It's looking all Wright for our new 2010 Action Challenge

and that's because we have the lovely Ian Wright backing it!!  I can't give you too many details at the moment but watch this space for a fantastic brand new challenge that will be a first for the UK!

and while we're leading the way in UK challenge events we thought a little bit of leadership training wouldn't go amis, so next friday and saturday the team are off to the Defence Medical Services Training Centre at Keogh Barracks for some serious training from the best of the best; Sergeant Phil Farringdon! 

Lets hope the evid bug that has infected the team for 2 weeks now will have cleared off by then, I'm thinking of moving desks.  Matt and Suzy have me in a corner and there truely is no escape from what they push in my direction - colds, coughs, flu and sometimes the odd cupcake which is nice.  But non of which are helping in my marathon training!

I was hoping to be up to about 4/5 miles by now but have spent most of this week under a duvet sipping lemsip so fingers crossed I'll be back on the road soon.

and on the subject of running, Great North Run and Great South Run have officially opened registrations this week which is fantastic news!  we already have a huge number of runners for the Action Team next year but we're always looking for more so do go to our website for more information on how to sign up! http://www.action.org.uk/event_type/running

and that's about it for this week.  See you next time for updates on how our Army training went and what the lovely Ian Wright is saying about Action Medical Research.

Events comes with a hazard warning this week.

If you havent witnessed the coughing and spluttering coming from the area around Matt and Suzy this week then try to keep it that way - we're diseased!!

 

But soldiering on as ever we have had a great week when it comes to what we do best - Events.

 

L2P registrations are still coming in thick and fast and we've been chatting to our new signups this week to welcome them onto the ride.  We've had the lovely Andy Dewhurst in this week to talk all things Badger , and registration will be open next week for the Giro Toscano. Gemma has been putting the finishing touches on the brochure with the lovely Grant and James working on the webpage so we're pretty much set to get all those lovely badgers signed up for the trip in May.

 

Also, the guys at Global Adventure Challenges have been working their socks off to get the brochure and adverts created for the Trek for Tiny Lives China challenge next November.  Mailings will be sent out around the country any day now and we've already had huge interest in the trip so it's hopefully not going to be long until we're welcoming all those lovely trekkers to the charity.

 

So really, to summarise this week, the wait for the official china and badgers launch is finally over and we're expecting a surge of registrations to finish off the year in style, but whatever you do - stay well clear from us -  we are contaminated and we will make you sick.

This week's weekly news brought to you by Gemma Rooke

Oly tells me this morning that we now have 430 participants for London to Paris!!  which means we are definitely going to hit the magic 500 mark by the end of the month, which means I can officially give it a whoop whoop!

 

and there is more excitement in the cycling department..  Heineken are on the verge of sponsoring our brand new cycle event for 2011, the Three Cities Tour, and Oly has been in discussion with our favourite boys from the US writing up a proposal and aiming to seal the deal by christmas.  The Three Cities Tour will be taking in London, Amsterdam and Brussels and we're hoping a tour of the Heineken factory in Amsterdam will be on the cards, which could even be a bigger selling point than the beer festival which will be on in Brussels when we get there...  we are already fighting over who gets to go on the trip and of course this is not because of said festival, oh no, we just love cycling that much!

 

Oly and Matt are over at the Emirates stadium today hoping to have a go at (some of) the new Stadium Climb event to get an idea of exactly how many steps there are in the challenge and how the participants are going to feel on the day, which I can now tell you will be the 4th July 2010, so put it in your diaries and watch this space for the official staff launch, with prizes to win, coming to a weekly near you...  soon.

 

and you wouldnt think there is anything that could match this in just one week.  But you'd be wrong.  take a seat everyone, it's official, I am running the Virgin London Marathon on the 25th April!!  I'll be running with my lovely dad (aaaah) and we're going to be raising £3500 for our favourite charity Action Medical Research. I wont pester you too much for sponsorship, but we do have a page set up http://www.action.org.uk/sponsor/davidandgemma so if you're feeling generous please go and make a donation.  If you're not, then dont bother, I only want to see big donations in there! (kidding) and dont forget to tick the Gift Aid box.

 

the penultimate news piece this week comes from the lovely Suzy who has secured a stand at the London Boat Show in January.  It's running from 8th - 17th and we'd love for anyone who has some time to spare to come along and give us a hand promoting Sail the Solent 2010.  It's a great opportunity to oggle some rather beautiful boats, and will be a good excuse to get out the house rather than sitting under a blanket watching that carry on film you'd rather not be watching and wishing it was warmer outside.

 

and so last but certainly not least - from all the Events team

 

THANK YOU GRANT AND JAMES! 

 

Thank you very much for being webmaster superstars and getting all of our events on to the website this week.  We now have beautiful landing pages for; Dunsfold, Three Peaks, Race the Sun, Three Peaks Bike and Hike and Sail the Solent.

 

we heart you grant and james 

 

see all our new events on the website http://www.action.org.uk/get_involved

 

Gemma starts her marathon training...

Well, I thought with only 24 weeks until marathon day I had better get cracking! 

