This page is about helping us as a Volunteer Strings4All Coordinator.
Click here if you want to know how to donate strings.
Step-by-step guide
A Strings4All coodinator preparing their shipment. it may take you some time preparing it! But it will be worth all of the effort :)
1. Wondering whether we already have someone collecting strings in your area?
Check the list of coordinators here (section 3). Important: even if you already see someone in your area, it doesn’t mean that you can’t still help. They may have been doing it for a while and will welcome some fresh energy, or they may have different networks than you do. We’d rather have more coordinators than less so please still consider being a volunteer.
2. Write to us to let us know you want to help.
We can then add you to the list of coordinators so that donors can contact you via email to give you their strings.
Don’t want to appear on the online list? No problem - you can still help by spreading the word directly in your area.
3. Get to know the project.
Please read the main Strings4All page so that you understand our mission and aims.
Please read the Donating guide so that you know what we’re asking donors to do.
4. How will people give you strings? You have a few options:
They contact you via email and you give them an address to send them
You meet them somewhere public so that they can give you the strings
You setup a Strings4All box in a local musical organisation (see step 6 below about this) and tell them they can drop them there
This is what a Strings4All box looks like. See point 6 for more info.
5. What should you tell donors?
Please send them the step-by-step guide to donating strings: www.harmonicprogression.org/strings-4-all-donating
Let them know how they can give you their strings
Remind them how nice it is if they add a human touch by putting their name, city and (if applicable) orchestra on their package
Share with them this page so that they can check where their strings have been donated: www.harmonicprogression.org/strings-4-all-sr
6. Spread the word!
Friends and contacts – tell musicians in your area that you’re a Strings4All coordinator, and ask them to tell others about the project
Setup a Strings4All box – contact your local conservatoire, concert hall, music shop or anywhere string players pass through, and put out a box for people to be able to deposit their used strings. We can either send you a ready made box, or you can make your own (we can send you stickers)
7. Once you’ve collected around 150/200 strings
Please contact us so that we can start to work out where you will send your package.
Make sure that each package/envelope someone has given you is kept seperate from others. That way it’s easy for distributors to know who has given which strings (this is important when we try to tell people who has received their strings).
We will give you an address (and contact name, email address and phone number) to send the package. Please check online or at your local post office how much it will cost to send the package.
Customs papers - you may be asked how much the package is worth and what the contents are. We suggest that you value each string at 0.2 USD (20 cents), so if you’re sending 200 strings, your package will be worth 40 USD. In any case, we suggest you do not put a value higher than 70 USD as this may result in packages getting stuck in customs centers.
Send your package! Please keep the receipt so that we can reimburse you.
Please send us the tracking code.