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Macmillan Cancer Support | Will & Emma | Challenge Events Team
92 Plays2 years ago
In episode 66 of UKRunChat podcast I catch up with Will and Emma from the Challenge Events Team at Macmillan Cancer Support.
We all know the fantastic work Macmillan do and so its nice to catch up with the team to see what they have been up to and what is coming up in 2023.
If you are fundraising whilst running events this year please do have a look at the fund-raising tips and tools on this page of the Macmillan website to help you with ideas on how to do so.
Find an event to fundraise for Macmillan.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to episode 66 of the UK Run Chat podcast. I'm your host, Joe Williams, and in this episode, I catch up with Will and Emma from Macmillan. Macmillan have been five years as our charity partner now, and we all know the fantastic work that they do. It's nice for us to catch up with the team again to see what they've been up to and what is coming up in 2023. If you'd like to get in touch with us on the podcast, you can on info at ukrunchat.co.uk.
00:00:27
Speaker
If you are fundraising whilst running events this year, please do have a look at the fundraising pages mentioned on the podcast that are on the Macmillan website to help you with ideas on how to do so. Enjoy this conversation with Emma and Will and see you on the next episode.
Roles and Partnership with UK Run Chat
00:00:43
Speaker
Welcome Emma, welcome Will, how are you both? Hello, good thank you, how are you? Very well, thank you, very well. Hi Joe, nice to be part of this. Thank you very much for coming on both. Very welcome.
00:00:56
Speaker
So, as I said in the introduction, you're both part of the Macmillan team. I think this is year five now, I think, that we've been partners. Wow, yeah. Long before my time, but... Yeah, it's... Time flies, time flies. So, although, like I said, I've introduced you as part of the Macmillan team, would you two like to just give us a quick intro to you and your role at Macmillan? Absolutely, yes. So, my name's Will.
00:01:26
Speaker
senior program manager in the challenge events team. So we're placed within fundraising, marketing and director of Macmillan. And I guess our team, yeah, all about raising money through events and physical challenges, kind of, I guess, vision of the team is creating and partnering with a portfolio of the most exciting, rewarding, relevant events. You know, think, think London Marathon, CheerPoint, think
00:01:54
Speaker
Tough Mudder, Mudder and Sweat, I think Great North Run, that's our team. And my role within that is managing a mini team to bring in those numbers, bring in that fundraising for Macmillan. Thank you very much. And I am Emma. I joined Macmillan nearly two years ago as an assistant in the team, but I'm now a program manager. And my main event that I work on at the moment is the London Marathon.
00:02:23
Speaker
which I'm going to talk about a bit later, but yeah, just organising everything to do with Macmillan taking part in the London Marathon. Is that all? And a few other events, but mostly London Marathon. Just a small matter of London Marathon. Yeah, that's quite a big one. That's quite a big one. Yeah. So, started working for Macmillan. Were you already Macmillan fans then? And did you already represent Macmillan? Or how did it come about?
Motivations for Joining Macmillan
00:02:51
Speaker
Personally, I actually got into it supporting my cousin who works at another charity and I was studying in Brighton and she asked me to volunteer at Gere Point and ever since then I kind of just was really interested in that doing something physical, doing something difficult and receiving the support and the support obviously that runners get is pretty incredible.
00:03:17
Speaker
So I think that's where I kind of had a bit, yeah, kind of fell in love a bit with challenge events and then had some kind of, you know, family experiences as a lot of people do with cancer. So the opportunity came up at Macmillan Cancer Support and, you know, I was, you know, leapt to the chance really of being part of a bigger charity and doing something good. So, yeah, been there, been here now four years and it's best organization I've worked in.
00:03:46
Speaker
Just enjoy it. It's an amazing culture. It's amazing leadership team, you know, really good, really good values. And yeah, I guess just feel very set settled here and always good being part of like a running team. Cause obviously then you get inspired to take on yourself. Yeah. Thanks, Will. Um, I guess my story is pretty similar. Um, did a lot of kind of volunteering and fundraising at uni.
00:04:14
Speaker
So I knew that was kind of something I wanted to go into afterwards, working for a charity. So it was my first job since leaving. I started as an intern in a different team and just really enjoyed my time at Millon. Everyone's so lovely and obviously the cause is amazing and touches a lot of people. So it's great to be part of kind of one of the biggest charities in the UK and fundraising a lot of money.
