Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Alex & Izzie - Macmillan Cancer Support
62 Plays3 years ago
Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes when you are charity of the year for an event like London Marathon?
Alex and Izzie give us an insight in to the last two years, what its been like for Macmillan Cancer Support as charity of the year and tell us all about the things they are busy doing this week!
Enjoy this and see you all on next weeks episode.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Episode and Guests
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to episode 48 of the UK Support Chat podcast. I'm Joe Williams and in this episode I speak with Alex and Izzy from Macmillan Cancer Support. If you've ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes when you're Charity of the Year for a huge event like the London Marathon then this is the podcast for you to listen to.
00:00:19
Speaker
Alex and Izzy are from the Macmillan team. They give us an insight into the last two years, what it's been like building up to the event and tell us all about the things they are busy doing this week as we approach race day. Hope you all enjoy this and see you on next week's episode, which will be with adventurer Elise Downing. Enjoy. Welcome, Izzy, and welcome, Alex. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Hey, Joe. Hi. Hi, both. How are you?
00:00:48
Speaker
surviving I think that's the best way yeah we're quite busy at the moment it's good good busy good yeah I bet you are I bet you're very busy so before we dig into that what you're and what you're actually busy getting up to at the moment do you want to just take it in turns to give us an introduction to you and your roles
00:01:08
Speaker
Yeah, sure. Shall I go first? I'll go first. So my name's Alex Hayward and I work at Macmillan Cancer Support and I've been at Macmillan for just over three years and pretty much everything I know is in relation to London Marathon and Macmillan's involvement.
00:01:28
Speaker
And I'm Izzy, I also work at Macmillan Cancer Support, and I am a Challenge Events Manager that just works on the London Marathon. Yeah, and I've been here just under three years.
Significance and Preparations for Charity Partnership
00:01:44
Speaker
Yeah, so you're both three years-ish, and I think it's our third year as partners together as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, worked quite well.
00:01:57
Speaker
So tell us what you're up to, and this is quite a broad question for you both, but tell us what you're up to at the moment because you're Charity Partner of the Year for London. We've got the event coming up very soon. What are you up to? Yeah, as you said, we're Charity of the Year. Hopefully that's not a surprise to anyone. We've been, you know, shouting about it for, well, a lot longer than we would have thought originally with the world as it is.
00:02:25
Speaker
So we have been doing all sorts of things for the past what, two years now? And when it's related to our supporters and getting stuff ready for a big day, which crazily is in less than two weeks, which is really a really lovely thing to say, given everything.
00:02:47
Speaker
We're just doing all those final, like dotting the I's, crossing the T's, because we're soon to be seeing supporters for the first time in real life, not via Teams, Zoom. Yeah, I'm so excited. So just on your point there then.
00:03:07
Speaker
Obviously we all know we've been through a pandemic and the event was cancelled and virtual last year. So when did you find out that you were Charity Partner of the Year?
00:03:19
Speaker
Even earlier than that, so we originally submitted our application because a couple of charities apply every year and we did that even before the 2019 marathon took place because they planned that far in advance and we
00:03:38
Speaker
We officially found out in May of 2019, but we have to keep it secret all the way until April 2020. We're not allowed to tell anyone, even our supporters, just to give the previous charity of the year their moment. It's even longer actually thinking about it in that respect. We've had this brilliant information for such a long time.
Adapting Marathon Plans Amidst Pandemic
00:04:07
Speaker
So did you before that then, before you could actually start talking about it, I imagine that you and the team, you all started actually working on it. And if you did, that was pre-pandemic.
00:04:22
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, Izzy will attest to this. I feel like we've come up with 60 or 70 ideas to best represent the charity of the year and pre-pandemic and then at various points we've had to concede because of the pandemic. And yeah, I think as soon as we found out in May, we started
00:04:46
Speaker
building what we'd like it to be because in a mill millen and millender marathons been a partnership for such a long time and it's always been great for us because our supporters have been so amazing and then with charity of the year you level it up by what
00:05:03
Speaker
four or five, if you think about the amount of runners that would take part via charity places, but also they're successful in the ballot, they see Macmillan a lot more, and as Macmillan touches so many lives, unfortunately, that they then decide to use their ballot place. So suddenly, already, the team's going to be a lot bigger than it's ever been before. Well, it's actually our biggest.
