FAQ
What happens to the money?
People pay by PayPal. We take out the cost of the flowers (we are fairly cheap with the flowers) and the remainder goes Special Effect. Each year Joe puts up an accountancy post giving all of the details.
Do you have all the permissions?
Indeed we do and it’s a funny story…
In 2014 a charity we wanted to support said that they would only be able to help spread word of the event if got official permission from the council (although they were willing to take the money regardless).
So Joe spent a few hours on the phone to Manchester City Council before eventually reaching the relevant official who asked a few sensible questions and they said we didn’t need permission (he was more concerned with things getting in the way of traffic and crude graffiti, laying flowers isn’t really something the council worry about).
We went back to the charity with this information and were told they said that they still wouldn’t acknowledge us because “it might get bigger every year”, but they were still happy to take our money. At this point we gave up and contacted Special Effect who have been wonderful in every way.
We tidy up after ourselves and are generally polite and helpful.
When do they go up?
Fairly early in the morning on the 23rd or late on the 22nd depending on which weekday the 23rd falls on.
Why doesn’t the money go to eQuality Time?
While eQuality Time is certainly charitable, it’s project-and-grant based at the moment – it’s not really something that people would donate to (rather like a university).
Are donations anonymous?
They are, although if you would like a special message put on your bunch, let us know and we’ll handle that for you. We do extract the list of cities from the donor records so we can write a ‘from’ on each bunch of flowers. That list looks like this:
- from Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, United Kingdom
- from Preston, Lancashire, United Kingdom
- from Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom
- from Filey, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom
- from Clemson, South Carolina, United States
- from Wien, Austria
- from Norwich, Norfolk, United Kingdom
- from Chichester, United Kingdom
- from Durham, North Carolina, United States
- from San Francisco, California, United States
We believe is sufficiently anonymous (these are checked by hand by two separate people to make sure that nothing silly happens.
Please click here to move on to the donation page.