00:04:43
Speaker
for people living with cancer. Thank you. Thank you both.
Event Participation and Challenges
00:04:50
Speaker
I've got to ask you, as soon as you're part of, before we dig into more stuff about Macmillan, if it seems you're both part of the challenge events teams, do you take part in events yourselves? We both took part in a Tough Mudder event last year, which was really fun. It took us about five hours to complete.
00:05:12
Speaker
Which was hard. Yeah, the 15K, which is the most I've ever done in terms of running. But it was really fun. I'd like to do another one this year. But yeah, Will's a bit more of a runner than me, aren't you? Hardly, yeah. I mean, a couple of photos came up from Tough Mudder, actually. Oh, they're awful. It was great, yeah. And we were quite VIP. It was a marketing opportunity for my colleague who manages Tough Mudder. So we had a little crew follow us around.
00:05:42
Speaker
Yeah, we had we got to we got to hold the flares as we set off. And so added pressure, I think, to do a good job. But yeah, yeah, that was fun. And yeah, I've done a few half marathons. I've got Cambridge half on the 6th of March. One of those classics gets to January wants to sign up for something very unprepared. But yeah, it's good fun. It's a big one, Cambridge, isn't it?
00:06:07
Speaker
It is. Yeah. And it's a really good route across, you know, through the colleges. Um, and being from Cambridge, I felt like I had to do my hometown half. What was your, uh, what was your favorite obstacle at Tough Mudder both? I remember the Arctic Enema giving me quite a shock when I was a child. So hard. I'm trying to think. I did like crawling through the mud under the barbed wire. I thought that was one of the first ones.
00:06:33
Speaker
But yeah, the Arctic animal was really, really hard. It was so cold. What did I like? I enjoyed seeing Emma just get absolutely wiped out by all sorts of different obstacles. There was one in water and it was like, you know, the things were turning in the water and you had to get on it and then the person below you then kind of momentum helps you get over and then you had to do vice versa. That was good. Although I smashed my knee off that one and had a massive bruise. But
00:07:03
Speaker
feel like you can't really do a Tough Mudder without getting very, very waddling. I can remember when I've done it a couple of times. I remember one of the.
00:07:14
Speaker
times with it, my son's football team, the shorter one, but there was one of the obstacles, there was the volunteers and they had playing on a loop, that song, what's the matter you, hey, where are you? It was on a loop and you could hear it for about half the course. That's distressing in itself.
00:07:37
Speaker
You like had it on a loop in your mind still when you'd finished. Very funny. They're great. They're good fun, those events. Real good fun. Yeah. They are. And you don't need to take it too seriously, do you? I mean, it's difficult, but it's the Comerada River, isn't it? Which is fun.
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. If I, if I can do it, literally anyone can do it because I'm so unfit and really not that big and running, but I think it's really fun. Five hours. Yeah. It's a long time to be out doing though. Cause you do get cold in between them. Yeah. Cold and wet. Yeah. Yeah. You've just got to, you've just got to kind of walk, walk, run, you know, really slowly just to kind of keep a bit of heat and then save, preserve the energy for the,
00:08:21
Speaker
the challenges. Some are really random though, some are like holding a block of wood on the shoulder and just walking 10 yards. Good fun. Cool, well thank you both, thanks for your intro. So let's get stuck into a little bit, tell us a little bit about...
00:08:39
Speaker
focus much on the pandemic and COVID times, but you've had a lot of challenges and as all charities, all businesses and everybody has had, but charity sector specifically was hit really hard, wasn't it? What challenges did you get during the pandemic and then what was the impact on fundraising?
Pandemic Impact on Fundraising
00:08:59
Speaker
How did you overcome those challenges? God, it was such a strange period of time, just you saying it, it's just like,
00:09:08
Speaker
of fills you with kind of doubt, doesn't get that word, I think. And I think for a lot of us, it was just making that transition, you know, to working from home, to not delivering events. It was all very strange, but I guess all events, we work in events and all events were canceled in 2021. The problem was obviously they weren't canceled by law. It was up to event organizers discretion, you know, to calculate the risk essentially of putting on events.