00:05:30
Speaker
So go on, just dig into that a bit more for me then. Tell me what it means to be Charity Partner of the Year for London compared to your usual kind of partnership with them. Well, firstly, it's the first time that Millen has ever been the sole charity of the year for London. Back in the 90s, we shared
Campaign Goals and Team Composition
00:05:51
Speaker
it. But this
00:05:54
Speaker
is our first year and the way we won the campaign against some like really stiff competition is that we created a campaign purely for London Marathon and we called it everyone from day one as our like strap line and it was really around
00:06:12
Speaker
So at the moment Macmillan is there for so many people but we can actually only be there for like one in four at the point of diagnosis which is like staggering because we it is from top to bottom the ambition of everyone at this charity to be there for everyone so yeah we can do anything to get closer so that every that we can be there for everyone then we will do that you know it's yeah
00:06:41
Speaker
Ultimately, a stat that we have and we had at the start of the partnership is that by 2030, there'll be 4 million people living with cancer. So if you got that 4 million, and if you apply where we can only help people at the point of diagnosis, that is a...
00:06:59
Speaker
is a figure that we drastically want to decrease so that we can support because people, when they're with me, it's that they're most vulnerable and everyone has that association with our nurses that they provide such a pivotal moment really. And we do a lot, but we always want to do more and more because our support has made everything to us. Yeah.
00:07:28
Speaker
Yeah. So how does, so you mentioned the number of participants, for example. So what else is different as being the charity partner of the Year for London then? And how many runners have you got representing you this year? So at the moment, we have 1,000, just under 1,200 runners. So that's, yeah, our biggest team, team, yeah, which was an amazing amount. And hopefully we'll gather in a few more in the lead up.
00:07:58
Speaker
to race day, and everything else is very similar, isn't it? Yeah, I think with those 1200 we've got just for the in-person marathon, that's, I don't know, some people who listen might think, oh, that might be quite small, but because of the pandemic,
00:08:24
Speaker
For us, that's far exceeded our expectations. I think originally we thought we might have 2,000, but as everyone has been slowly dawning on with the pandemic and the realities of what those restrictions would create, we did a bit of number crunching and we were like, okay, if we can get anywhere above
Supporting and Engaging Runners
00:08:45
Speaker
say 7800 then this is going to be fantastic and what we're seeing in especially as he was talking about it earlier today that we're getting a lot more ballot renders coming in and which is really nice so everyone's starting to think oh actually I can now fundraise a little bit with the lifting
00:09:02
Speaker
So over 1200, well, I think we will be over 1200 for the in-person. We've also had some great success with the virtual because that's continuing this year. And we've got, is it around just under 400? Just under 400 runners for the virtual, which will be taking place on the same day. And yeah, we've had some
00:09:28
Speaker
great fundraisers come through that as well which has been fantastic and anyone can obviously take part in that and do the marathon where they live so it makes it super inclusive which has been really nice.
00:09:43
Speaker
Yeah, so you've got 1,600 people representing Macmillan then for this. I mean, that's an event in itself, 1,600 people. Yeah, when you put it like that, it does feel pretty special. Yeah, it is. It's brilliant.
00:10:00
Speaker
Yeah. Like you say, we all know what we've been living through this last 18 months and confidence for people to jump in and sign up to things straight away. If you look across the running industry, the numbers are down in events. So to have 1,600 people, that's fantastic. It's absolutely superb. We can't wait to see them all.
00:10:26
Speaker
And then with our green tops on marathon day, it'd be fantastic. Well, that was my next question. Who is looking after them all? A combination of the two of us. We've been sending out lots of emails and we've got our fantastic Facebook group where we have a really great community and people are chatting away to each other and discussing their start times and tops and where they're staying.
00:10:56
Speaker
Yeah, so it's been a combination of our whole team, to be honest, it's a real collaborative effort between everyone in the running team, responding to our supporters. And we've also had virtual training days, which have been hosted by our training partner running with us, which has been really nice and allows people to ask questions and gain a bit of insight about what
00:11:23
Speaker
happens on the day, what they should do in the lead up to the marathon. So hopefully people feel well informed.
00:11:30
Speaker
Yeah. For our listeners who don't know about running with us, they're a fantastic group of coaches, aren't they? So that's... Yeah, we've worked with them for a couple of years. Well, ever since I joined Macmillan and I've worked with them previously and I just thought they get charities and they get the runners who are running for charity. And I think that's it. I mean, they've supported on some of the sponsored hours that we've done with you guys.
