Sleigh Rounds

We need a house to house collection license from Swale Borough Council. These need to be applied for each year and cover the whole sleigh round period for that year.

We typically start the sleigh rounds one week after Switch On Day in order to give time for volunteers to recover from that.

We publicise our sleigh rounds on our social media account but we do not announce the exact routes, only the general area. We do not announce the starting point because we do not want large crowds to assemble because small children tend to run out in the road and in front of the sleigh. Also we do not want to disappoint children who arrive expecting to see Santa in the sleigh but instead see the sleigh being set up and Santa possibly arriving in a car first.

We also only announce rounds on the same day as the round and not before.

Equipment

• Collection buckets. Ours are red with a white lid with a slot for the coins. Most sleigh rounds need between 3 and 6 buckets depending on the number of volunteers.

• Name badges with lanyards. The collection licence number should be printed on the badges. The text will look something like:

• Reflective jackets - ours are red with silver reflective strips, and specifically include the word "VOLUNTEER" because we want it to be clear that we are not paid and are not working for the local council.