00:09:37
Speaker
which was quite ambiguous for our team, because you think, okay, so is that happening? Are they communicating to our fundraisers? Are they, you know, are they not? So there was so much doubt on whether they'd go ahead. And as you can imagine, a huge impact in terms of income was had for our team. And unfortunate, really, that was the unfortunate, but I mean, the fact that we live for working events, and we weren't able to go and see our amazing supporters was
00:10:04
Speaker
was pretty rubbish for most of the teams. So it was a real difficult transition period for us, definitely. And I think, you know, we only bought in 6 million in 2021, in 2020, sorry, so when it first happened. And that's no events happening at all. That's complete lockdown, whatever it was, all the different stages. But I think, yeah, the challenge was dealing with
00:10:32
Speaker
dealing with cancellations, you know, communicating with our supporters who had postponed, you know, moving them on to other events, deferring income, you know, keeping them engaged, keeping morale up. And I just think it was really hard because we were, we didn't know, you know, what the next month looked like. So it was hard to kind of then, I guess, support our amazing fundraisers. So, so it's definitely challenging then trying to bounce back in 2021, when obviously there was still, still some issues, you know, what would
00:11:01
Speaker
behaviour be of participants who were taking part in 2020 and it was cancelled were they still engaged you know obviously safety was a big thing you know how did the public feel about returning to events with five ten thousand people at them but actually we just not to you know not to focus too much on the negative it was actually a really good bounce back here for us and we raised 25 million which was
00:11:28
Speaker
Amazing and far better than obviously we'd hoped. And I think what we saw was just a real increased appetite, especially kind of autumn onwards in 2021 to get back. So we were a charity here for London Marathon. We had a big team at Great North Run. So yeah, we kind of managed to get through. And I think that was really important, I think, given that the 2020, not just for Challenge, but for Macmillan as well was such a struggle, I think.
00:11:57
Speaker
We were all just so pleased to get back to doing what we love, really.
London Marathon and Fundraising Success
00:12:01
Speaker
You mentioned Charity of the Year there for London. Just tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah, sure. Emma, I don't know if you want to do that as LM Queen. Yes, so in 2021 we were Charity of the Year. So every year for London Marathon they choose a different charity and that charity
00:12:24
Speaker
kind of headlines the event. So we had a lot more places that year. We had more cheer points. And it was just a lot more for Macmillan presence kind of at the event. So it was a really great way to kind of kick off the events again for us and make people aware of Macmillan on that day because we had some coverage on kind of the media and things like that. So it was a great way to kind of, yeah,
00:12:52
Speaker
start with events again. But we've still managed to kind of have a lot of places in London Marathon since then. So as part of the Charity of the Year, you kind of get more places for that year, but also for the years following because a lot of people defer and stuff. So this year we've got just over 600 places, which is great as it's such a big event. But yeah, it was a really great year for the London Marathon and we raised a lot of money.
00:13:20
Speaker
One of the things that amazes me as well is the number of volunteers that you get at those events. How do you man all those cheer points? Oh yeah, definitely. People love to come and cheer, especially at a big event like the London Marathon. It's so emotional and inspiring to kind of see people doing that. So yeah, this year we've got five cheer points, so anyone can come and volunteer.
00:13:45
Speaker
And just basically cheer on runners, doesn't have to be the minimum runners, just any runners going past that need support. And it's like a really rewarding thing to do. And often people come year, year on year and like to be at the same cheer point. For example, embankments are really big ones because it's kind of near the end. So people like to kind of go there and cheer and help people that are struggling really near the end and motivate them to keep going.
00:14:12
Speaker
Who blows all the balloons up at the cheer points? We do! Yeah, anyone that's there, we're that people. That's that early 5am start where we're cable tying scrim to railings and blowing up balloons and putting up sail banners, all of that kind of thing. But yeah, we're, I guess, going back to volunteering, we're so fortunate that we have like a volunteer team. So, you know,
00:14:40
Speaker
events where the Macmillan team aren't present at, we know that we're going to have a volunteer presence. So, you know, integral to that kind of Macmillan presence on the day are our volunteers. And sometimes it's them supporting us at 5 a.m. with doing the balloons and all of that. And yeah, we do get those people coming back every year to ring those cowbells and bang bang sticks and all of those things. Yes, brilliant, really brilliant.