00:12:00
Speaker
It's really nice to have the, the way they, the full process and how they approach the training. And I think that really gives, well, it's kind of what we've been doing as well, trying to give that energy to supporters who are a bit in the dark about what's happening because, you know, it's all a trickle down effect until like,
00:12:21
Speaker
We wait for Linda Marathon, but Linda Marathon has got to do so much logistics to make sure that we have a safe event. So we just, we just tried really hard to be as virtually present as possible. Yeah, it's can't wait to meet people. Can't reiterate it. Come to the running show. I'm going to socially distance high five everyone.
00:12:44
Speaker
So what does that, for people potentially who haven't represented McMillan or other large charities, what does that support a journey look like? So they sign up with you, and you said there's been lots of emails on virtual training days. There's a lot of support that goes in there. Just take us through that journey that they go through from signing up almost to race day. Yeah, so as Izzy pointed out, we've got, we send,
00:13:13
Speaker
quite a few emails, but they've kind of vary in tone. Some are very training specific, some are fundraising, kind of break everything down just to explain all those elements. So that's just like the standard. And then where we provide, or we hope we provide extra and we know our supporters really live it. And that's probably the good thing about this marathon journey that we've got, like a real nice organizational buy-in. So if there's any of our corporate partners who are supporting like the corporate team will help out.
00:13:43
Speaker
Like with that more day to day element, me and Izzy can't speak to all 1200 in person at once. And we did this really nice thing this year. It's something that I've always wanted to do. Like, you know, we're based in London. I know London. I'm from Wolverhampton. I know Wolverhampton, but do I know Doncaster? Not too much.
00:14:08
Speaker
All my knowledge is based on football teams, but for our supporters who are across the UK, because Macmillan's across the UK, we brought in all of our regional slash relationship fundraising managers to like take on board some of their local contacts because they know the local area and they can just be brought like that direct and sometimes face to face or just, you know, brought socially distance, obviously. And that's been something that we've been really proud of that we've been able to
00:14:38
Speaker
kind of encapsulate because we've always wanted to approach it as like you're all a team together so to have that regional like support that you can just go to immediately it's really helped because I mean we create loads of fundraising assets obviously that people can use or you know coffee warnings very soon which is a big one for us so all our fundraisers will be able to use those assets we just kind of just
00:15:03
Speaker
try and be there and be as present as possible, especially with the virtual training sessions, which are new for us. Yeah, Izzy worked pretty hard on doing a lot of the in-person one. We were going to be at the Olympic Community Track Centre, Joe. It was all flashing lights and all bells and whistles. Maybe next year, though. Maybe next year we'll be able to do that.
00:15:29
Speaker
You mentioned in there that you get them lots of fundraising assets and I think this is because this is what you do. It was quite a passing comment but to runners, we see this a lot on UK run chat, they really need that help with the fundraising because
00:15:50
Speaker
It almost becomes that the running bit becomes the bit that they know, be it a beginner or someone who's experienced that is representing you and they need some help with that fundraising. So I'm hearing that through that journey they sign up, they get regional support, they get virtual training days with top coaches from running with us.
00:16:10
Speaker
They get kit and they get lots of support with their fundraising. So it's like it's like a complete support package, I suppose is what I'm hearing. Yeah, I mean, the fundraising's, I mean, you know, it's blatant. It's out there and London Marathon fundraising is always will be always be a bit well, it is higher than other fundraisers because of well, the power of London Marathon, I suppose. Yeah. So like a big thing for me and Izzy is always making sure that people are aware
00:16:38
Speaker
are the challenge they're taking up.
00:16:42
Speaker
and trying to make that more digestible and how do they how am I going to get to my target so you know for us this year it's it was 2016 to 2020 and you know let you know be pretty honest or frank like that is a big amount of money to anyone so you know it will achieve amazing things for the charity but how do you get that supported there so we kind of
00:17:09
Speaker
break it down and talk about how you could do certain events and try and make it just more manageable so then it's less daunting and especially virtually we find that that's been really helpful for supporters really because a big thing for us and this is where Virgin Money Giving have been like absolutely amazing is trying to make sure that you tell your story because everything's different
00:17:38
Speaker
How many applications do you think we've read for Linda Marathon? Thousands and thousands of applications and they're all fantastic stories that we read and
00:17:50
Speaker
That's where people engage the support for the fundraisers. That's where people engage the most. And if they know your story rather than, I'm running a marathon, support me. That's where the support will come from if there's sort of a more personal aspect and everyone likes to know everyone else's story, don't they? And that's where connections are made. And if you can also see them progressing with their training and their fundraising,
00:18:20
Speaker
That's that's a huge.
00:18:22
Speaker
a huge part of where we also find people being really successful and reaching their targets is keeping people updated with how they're doing. Yeah.
