somewhere and may still be accessible if you feel like playing with unix for a bit. In any case, in this little moo community, I developed a few online personae. One of those, happened to be called "paranoia" and was an exaggerated extension of a strong personality trait of mine... yes, I am afraid of almost everything. The character was described something along the lines of "a small figure cowering in the corner with a flashlight and a can of bug spray."
Fast forward to post-university days... As a mother of two who has not had a steady job in 4 years because it was cheaper to stay home than work for minimum wage and pay sitters, we needed more income. I met Trixie the Clown, who is now a good friend and while I mean no disrespect to her skills and hard work (it IS harder than it looks), I watched her birthday party show and thought.... 'I can do that...' So, skipping the whole story of deciding to be a clown and what not, let's keep going with the name thing...
So you want to be a clown?
What's your name? Who are you? What are you like?
Oh my gosh.... hmmm.... ok.
What will be the hardest thing for me to do as a birthday party clown?
Go to someone's house where there is an enormous, horse-sized dog and have them expect me to be OK with that.
Well..... if my character is SUPPOSED to be afraid, then..... hey, this could work!
So, a friend of mine in university had shortened my "paranoia" handle to 'noia at some point. I decided that Noia would be an ok name for a clown... but nobody got it, nobody knew how to pronounce it, the joke was completely lost.
Oy.
Para Noia? no, that's not a name...
Peri? ew, that sounds gross... wait, Perry is a name!
It's a boy's name :S .... hmmm ... does it matter?
So, Perry Noia was born! And since she is simply an extension of my own personality traits, it makes it much easier to stay in character.
Take a word, take a couple of words... change their spelling or pronunciation a little to make them sound like a real person's name. I hope my little story can inspire a few new entertainers in their search for their own character.
PS - I added "the Scaredy Clown" because some people still missed the joke... and even with that added, some still do.
It will probably be a little easier for me to "find material to blog about" and won't be just rehashing material and links that can already be found all over the web.
I already gave a bit of background into how I became a clown in my first blog entry, but a question that I have seen posted now and then from new children's entertainers is how to come up with a name for your character. I can't speak for everyone, but I can share how I came up with my own name...
Back in university (long before I had ever even met a clown let alone thought of becoming one) I frequented a little place called "the U of Moo" .... no, it isn't a real university. It was a unix based, virtual community on a server at the University of Windsor. To my knowledge the server is still running in some forgotten closet somewhere and may still be accessible if you feel like playing with unix for a bit. In any case, in this little moo community, I developed a few online personae. One of those, happened to be called "paranoia" and was an exaggerated extension of a strong personality trait of mine... yes, I am afraid of almost everything. The character was described something along the lines of "a small figure cowering in the corner with a flashlight and a can of bug spray."
Fast forward to post-university days... As a mother of two who has not had a steady job in 4 years because it was cheaper to stay home than work for minimum wage and pay sitters, we needed more income. I met Trixie the Clown, who is now a good friend and while I mean no disrespect to her skills and hard work (it IS harder than it looks), I watched her birthday party show and thought.... 'I can do that...' So, skipping the whole story of deciding to be a clown and what not, let's keep going with the name thing...
So you want to be a clown?
What's your name? Who are you? What are you like?
Oh my gosh.... hmmm.... ok.
What will be the hardest thing for me to do as a birthday party clown?
Go to someone's house where there is an enormous, horse-sized dog and have them expect me to be OK with that.
Well..... if my character is SUPPOSED to be afraid, then..... hey, this could work!
So, a friend of mine in university had shortened my "paranoia" handle to 'noia at some point. I decided that Noia would be an ok name for a clown... but nobody got it, nobody knew how to pronounce it, the joke was completely lost.
Oy.
Para Noia? no, that's not a name...
Peri? ew, that sounds gross... wait, Perry is a name!
It's a boy's name :S .... hmmm ... does it matter?
So, Perry Noia was born! And since she is simply an extension of my own personality traits, it makes it much easier to stay in character.
Take a word, take a couple of words... change their spelling or pronunciation a little to make them sound like a real person's name. I hope my little story can inspire a few new entertainers in their search for their own character.
Perry Noia the Scaredy Clown :D
PS - I added "the Scaredy Clown" because some people still missed the joke... and even with that added, some still do.
Wednesday 20 April 2011
To blog or not to blog? Or just change topics?
So, I'm just wondering if these posts are actually of interest to anyone? I could keep going on these topics, but no one is commenting or anything. Just shy?
If anyone is actually reading my ramblings here, feel free to comment whether you'd like me to continue to post about the healing powers of laughter and humour, learning through play, and child development.... or ??