00:15:10
Speaker
It does amaze me how many balloons you have up at those cheer points. If you ever blow balloons up for a children's party, you get light-headed blowing them up, especially at five in the morning. Very good. So it's good practice for us then, isn't it? It is. For when that day comes. How did you keep your supporters engaged during that period? And how do you, on an ongoing basis as well?
00:15:40
Speaker
I think the stewardship is obviously quite a big part of what we do. I guess that and marketing are key elements of a program manager role, but we just kept communication as open, as frequent as we could really. When we found out updates, we'd pop it in an email to our supporters. We have a database where we can monitor, obviously, all of our contact with
00:16:09
Speaker
with supporters and I think, yeah, we just reached out really and actually our, not our direct team, but we had a checking in and this is really racking my brains, but we, the regional team kind of developed this kind of checking in program, which essentially was calling people throughout, you know, throughout our relationships. So that's community fundraisers, challenge event fundraisers, just, you know,
00:16:39
Speaker
as a name suggests, it was just checking in calls and checking how people were doing, letting them know about the status of events and just having that, you know, that catch up, which was brilliant to have. And that really helped, you know, just picking up the phone and speaking to them. And I guess moving forward to kind of outside of COVID, you know, each event participant will steward, so they'll get a series of
00:17:09
Speaker
series of emails, which will be, you know, mixed mixture of fundraising, training on the day, volunteer asks, all of those things, you know, and yeah, we just, that's really, really key to try and get them as engaged as possible through that support journey, you know, texts as well, phone calls varies by event. But yeah, we want to make sure that we've, we're providing kind of as many touch points to, to their journey as we can. Yeah. Cool. Keep it fluffy too. Yeah.
00:17:39
Speaker
for sure. How did you perform in 2022? You mentioned 2020 and 2021 there. I'm thinking about events and how many people are taking part of them the last couple of years. Did things improve again in 2022? They did, yes. I think it's still being reconciled.
00:18:07
Speaker
an accurate number, but around 30 million we've raised kind of across third party, mighty hikes and virtual, which is, which is great. And we, we transitioned kind of from obviously from third during COVID from third party, we then we were getting more virtual propositions out the door, like our Facebook fundraisers. We trialed and tested lots of different virtual products, you know, some
00:18:37
Speaker
RIP gone, didn't perform at all. Others, you know, really quick win in terms of income, you know, where plugging in the gap, where third party events weren't happening. So we've kind of embedded that now into our team. So, so yeah, in 2022, we had a separate team of kind of virtual, um, do it yourself, you know, do it yourself fundraising. So you go and choose your own event. Yeah. Support from challenge events, but it's very much onus on you. Um, and then yeah, our Facebook fundraisers really did
00:19:06
Speaker
take off and they were being churned out kind of one or two a month, you know, which were, which was kind of inspired by what the current trends and our innovation team who were kind of picking out opportunities for us. Um, like I say, some, some perform and some absolutely don't. So it's all a, it's all a test really. And, um, we've got the kind of assurances, I guess that we, we are able to, to do this testing within challenges. There's budget for us to be.
00:19:35
Speaker
investing in these kind of trial events, so to speak. And then if they perform great, keep them on the program, if not, that's it. But yeah, so we've had a good year in 2022.
00:19:46
Speaker
kind of onwards and upwards, I guess, for this year. Good. That's positive for everyone. Very good. So what does 23 look like and where are your growth areas? I mean, you mentioned the mighty hikes. How long has that been going for?
Upcoming Events for 2023
00:20:03
Speaker
I noticed that because I fancy doing one of those myself. Yeah. What does 2023 look like?
00:20:11
Speaker
Well, in terms of new events, we're always as a team kind of looking for new opportunities, new ways to partner with event organizers and expand the program. So this year, some new events we've got are, we've got a Henley Swim series. So that's four different events across the summer where you can swim in the Thames, the nice part of the Thames in Henley. Triborns, another big one that we've got a new partnership with. So
00:20:39
Speaker
lots of events then, and then High Rocks as well. It's a really popular one at the moment, which we've just kind of partnered with, so CrossFit events. We're trying to kind of look into that space and those kind of events. So that's something new that we're looking at for this year. Yeah, exciting. Yeah. Are you signing up for that one, Emma? I don't think so. CrossFit might be the limit for us.