Runner Experiences and Pre-Marathon Activities
00:18:33
Speaker
I bet you have a real mix, don't you then, as well, in terms of people, in terms of their experience of fundraising and of actually running a marathon. Because if I think about UK run chat, we have lots of beginners who will start interacting
00:18:51
Speaker
traditionally in January because they've signed up to perhaps represent a charity and run their first marathon in April. And then you'll probably have experienced people who do lots and lots of different races and events for you. Do you see that?
00:19:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's pretty wide ranging, isn't it? Like we will have runners who may finish in two hours 30. I don't know how they do it. And then we'll have friends who do it in seven. And it's always a nice line that running with us say like it's still the same distance and everyone will get to the finish line. But I mean, we take
00:19:29
Speaker
We'd probably take quite a leaf out of the sponsored hours that we've been involved with you and the UK-run chat kind of community and that we kind of try and cater for all differences. We've got different training plans obviously and no training plan is the same but we kind of have to, we kind of embodied what we've learned from you guys in that peer-to-peer learning because they're part of a team and
00:19:53
Speaker
like it might mean a lot of me and Izzy saying oh yeah training's great because we do we attempt to run now and again but if you're hearing it from another team at Millen Runner on how you can help
00:20:05
Speaker
and that's how it helps and that kind of relates into the fundraising as well. They're all helping each other because then it embodies that team at Millham vibe which I mean it's great to look on that Facebook group and it's always been like great to see the interactions when we've done the sponsored hours. And we have lots of fundraisers that come back year after year and do share their knowledge with
00:20:27
Speaker
people that are just starting out. And so, yeah, we've got people that fundraise hundreds of thousands, we've got the team queue in that have been fundraising for us for years. And then obviously, there's the people just starting out where they they've got their inspiring story and can smash it. And then other people do find it a little bit trickier. And we do have people that will
00:20:54
Speaker
share what events they're doing on the Facebook group and ask people to support them if they've got raffles in the local area and so there's a real sort of community feel within the fundraising aspect of it. We saw that with Gary who's been a previous guest when he was doing his 110 everyone's like wow and then Gary feeds back on stuff so like it's
00:21:18
Speaker
It's all this full circle stuff, which is so lovely because that's what connects everyone. For anyone who's listening, if you go back into our past podcast, we interviewed Gary, who was running 110 marathons in 110 days for Macmillan at the time earlier this year, wasn't it? And I think he'd previously done a hundred and a hundred a couple of years before that as well, which is gone. Yeah. It's absolutely been so.
00:21:48
Speaker
yeah very good so what's your um tell us what your two you know this this next two weeks because you know you're coming into the event what what are you what are you up to in the build up of the event i think it's a little cry in the morning and then we get on well there's quite a few different elements so like um
00:22:12
Speaker
I suppose Izzy is the I mean, you're working predominantly on the we've got some halo activity, Joe, which is kind of anything that's outside the marathon itself, or the virtual marathon, I'm just trying to make it more like of a campaign led and Izzy's been doing some
00:22:30
Speaker
So yeah, we've had our Facebook challenge, which is 26 miles in 26 days, which started on the 7th of September and is running till the day before the marathon. Can they join? There's still time. There's still just over a week to go. If you want to, you can cram your 26 miles into a week, which I think is definitely possible.
00:22:57
Speaker
You're going to do it yourself? Well, I might be running Hackney Half at the weekend. I've now said this on a podcast, so now I know how to count as well. But yeah, so there's still time for people to sign up. You just need to search it on Facebook and you'll be able to find the group. And we've had an amazing uptake from that. And so we've had, I think,
00:23:22
Speaker
Facebook group there's 2,000 people that have joined and
00:23:27
Speaker
but we've raised just under 100k for that at this moment in time, which is obviously all good towards our everyone from day one campaign. We build it as the 26 days leading up to the marathon because we wanted to do that nice. So whilst Disney's making sure the stewardship's sorted on that and everyone's got everything they need to fundraise, I mean, also, I mean, this week is pretty much
00:23:55
Speaker
It's gearing up because obviously the running shows the big first event for everyone. Yeah, tell us about that so you'll actually be at the expo. Yeah, we've got a big old stand that we've been waiting to fill for a long time now.