My thoughts at this point are that if these things are not interesting (or there are just too many other sites talking about the same thing), maybe I ought to do something more "personal experience" -ish? I could certainly change gears towards my fellow entertainers and talk about the things that I have learned working as a professional clown.... things about face painting and balloons that I have learned. I'm certainly not about to proclaim myself THE expert on the topic, there are plenty of people that I know who are more qualified for that title, BUT more of a log of mistakes and don't do what I just did kind of thing. Opinions?
Perry Noia the Scaredy Clown :oD
If anyone is actually reading my ramblings here, feel free to comment whether you'd like me to continue to post about the healing powers of laughter and humour, learning through play, and child development.... or ??
My thoughts at this point are that if these things are not interesting (or there are just too many other sites talking about the same thing), maybe I ought to do something more "personal experience" -ish? I could certainly change gears towards my fellow entertainers and talk about the things that I have learned working as a professional clown.... things about face painting and balloons that I have learned. I'm certainly not about to proclaim myself THE expert on the topic, there are plenty of people that I know who are more qualified for that title, BUT more of a log of mistakes and don't do what I just did kind of thing. Opinions?
Perry Noia the Scaredy Clown :oD
Monday 18 April 2011
Learning Styles
Something that has been extensively studied (and many of us have found in our own lives) is the idea of catering teaching activities to different learning styles. Teachers in most elementary schools know that their classes will perform better if they make sure to include many different learning modalities into their lesson plans.
It took me until AFTER finishing my university days that I learned best with auditory stimulus. If we can help our children find their easiest ways to learn things, we can help them study better throughout their school careers.
Check out this link!
Perry Noia the Scaredy Clown :D
It took me until AFTER finishing my university days that I learned best with auditory stimulus. If we can help our children find their easiest ways to learn things, we can help them study better throughout their school careers.
Check out this link!
Perry Noia the Scaredy Clown :D
Thursday 14 April 2011
Tuesday 12 April 2011
Healing through Laughter
It's been a little while since I've posted on my blog here, so I thought I'd throw in a little something about the healing power of laughter. There are of course many healing and pain relieving benefits to laughter. Here in Windsor, there is a clown-doctoring program in our hospitals known as Fools 4 Health where a friend of mine, Charmaine Miron, is one of the clown doctors. The work they do is wonderful. Openings for new clowns are hard to come by, unfortunately for me, but I am so happy that they are there.
Here is another link from Web MD about the medical benefits of Humour Therapy ... ok, they don't spell humour like that, but I'm Canadian. http://www.webmd.com/balance/tc/humor-therapy-topic-overview
Happy Laughing :oD
Perry Noia the Scaredy Clown
Here is another link from Web MD about the medical benefits of Humour Therapy ... ok, they don't spell humour like that, but I'm Canadian. http://www.webmd.com/balance/tc/humor-therapy-topic-overview
Happy Laughing :oD
Perry Noia the Scaredy Clown
Friday 1 April 2011
Educational Websites for your Kids
If your kids are anything like mine, they spend a lot of time playing on the computer and I like to have an idea of what sites they are looking at to be sure that they are appropriate and educational at the same time. My kids have several sites in their bookmarks, but here are some of the real favourites:
www.tfo.org/jeux/mini/ (French games)
www.tfo.org/jeux/
www.tvokids.com
www.barbie.com (yes, believe it or not there is some educational value to some of their games)
www.starfall.com (pronunciations and spellings are American though)
www.playhousedisney.ca
www.treehousetv.com
www.sesamestreet.org
The important thing for MY kids with those sites is that they recognize the characters from what they see on TV (with the exception of starfall). That's not to say that there aren't plenty of other educational sites that I expose them to, they just prefer to PLAY the ones with the characters that they know.
Here are a few other places that you can look for more educational websites:
http://www.bestedsites.com/
http://www.kidsknowit.com/
http://kids.discovery.com/
I hope you find this post helpful with your kids!
www.tfo.org/jeux/mini/ (French games)
www.tfo.org/jeux/
www.tvokids.com
www.barbie.com (yes, believe it or not there is some educational value to some of their games)
www.starfall.com (pronunciations and spellings are American though)
www.playhousedisney.ca
www.treehousetv.com
www.sesamestreet.org
The important thing for MY kids with those sites is that they recognize the characters from what they see on TV (with the exception of starfall). That's not to say that there aren't plenty of other educational sites that I expose them to, they just prefer to PLAY the ones with the characters that they know.
Here are a few other places that you can look for more educational websites:
http://www.bestedsites.com/
http://www.kidsknowit.com/
http://kids.discovery.com/
I hope you find this post helpful with your kids!
Perry Noia the Scaredy Clown :oD
(AKA Erin)
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