00:21:05
Speaker
That's for me just yet, maybe soon. Well, will the virtual events continue in 2023? Yeah, yeah, we've got, like Will said, we've got a whole team that just work on our kind of Facebook events and virtual events. So they have like monthly Facebook challenges that we do that people can just do in their own home or 10,000 steps a month challenge. No, sorry, 10,000 steps a day.
00:21:36
Speaker
You know what I mean? So they do those kind of things and that's still going. So we're kind of hoping to do that for as long as that works. Right now they're still doing well and bringing in a lot of fundraising. And also, as I work on London Marathon, we still do the virtual London Marathon for people that might not be able to make it down to London, people that just want to do it in their local area. So things like that still
00:22:00
Speaker
Although they're not as popular as obviously they were in COVID, they're still happening and still bring in quite a lot of fundraising for us.
00:22:06
Speaker
Yeah, when you speak to people, especially online about them, they're a bit more like the virtuals are. Some people absolutely love them and others just don't. I think they've really found their place in COVID. I mean, they literally saved a lot of charities, race organizers, they literally saved them and people because it gave them some focus when they couldn't take part in events. And I think that
00:22:33
Speaker
legacy of them, if that's the right word, has continued. That's why people do still like taking part in them because they do like being motivated by them. Yeah, I agree. I think, I think what probably happened was, you know, like I said, events, events just stopped altogether. You know, it was what can we, what proposition can we kind of test now? Let's get out the door quickly. And I think as it's become more part of lots of charities portfolio, you know, it becomes a bit more saturated, but
00:23:02
Speaker
At the start, yeah, if you could get one out, you know, out the door really quickly, huge success. I mean, we, we had a really successful event in 10 day 5k, um, which was 10 consecutive days of 5k, which is, and what that had was it had a very clear kind of, this is what you need to do over 10 days. You know, I think no ambiguity about what the event was. It was, it was clear, concise. You got your medal. So you kind of.
00:23:30
Speaker
try to recreate that kind of community and you're doing it as part of a team, which is obviously often something that you don't get with a virtual, that kind of sense of belonging. But that raised, I don't want to give an exact number because it will be wide of the mark, but hundreds of thousands. And we did it over two or three different campaigns as well. So that was great. That was really good. But then since that's kind of been slightly on the decline, so it's like looking at what else can come in, you know? Yeah.
00:24:01
Speaker
See ya. What's coming up in
Logistics for Major Events
00:24:05
Speaker
spring? I mean, we're already a week into February. What have you got coming up? We've got, I think the first one in the program is the Brighton Half, which is at the end of this month. That kicks things off for us, followed by, like Will said, he's taking part in Cambridge. Brighton Marathon.
00:24:29
Speaker
London landmarks early April and then the London marathon at the end of April. So yeah, all starting soon. So we're all kind of getting ready for going to some of these events and packing up our kit bags full of our balloons, ready to be there. So what does it look like in terms of your support for your participants in the couple of weeks in the lead up? How are you communicating with them?
00:24:59
Speaker
So say people are running the Brighton half at the end of the month for you, what would people expect if they're representing you now in that event? I think normally, so for our kind of stewardship, people get emails in the lead up, say three weeks to go, two weeks to go, one week to go with a lot of logistics about where we're going to be on the day, where to look out for us.
