Sign Up 2008/09

[1]London NaadamPlaces are still available for 2008, but you'll have to be quick! Please contact us directly if you wish to leave before next year. Sign up (including for 2009) will be opening in October. Please make sure you are on the mailing list and we will announce the sign-up through the list. Do not worry, there will be enough places for everyone that wants to sign up, however if you want to get advance notice of sign-up, contact us [2].

The Mongolia Charity Rally 2009 will cost £200 per team (as many people as you can fit in your vehicle, or two bikes). A very round figure you might say, but this event is being run by a charity so anything left at the end, is left in a charity to spend on the charity projects. Once you've paid up, your place on the Rally is guaranteed. So what do you get for your hard earned cash?

Entry Fee: £200

What do you get? [3]

• The launch in London on 11 July 2009 [4] with a spectacular Mongolian Naadam organised with the Mongolian Association - archery and wrestling.
• All of the arrangements for the tax free import of your vehicle into Mongolia and donation to the charity in Mongolia (the CDPF [5]). Please ensure you look at the requirements for vehicles [6].
• Free entry to pre-rally events to meet up with other Ralliers:
  • The autumn rally reunion - meet the 2008 teams.
  • Mongolian Tsagaan Sar party (New Year) in February 2009.
  • An information day at the Save the Children offices.
• The Charity Rallies off-road driving day, see this picture from 2008 [7].
• Visas - you get to use the Charity Rallies Visa guide [8] making it easy to get visas. The only tricky visa is a transit visa for Turkmenistan, where Charity Rallies makes a group application on behalf of everyone wishing to go through Turkmenistan (more info [9]).
• Tsagaan SaarInformation pack containing lots of information about the event, the charities, and fundraising tips to help you build up your charity total.
• Help and support from the nominated charities to help with fundraising and promotion.
• Mongolia Charity Rally T-shirts for all of your team members;
• Car stickers for your car;
• A team website on this site:
  • Team blog (updated via the web or sms) with location tracking(using GPS or place names)[example [10]];
  • Personal team page for each of your team members and each sponsor;
  • Photo and video gallery with location tracking [example [11]];
  • Supporter's group for your friends and family to join. They can comment on your team pages and receive notifications whenever you post content. You can also contact all of your supporters with a private message;
  • [12]Your team page automatically totals up all of your fundraising, no matter how many charities you support, or fundraising pages you have. This gets updated every hour, every day, and all of the teams totals get added to the big totaliser for the whole event;

• A page for your vehicle within the Team System: [13]
  • This also allows you to upload all of your private vehicle details so that we can arrange the import of your vehicle into Mongolia. No messy registration at the launch, this is all completed online and the details passed on to the Mongolian Authorities;
  • Full details of how much your car fetches at auction in Mongolia and how the money is spent. Our website system allows the volunteers in Mongolia to access your vehicle details and update the database to show how much your car raised. This gets added to your fundraising total.
• Contact page so that website visitors can contact your whole team through the website;
• Fully themeable team page - you get to choose the graphics and colours for your team page[coming Winter 2008];
• An amazing ferry ticket deal for getting across the channel;
• Full access to all of the Charity Rallies forums and content;
• [14]A warm welcome from the CDPF at the end of the rally and a certificate from the President of Mongolia!
• Visits to the charity projects your money is supporting in Mongolia;
• The profit from your entry fee is used to fund the project "Helmets for Child Jockeys [15]" in Mongolia - a collaboration between Go Help [16] and the CDPF [5];
• No excessive restrictions on commercial filming/photography - you keep the copyright in all of your video and photographs. However, you will need our prior permission for any commercial filming/photography. For both commercial/non-commercial filming you retain the copyright in everything you produce (unlike many other rallies), but you agree to let us (Go Help/Charity Rallies) use anything you produce to help publicise the rally/Charity Rallies in the future.
• Priority entry to future Charity Rallies events.
• At the end of the Rally, you'll be able to see where your money was spent - all our accounts have to be presented to the annual meeting of the Go Help charity and you'll be entitled to a copy.
• ...and lots more.

Hold on, what about Gift Aid?

Although we're a charity, we can't reclaim gift aid on money that isn't a donation. That list of great things you'll get for your cash means that your entry fee isn't a donation, so we can't claim gift aid on your fee. Annoying, but the tax man won't budge! If you like what we are doing, you can make an online donation here [17] (in addition to your entry fee) and we can reclaim gift aid.

Why is all this so cheap?

You're probably wondering how we can offer so much for so little money. The simple answer is that we are a charity run by volunteers who are passionate about rallies and passionate about Mongolia. We don't incur the expenses and taxes that profit making commercial fundraisers have to pay and we don't need to charge you VAT on your entry fee. We also don't have the overheads of expensive offices or travel expenses. We have partnered with the Mongolian Association in the UK, and charities working in Mongolia so that we don't need you to pay for people to fly around the world organising things. If the trustees of Go Help do go to Mongolia, they always do so 100% at their own expense. Furthermore, our experience in arranging rallies to Mongolia going back to 2003 ensures that the event runs smoothly. The Naadam [4]is organised by Mongolian volunteers in London - our collaboration with them in 2008 [18] saw the annual Naadam become even bigger and better. 2009 will be even better!

Vehicle returnable deposit

Please note that just before you leave you will need to pay (online) the returnable vehicle deposit as detailed on the Costs & Visas page [19]. This is to ensure no cars are smuggled into Mongolia tax free and then sold rather than donated to the charity. Once your car is handed over you'll get your deposit back. If you don't reach Mongolia and abandon your car, the deposit is also returned to you. This is the same process as we used when organising the import for the Mongol Rally in 2006 (before it turned profit making) and we also used in 2007 and 2008 for the Mongolia Charity Rally. This is all handled by an automatic registration system on the website shortly before you leave.

Sign-up opening soon. Click here to get on the newsletter to hear about it first [20]