Apple Day

On Apple Day, youth in full uniform hand out apples for a donation. We normally congregate on the mall plaza at 6th Ave. and 6th St. and spread out down 6th St. to the mall plaza between the TD Bank and Starbucks.

We typically run the event from 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. with youth and leaders doing shifts of a few hours. Leaders polish apples and help the youth where required. The youth are the ones interacting with the public.

As with all Scouting events, youth and leaders should attend in full uniform.

Historically, Apple Days were run by the New Westminster District, and later by the Friends of New Westminster Scouting. After the Friends were disbanded in 2016, Apples Days have been run by the Group.

Things to remember to do before the event:

• Get the Solicitation Permit from City and provide financial statement to the City (City Clerk’s office) after the event. The permit can be found on the City's website. If the financial statement is not provided, they won’t issue a permit for the next Apple Day. The application sometimes takes a few weeks so don’t leave it until the last minute.
• Order and pick up apples from JBM Enterprises in Aldergrove at (604) 856-1466. Historically, they have delivered them to Dave Upham's house. Lately we have been going through 7 or 8 boxes of apples.
• We need to request permission from Royal City Shopping Center Ltd. and fill out their “Request for Space Form”. The contact there is Mary Burris, mburris@strathallen.com. They then fill out a “Temporary Tenancy Lease” that needs to be signed by Iqbal Lalany and a certificate of insurance needs to be provided by Michelle Yu.
• We need to request permission from Westminster Centre for the plaza between Starbucks and the TD Bank. The contact there is Marisse Biuso, marisse@uptownpropertygroup.com. The Waves Coffee shop at 6th and 6th is their tenant and we need to ensure that we don’t block their doors when we are on the sidewalk there. The agreement needs to be signed by Iqbal Lalany and a certificate of insurance needs to be provided by Michelle Yu.
• The Sections should get parents to sign up through ScoutsTracker so they know who is coming and when. It isn't really important to manage this too closely as people come and go through the day and we seem to always have enough people at all times through the day.
• Consider “thank-you tags” that go over a button, so people don’t get asked multiple times. These are available from the Scout Shop in packages of 1000.
• If extra coin cans are needed, they need to be purchased. In the past, we have purchased cans from Wells Can in Burnaby at 8705 Government Street. The cost was $140 including tax for 100 cans.
• The Coho area does a bulk buy for apples and cans. For some reason, we have always bought the apples on our own, but it might be a good idea to get in on the cans part of that.

Things to remember on day of event:

• Get the cans, Apple Day signs, trays, thank-you button tags, some rags for polishing apples from the storage locker, a 10'x10' pop up shelter, something to weigh them down if it windy, folding table, campfire blankets for display, the Group banner and some rope to tie the banner to the shelter.
• Note that we can use a 10x10 shelter on the Royal City Shopping Center Ltd. plaza at 6th and 6th, but we are NOT permitted to use a tent at the Westminster Centre plaza (between Starbucks and the TD bank).
• Have an overall sign-in / sign-out sheet at the event so we know how many Apple Day badges to buy from the Scout Shop.
• Bring advertising literature for Scouting in New Westminster.
  
• The money is often counted by someone who has access to a free coin counting machine who then writes a cheque to the Group. Historically, Dave Upham has taken care of this.