00:25:25
Speaker
what you need to do to collect your number, things like that. So that's all covered on kind of email. And then we like to send out kind of good luck postcards for some events. So I know that Isabel who manages the Brighton Half was literally writing some postcards yesterday, ready to send to people that were taking part just to kind of say, good luck. Thank you so much for running with Macmillan. And then with some events,
00:25:50
Speaker
We call people as well for bigger events to say good luck and how are you feeling? Because I think that just gives a bit more of a personal touch as well. If you've got any last minute questions, you want to ask someone. It's often good to speak to them on the phone. Do you have meet up points at the end? I can remember the big ones that you do, don't you? Yeah, we do. For some events, if there's an event village, which tends not to be the ones in London, but ones in other cities and other places,
00:26:20
Speaker
We'll be there, we'll have a stand at the start and the finish. So at the event village where people can come and get a t-shirt if they didn't get one, send, come and say hello to us. We'll often have snacks and refreshments. And it's really nice for us to see exactly who's taking part and kind of put faces to names we've seen on our lists of people. So it's a really nice way to engage with everyone. And yeah, it's a really nice part of
00:26:45
Speaker
being there at the end and saying, thank you so much, well done. Yeah, that's a lovely part of the job. Have you noticed, I bet the answer's yes to this, but you've gone from London in October to London in April this year, just telling us all that you've got coming up. So has that been a challenge? Because you've had such a shorter amount of time to do everything? Because I guess you'd usually have a year, wouldn't you? Yeah, we would normally have a year in between.
00:27:16
Speaker
Um, the six month turnaround has been quite tight this year, but I think it hasn't made a difference to people wanting to take part, um, because the London Marathon is such like a big bucket list event. We've still had just as many people signing up so many applications, people wanting to run. Um, so that side of things has been completely fine. Um, it's just more kind of, yeah, the logistics for us, the quick turnaround, but when we booked things for October, we just booked them again for April because they were so.
00:27:45
Speaker
it's so close behind so everything's kind of in place and yeah we're just really looking forward to being there cheering everyone on on the day and we also have like a post-race reception at the near Westminster and like a venue where people can come and have massages after the event and food and stuff like that after the marathon. Very nice. What's the other what's what are your other big
00:28:15
Speaker
I guess, what would you call them? Like tier one events for the year. So London's obviously that thing. G&R got mentioned before. What are they across the beyond the spring and how are they performing? Spot on with tier one, Joe. You must've heard that from me. Yes. Yeah. So our other tier event, tier one events are Edinburgh and Great North Run. So we've got EMF in end of May, which is performing really well and Great North Run.
00:28:45
Speaker
in September and I think because I guess Great North Run is such a bucket list event you know it always performs really well for us. Edinburgh. I love Edinburgh. It's amazing yeah because obviously lots of different distance options, brilliant route although you're not actually running that much in Edinburgh are you kind of up Holyrood Park and then you're out along the coast which is nice which is where we're going to have a few cheer points.
00:29:13
Speaker
I think with our, with our big events, we get much more kind of buy-in from across the charity. So, you know, a bit more structure, more project groups are kind of put in place as is for London Marathon, you know, where we, we really kind of draw on the support from that expertise, you know, local to local events. So at Edinburgh, we've got obviously our regional team.
00:29:36
Speaker
who, you know, able to like sauce us freebies, like bananas and biscuits. We had literally like a van load of jammy dodgers, which we had to take up last year. Yeah. Thanks to the regional team, which was great. And we definitely didn't use them up either. So we've got loads of jammy dodgers left. Have we? Where are they? I think they're on the 12th floor. I might be wrong. Or do we give them away? Don't worry.
00:30:06
Speaker
But yeah, they, they, obviously, they do more than just source us, Jamie Dodgers, but they, they're a great kind of, yeah, local expertise and offer support kind of. On the day, they get their families in on the cheer point. And they actually often know the event better than the kind of manager, you know, because they've done it year on year. So yeah, we, we're really fortunate to have that kind of those big teams supporting us and
00:30:30
Speaker
giving us food recommendations for when we're up at event weekend, you know, where's like a place to eat in Edinburgh. Yes. You mentioned that your cheer points there are along the coast, are they? Yep. We've got two. Yeah, we've got Seaton Sands and I think Gosford House, which are both the final two. Yeah. Are on the coast. Yeah. Remember that well. I remember the rain coming sideways with the wind. It was lovely. Yeah.
00:31:00
Speaker
Did you jump in the sea afterwards or not? Something will do. Really? No, I did not. Well, actually, it doesn't really finish by this. I'm thinking Great North they do. So they finish in South Shields. I'm getting my tier ones confused. But yeah, they have a little jump into the sea afterwards, which is crazy. Yeah, especially saying that. I was going to say, especially with how cold it is up north. But there's been a couple of GNRs that have been really warm. Yeah.
