Our goal with the two-day event is to enable training and cultural venues, local enterprises, civil society organisations and individuals connected to Inner-Ferencváros to reveal their treasures to each other and to the locals the treasure in a way that allows them to (re)discover themselves, as well as this colourful quarter. The two-day program, which debuted last year with great success, allows to do this in a somewhat unusual, entertaining and thought-provoking way, involving visitors as well in various community activities.

Ráday street, one of the first pedestrian streets in Budapest, is an important tourist destination, with plenty of cafés and bars, cultural and commercial venues next to each other. The primary target group of our project is the people who live, work, create in this neighbourhood but who do not, or only very casually, know each other. We would like to show a different side of Inner-Ferencváros to the locals and to other visitors, and, very importantly, to support a community that can shape the quarter into something more appealing and liveable.

We reached out to the local participants in March, allowing them from the very start to get involved in shaping the event planned to take place at the end of September. A working group was set up to design a diverse programme that will include individual and community activities. Monthly meetings will be held with the group, hosted by the working group members in their offices in a rotating manner, which will enable us to get to know each other more. By May we will have found the watchword of this year’s event, distributed the operational tasks and begun the organisation work. We will count on the intensive work of the paid coordinator starting from May, he/she will be responsible for helping participants to plan their own programmes, updating the event’s website, and coordinating the campaign communication. At Swimathon we are hoping to raise the “common costs” of the event, then a local campaign will be launched to reach as many potential visitors as possible.

Based on our experience from last year, the expenses can be divided into two parts. On the one hand, there are expenses related to coordination, as someone needs to coordinate the organisation, which requires far more work than can be expected from a volunteer. This is the smaller amount and we budgeted 300,000HUF for this. On the other hand, there are costs related to communication and publicity, which include website maintenance, flyers, posters, stickers, as well as the fees of the photographer and the videographer, the public space permit fee if needed, the costs related to the central stage and sound technique, as well as other smaller expenses that may occur. We have calculated with 1.5 million HUF for the latter costs.

The funds raised through Swimathon would be used for the common costs of the event, i.e. those that are not connected to any of the participants’ programmes but to the entirety of the event.

On the one hand, Ráday Corso is about the cooperation of, and community building among different local actors, an opportunity to get to know each other and also Inner-Ferencváros more. This impact can be measured by the number of participants offering some kind of a programme during the event, and by the duration of the relationships formed during the Corso and if they develop over time. In addition, the event is for the people who live in the neighbourhood but also others, therefore another important measure is the number of visitors during the event.

The team is an informal community that was formed for the organisation of Ráday Corso. At present, there are eight organisations in the core team but we expect it to expand, as last year there were over 40 participants. At the time of the writing this proposal, the following organisations, institutions expressed their interest in participating: 2B Gallery, Corvinus University of Budapest – Science Shop, Goethe Institute, “Karaván” Theatre and Art Foundation, “Két Egér” Bookshop, Manga Cowboy! Restaurant, Medence Group, Púder Bar-theatre.

The Ferencváros Community Foundation (FKA), as the initiator of the first Ráday Corso (2017), agreed to provide an organisational framework for the fundraising. It means that the donations will be collected on FKA’s bank account and, similarly to the cooperation agreements with other Swimathon participants, 9% of the funds raised will be retained by FKA for organisational costs. FKA will prepare a financial report about how the rest of the funds were used and make it available for the donors and the public, including invoices endorsed under the name “Ráday Corso 2018”. The website of the event: radaykorzo.hu

Coordinator for the Swimathon project:
Anita Bozóki, bozoki@gmail.com, +36 20 519 98 51
András Martoni, martoni.andras@uni-corvinus.hu, +36 30 215 93 85