Vehicle Registration - Deadline: Friday, 2 July, 2010

Charity Ralliers!

Hope all is well with the preparations for your epic 10,000 mile journey to Mongolia! Stay current on your emails, as we'll be sending through updates the closer we get to launch!

This is an important post on Vehicle Registration and completing your Team Checklist. Please make sure you read this post today and complete the required steps before Friday, 2 July, 2010.

Vehicle Registration

By now, you will all have had your vehicles approved by Fel and Dulguun in Mongolia. About half of the teams have already taken the next step of adding your approved vehicle to your team page.

This is a friendly reminder that everyone else will need to do this by Friday, 2 July, 2010.  This is a simple process given that you will already have provided the details to get the vehicle approved!

(I) VEHICLE SUBMISSIONS: HERE'S WHAT TO DO:

(1) Access mongolia.charityrallies.org and log-in to access your team page.  If you don't know how to find your team page, you will probably have a hard time finding Mongolia! Click here to find your team: http://mongolia.charityrallies.org/teams

(2) Once on your team page, there is a link in the middle that reads: "Your team control panel". Click on this.

(3) Your Control Panel with a "Team Checklist" will come up that looks something like this:

If your checklist looks like this, you've got lots of work to do! You need to get a green light next to every item before we can complete your registration and issue you a passport for your car.

(4) Across the top of this Control Panel, you will see a number of tabs: Team Status; Members; Team Details; Content; Charities; Rally Info; Supporters; Vehicles; and Help!

(5) Vehicles tab:

(A) If you haven't already added your vehicle: please click on the "Vehicles" Tab. A note will come up that says: "You have not added a vehicle to your team yet. Click to add a vehicle." Click on this, and a page will come up that reads "Submit Team Vehicle".  We need all of these details so that we can properly import your car. Make sure you've entered all of the details correctly. Any mistakes will give you lots of problems at the border. MAKE SURE you click through ALL THE TABS on the "Submit Team Vehicle" page. These include: Our vehicle; Rally details; V5C details (private); Vehicle photos; Vehicle deposit (private); Vehicle; Current status; Abandoned vehicles; and Import details (post-rally). Again - this may seem long and onerous, but we need all the details from you. Make sure you also upload photos of your vehicle on the "Vehicle photos" tab.  Please also make sure your vehicle value is accurate - we use this as a guideline price for selling your vehicle at the end of the rally if it isn't donated, so if your price is off, this causes us problems on the back-end.

(B) If you have already submitted your vehicle: it will go into a moderation queue and will be approved in due course.  In the meantime, please make sure all of the details you've entered are accurate, and that you have completed every field and uploaded photos.  If you want to go back and revise the page, click on the "Vehicles" tab on your Control Panel. This will then give you a page with details of the vehicle that you have entered.  Click on the hyperlinked "Model" link, this will bring up your vehicle page. Click "Edit" and enter all the details by clicking through all of the tabs, as above. Once done, don't forget to click "Submit".

(II) NEXT STEPS: COMPLETING YOUR CONTROL PANEL CHECKLIST:

PLEASE COMPLETE THESE STEPS BY FRIDAY, 2 JULY 2010. IF YOU DO NOT HIT THIS DEADLINE, THERE WILL BE A DELAY IN YOUR VEHICLE PASSPORT BEING ISSUED AND THIS MAY DELAY YOUR DEPARTURE.

1) Members: Make sure all of your team members have user accounts on the site;

2) Blog posts: We've put together this all singing, all dancing site so that you can stay in touch with your supporters. Please post some blogs so that your supporters and donors have something to read! These get sent out to all of your supporters every time you blog, and while you are on the road, you will be able to SMS your blog from the road, or blog by blackberry or from an internet cafe, and have your messages emailed to all supporters and plotted on a route map - so we'd like you to try this out. If you are using your own website, no problem! We would appreciate you duplicating the content though. Most teams let their domain registration on their personal sites lapse after a couple of years. Your exploits will forever be accessible on the Charity Rallies site, so please use it!

3) Images: Please upload a couple of images of each team member and your rally vehicle. The more, the better.

4) Supporters: Please have your supporters sign-up as supporters on your Team Page. Just follow the links on the left of your team page that read: "Supporters: Invite friend" and "Become a supporter".  The more, the better!

5) Charities: You need to ensure you have added your charity page and linked to your Justgiving page so that we can confirm you have raised a minimum £1,000 for Go Help!

6) Raised: You need to hit £1,000 before you leave. Offline donations do not count! Please make sure all offline donations are donated either to Go Help or on your Justgiving page before you leave.

7) Vehicles: Please see above for adding your vehicle. Please make sure all details are complete.

8) Vehicles customs pics: You need to upload pictures of your vehicle for customs. Please see above on how to do this.

9) Vehicle details: Please make sure you've entered all the details, again, see above.

10) Vehicle approx. value: Please give us an accurate market price for your vehicle. This may not be what you bought it for, or what you spent on it, but what you expect it to sell for in the UK. We need a fair guideline price so that we can sell it for fair market value in Mongolia if it is not donated, to make sure that your charitable donation is maximised.

11) Vehicle deposit: Please make sure you've paid your Vehicle Deposit by Friday, 2 July, 2010. Once we've received your deposit, we'll make a notation here and this light will go green. See this post for details on paying the Vehicle Deposit:

http://mongolia.charityrallies.org/rallygroup/8204/blogs/important-vehicle-deposits-deadline-friday-2-july-2010

12) Vehicle Ref code: You can ignore this for now!

If you have done all of this, registration will be little more than printing off your vehicle passport!

OTHER THINGS TO DO:

1) Make sure you've made all of your team members an admin for your team and they have each added their profile to the team including entering their mobile numbers so that they can use the SMS blogging;

2) Make sure you've tried out the blogging, including the SMS blogging (see the other posts on how to do this), and upload any pictures of your team into your team's photo gallery.

WHAT ABOUT MY V5 DOCUMENT?

You must take your V5 certificate/registration document with you. This will be checked at every border you cross. We don't advise that you complete the "permanent export" part of your V5 certificate until your reach Mongolia: firstly because you don't need to (who knows, you might drive home!) but also some border guards get confused/concerned when they see bits of the form missing (and you get concerned seeing them looking at it upside down!). 

The Vehicle Passport we issue to you is an additional document you use at the Mongolian Border only so that we can arrange the import. Don't confuse the two!

Good luck, and thanks for supporting Charity Rallies!

Best regards,

The Charity Rallies Team