00:31:28
Speaker
Yeah. Last year was good. Yeah. Yeah. Some was shining last year. Yeah. We have really packed event marquees, which are laid out by the event organizers for, you know, for each charity and depending on obviously your partnership with them, you get a big exercise, tent more tables, all of this thing. So we had, we have really big marquees for both EMF and Great North. And obviously invite everyone along after it and
00:31:58
Speaker
offer food, drink, massage, tea, coffee. And it's great. And yeah, we had a lovely, lovely day last September. Often is in September though, isn't it? Yeah, I remember it. Yeah, it was really warm that weekend, wasn't it? It fell on GNI. It was...
00:32:14
Speaker
Surprising. Even though, yeah, you're right, September, we do tend to get a nice September, don't we? What else do you get up to then on event weekends? What does it look like and how do you prepare as a team? We've mentioned little bits about setting up cheer points and stuff, but it must be, registically, quite a lot to do. Yeah. So we normally send about two people to kind of an average sized event, although the big ones, there's like maybe five of us go.
00:32:44
Speaker
Um, so normally we would travel to the event either by train or in the car, um, pack up the, all the kit bags and have them with us. And then if it's somewhere far away, we stay over, have a nice little dinner and then wake up really early normally to set up. So I think an example of one, say we're at the Leeds half marathon, we'd wake up really early, gets the event village, um,
00:33:13
Speaker
find our plot where we've got like a marquee or a little gazebo and we just have to kind of McMillan brand the whole thing. So we've got our balloons that we've talked about, we've got our banners, bunting, leaflets and information kind of booklets that we can give out to people and also snacks for the runners. So like I said, people either like to come before and say hello and maybe get a banana and tea or something and then
00:33:40
Speaker
do their run and then come back and see us again and tell us how it went. So we've got to set that all up. And then we'd like to wait till we've seen the last person. So we kind of normally send one person to go to the cheer point and meet the volunteers that have kindly come out to cheer them on as well. And then we'll see the last runner pack up and then head back. And it's always such fun. We love taking part in
00:34:08
Speaker
all the events. It's one of the best things that we get to do. We normally do about four or five event weekends throughout the year each. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I bet. I bet it's fun. I bet it's lots of fun going away as a team. Yeah. Get to see loads of different places as well that I wouldn't have been to before. So it's a great way to see the UK. Yeah. Well, what do you give us your fundraising tips because time's a
00:34:36
Speaker
Times are hard for everybody at the moment, aren't they? So what tips have
Tips for Successful Fundraising
00:34:42
Speaker
you got? Have you got any new tips for people who are listening, who are fundraising? What are you seeing people do? Have you got any examples of new stuff that anybody's done that's not a marathon every day like Gary McKee did for you? Yeah, no. This is amazing, by the way. But have you got any other tricks that you're seeing that other people are doing that people could do?
00:35:06
Speaker
We normally say that the best kind of fundraising in terms of people trying to fundraise for an event they're doing is if people are getting kind of something back for when they donate to you. So if that is taking part in a quiz, so they're going to buy a ticket to the quiz and you're going to put on a quiz and they're going to get the experience of going to the quiz, or if that's a bake sale where someone's going to get a cake for their donation.
00:35:31
Speaker
We normally find that things like that work really well for people to make the most money. So kind of providing an incentive for people to donate to you always goes down really well. So like I said, bake sales always go down so well. Offices, outside your house, sweepstakes, often really good idea to kind of add a bit of competition to the fundraising. So if you're taking on an event, asking people to maybe make a donation and then guess your finish time.
00:36:02
Speaker
Um, contacting your local media is really good as well. Kind of like reaching out to your news, local newspaper and radio stations to kind of see they're willing to get behind you and your fundraising. Um, that often works really well in kind of smaller communities. Um, and yeah, like I said, even things like if you're creative and kind of like doing craft or something like that, kind of making things to sell.