00:24:11
Speaker
And we have a stand there just so we can speak to supporters. And did they hear something like, how's everything going? What do you need from us on the day? And then a bit about, they need another top because we have a special Undermath in the Charity of the Year top this year, which everyone loves, which is always a good thing. But the nice thing about it is because everyone needs to attend the running show to collect their number to race,
00:24:39
Speaker
and well with the addition this year that they need to also drop off their finisher bag so they can then navigate with social distancing so it's just it's going to be an interesting time setting all that up whilst making sure we I think we have to have PCR tests every day oh no not PCR it's like a flow isn't it yeah yeah and we'll also be able to sign those people to our cheer points so their friends and family can well their
00:25:06
Speaker
that limited friends and family can come and cheer them on on the day which our cheer points are what carry people through. We've had it all previous years and hopefully to this year will be no exception. So yeah that's also what we've been planning this week making sure that we've got all the last
00:25:29
Speaker
loudest clappers and safe kind of things. Vuvuzellas, have you got any Vuvuzellas at your cheer points? Do you remember those? Yeah, we've got megaphones, we've got megaphones for nearly every cheer point. We might have to do a little Amazon order if it's cheap enough to get a few more. I think that ultimately what we've been doing, because we're Charity of the Year, we wanted to increase our presence, but we need to be mindful of, you know, we're still
00:25:58
Speaker
still need to have a level of social distancing. Obviously, London Marathon, to get the go-ahead, we've got to put in some restrictions around the course so everyone's safe. So we're just trying to, I think we're spending most of our days like, okay, this is what we want to do, and how do we make it as sensible as possible? We're going to have, well, we have 10 cheer points, but we do have a secret cheer point, maybe around the Tower of London, maybe, or definitely.
Post-Marathon Celebrations and Future Events
00:26:29
Speaker
So, and what will you have, have you got anything planned for runners once they cross the finish line? What happens? Yes, so we have, we've had a post race reception for as long as maybe the marathon's been, maybe the 40 years or 41 years and the marathon's been taking place and we have it in a
00:26:51
Speaker
it's a government building called the Foreign and Commonwealth and Development. That doesn't sound right but I know they've recently changed their name and we get all our supporters to sign up beforehand and they bring guests with Covid, we've again been trying to be sensible. It's just a nice place where they can get their their photo to say I've done it because that's, everyone always wants, I think
00:27:15
Speaker
People don't believe you've done a marathon until they see until they see the medal. So that's always a big one. And then we offer like massages, a bit of foods, drink just to bring everyone get people a bit more revitalized before they then move on to no go to. You can get a massage.
00:27:33
Speaker
Yeah that as well and I think we just get them in gear so then they can then have however many burgers they want or whatever's their choice to burn. The amount of calories they would have burned. Yeah yeah good on them and maybe even a
00:27:52
Speaker
a tipple as well, if they fancy one. Oh yes, definitely. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'll put milk depending on, you know, their recovery drink of choice. But it sounds like you've, you know, there's a huge amount that you've got to do. Have you, dare I ask Izzy, are there other events that you're working on at the moment as well? Oh yeah, so currently also working on lots of 2022 events.
00:28:22
Speaker
And then also, so there's Royal Parks coming up as well.
00:28:30
Speaker
yeah a week later a week later yeah so getting everything ready for those um yeah still quite a few actually Yorkshire marathons at the end of the month and then great saffron yeah great saffron and a lot of it i mean your your audience will know this as much as anyone like everything um
00:28:55
Speaker
that's happened is that there's going to be a lot of events happening in April that were previously postponed to October. So we're going straight into 2022 with a shorter... No breathing space. Yeah, we're just great. But luckily the next London round ends in October, so that buys us a little bit more time.
00:29:20
Speaker
So if our listeners want to have a look at the events that are available in 2022 to represent you, where should they go? Well, yeah, we've got all of our 2022 events. They will, if they're not live already, they will be going live on the Macmillan website. You can go to find an event and you'll be able to type in what discipline you'd like to do or where you'd like to do an event and we'll have our whole
00:29:48
Speaker
catalog on there. We've got hundreds of events and ranging in distances and all around the UK. So definitely check it out. They do get updated quite a lot. So as we're adding them, there'll be more events across the UK. So definitely worth a refresh. Yeah. And our London Marathon 2022 applications open just after this year's marathon.
00:30:18
Speaker
make sure that if you want a space, apply early. Wonderful. Well, thank you both very much. I wish you the best of luck over this, not just for London. Like you say, there's lots of events and lots going on crammed into September and October events, aren't they? So best of luck with it all. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for coming on. And yeah, I look forward to following along to Team Macmillan on all these event days.
00:30:47
Speaker
Yeah, we can't wait to be there and thank you for having us.