00:36:28
Speaker
I think there's the sky's the limit in terms of what you can do. We've got so many resources on our website that if people are struggling, they can go on and have a look at some ideas. But yeah, I'd say in general, just maybe thinking about what you could give them in return for donating. Good tip. Where's those resources? Where can people find them? So they're on our website under fundraising. So just Macmillan website and then under fundraising there's
00:36:58
Speaker
different, loads, different tips. There's five tips to kickstart your fundraising, fundraising online, fundraising resources. So we've got like a whole kind of portal where you can order kind of bunting your own balloons, your own kind of different resources to help you. So yeah, make sure that you get on there and see what we can help you with. I think also just like with, you know, times are difficult and, you know, cost of living and there's definitely kind of apprehension
00:37:28
Speaker
around that, I think, um, we were speaking a couple of weeks back in the team meeting about, um, obviously rather than kind of always asking others to sponsor you of times are hard to kind of like, say you were to buy, you were used to drinking coffee every day and you were trying to limit it. Like instead of then getting that coffee, you'd self donate to your page. Um, that way, obviously you're supporting your own run with money that you would be spending. And then obviously the.
00:37:57
Speaker
burden isn't always on your donors to kind of splash out and to give you to support you in that way so that's always a good tip you know if there's something you're looking to cut out kind of you know where you would spend that bit of extra money self-denate and self-denating on your pages is always good because if people see that there's money on your page then they're also more likely to to fundraising to give you more money which is good yes if
00:38:24
Speaker
listeners or anyone else in the community wanting to represent Macmillan, but haven't yet. Where can they see your events and what they can take part in?
How to Join Macmillan Events
00:38:34
Speaker
Sure. So, um, we have a whole kind of director of all our events. Um, if you go on to, if you just kind of Google Macmillan running events, you should, you should be able to see kind of a little link to our charity runs. Um, but not just our charity runs. Um,
00:38:55
Speaker
If you, if you kind of go through to charity runs and browse our events, you'll see all of our different events split up by discipline. So, you know, you've got your running, cycling, hiking, swimming, skydiving. If you, if you're that way inclined, virtual fitness, uh, all of that, uh, all kinds of day orders as well. So you can see kind of everything that we, we have to offer. And again, that's quite near to that's in a similar section to where our ways to fundraise is, um, you know, once people sign up.
00:39:23
Speaker
Uh, you know, there's T's and C's as they sign up, there'll be a registration fee for most of our events. Um, as soon as kind of they hit sign up there, then, you know, part of our journey and we'll get kind of that support from us up until race day. So, um, yeah, lots to lots, definitely lots to offer and lots of different, um, different ways to get involved, which is, which is great. Yeah. Do you not fancy the skydive? Well,
00:39:52
Speaker
Oh, no, I've got a bad track record with Skyliving. Oh, have you? Yeah, not one for the podcast. Oh. It's going to leave you hanging with that. He's like just hanging, OK. I'll tell you what I need to catch up, Joe. Yeah. So not for me, not for me. However, we are hoping to push a couple of challenge, challenge event stuff out of paying to do it for a bit of marketing material, so. OK. Not me.
00:40:20
Speaker
It won't be me. Emma, not you either. No, too scared. Would you do it, Jo? I have actually done one. My lovely wife bought it me for Father's Day a few years ago, so I had no choice. She was off the kids. The 15 minutes, however long it takes you to go up to 10,000 feet is the worst experience of your life.
00:40:48
Speaker
I'm scared and I'm scared of heights and it was just absolutely horrific looking down thinking oh my words I'm going to be coming out of this in a minute but the actual experience of doing it is one of the best things you ever do it's it's really it's it's bizarre it's bizarre and unlike anything I could ever explain that anyway I agree I do agree I mean that shuffling out of the plane for me is the worst bit but by then you've got very little choice you know what there's one outcome but the the
00:41:18
Speaker
The hour, sorry, the minute, the minute freefall is, like you say, indescribable, isn't it? It's amazing. And then. Yes. Yeah, it is. And then comes the dizzy bit. Yes. I'm not convinced still. Where on social media do people now engage with Macmillan if you give us those handles? It's just Macmillan cancer now, I believe. Yeah, we've just got one.
00:41:49
Speaker
kind of central Instagram and Facebook and Twitter. Brilliant. Thank you so much both for coming on. It's been lovely to chat. Thank you so much for having us. Yeah, you're welcome. Great to catch up. Yeah, listeners, take a look at those fundraising resources, take a look at the events where you can represent Macmillan and thank you very much both. Thank you.
00:42:44
Speaker
Cheers, Jo. Thanks a lot. Bye, guys.