 

Week one started pretty well, I ran 3 miles on Monday but only 1.5 miles on tuesday, last night I had a girly night in Balham scheduled in so the trainers were left at home and the water bottle replaced with a glass of wine!  I think I'm going to have to cut down on the alcohol intake as it's made me not want to run today, but it's crack the whip time with myself and I WILL run tonight - I have to because Jo has forced me to eat 2 toffee pops with my tea this afternoon..

 

watch out for more updates next time on Gemma's marathon blog!

 

 

This week, Jo has been on holiday and we've mainly been doing.... nothing

kidding! 

 

It's been a hive of activity in events and I actually dont know where to start!

 

New running campaign Mums On The Run is attracting lots of interest before its even taken it's first steps.  Nell McAndrew and Sally Gunnell OBE are backing the campaign to get new mums back into running, get fit, meet other mums and raise money for a great cause by running the Bupa 10,000 in 2010.  Matt's already managed to get some womens magazines to give us free editorial for the campaign, and some are even entering runners with us!

 

and the good news just keeps on coming..  we've had 44 signups for London to Paris this week which takes the grand total so far to a whopping.... drum roll....  400 cyclists so far in 2010!  This is the best year ever for London to Paris and we're keeping our positive energy focussed on hitting the 600 mark by Christmas! 

 

Namibia now has 50 keen trekkers signed up for the desert trek in March, we may also have another celebrity joining Richard Drummie and Martin Fry but we dont want to spoil the surprise so watch this space, and China is now fully underway with the brochure ready to hit doorsteps in November, the spangly new website up and running www.trekfortinylives.co.uk and we already have 2 signups as well!

 

so it's all kicking off for 2010 perfectly.  Suzy has already had interest in the Dunsfold duathlon and 10K, has pretty much sold out of Virgin London Marathon places, and has already secured 5 own place runners aswell!

 

it's just been a great week in events but we are all looking forward to the lovely Jo coming back next week to make the team complete again.

 

Chinagate!!!

I know Suzy, Watergate was the office complex where the scandal took place! not the scandall itself but I couldnt help myself 

 

It's not often that a scandal occurs within the walls of  Action Medical Research HQ but as it seems so long since "dietcokegate" I thought I'd create a new watercooler moment...  it probably wont last that long, seeing as this is actually quite dull in comparison to said cokegate but there is a very important highly classified document that has gone missing!! 

 

We are offering a £10,000 reward to anyone with information concerning the dissapearance of my China brochure publicity approval form.  Or heaven forbid I'll have to make a new one!  Think of all the printing costs people, your charity needs you!

 

Rumours are circulating that a certain Oly Watts has run off to Switzerland with the top secret documents and is in negotiations with the Federal Authorities of the Swis Confederation...  Oly has been filling our minds with ideas that he's taking part in a Eurovision Spinathon but I have my suspicions...

 

STOP THE PRESS!

 

and breathe a sigh of relief everyone, Tracey has found the china brochure!  It turns out that actually people go on holiday and arent here when I send out threatening emails to "All Staff VH"

 

And so that means that Oly really is taking part in a 24 hour spinathon with lots of men and women in spandex in a massive gym banging out hard house in Switzerland!!  That's an image that will stay with me!

 

But back to the real world.  Suzy has almost filled her marathon Golden Bond places!  She only has 11 left so if you would like a place or know someone who is really keen to join our Action running team for the Virgin London Marathon then do  go to the website as soon as possible www.action.org.uk/running  

 

and with just that little snippet of news for this week, all that's left for me to say get well soon Mark!  Have a lovely week off next week, and we hope your arm heals quickly so you can get out on your bike again soon.

If you blinked yesterday you would have missed it... all five of the team were in events HQ at the same time!

Marathon man

Oly came back from the windy city at the start of the week having completed another marathon for Action. He ran an impressive four hours and 27 minutes to beat his PB which is amazing considering he decided to get drunk two nights before the race! Sorry Ols, couldn't resist! But we are very proud of him and have already signed him up for all our runs in 2010!

Success on the Solent

The Events team's success continued last weekend with Suzy and Gem bouncing around the Solent on a rib, cheering on our sailors in the first Sail the Solent challenge.

Everyone had a great time and the weather was perfect for the big race on Sunday - very windy and choppy! Gem was pleased to discover she doesnt suffer from sea sickness which unfortunately not everyone could lay claim to. A few tactical (so we're told) vomits later the race got started... All the teams made it round the island in less than 8.5 hours which is a great time even in Cowes Week!

Team 'Here Come the Girls' came in first and all the ladies were thrilled with the results as first and second place had just 45 seconds between them. We've had some really positive feedback from the trip. We already have two boats keen to come back next year and loads of our participants were keen to become volunteers on other events as well.

Suzy's highlight of the weekend was meeting the rather wonderful record-breaking sailor Alex Thomson! Suzy is a massive fan and he came down to the Landers Bar in Gosport on the Friday night for a few drinks with his mates before getting accosted by us!  Alex was really interested in the event and hopefully when he's back from his next round-the-world sailing trip we'll be able to get him involved in 2010's event."

Wheely good Cycle Show!

The Cycle Show was also a huge success last weekend. Jo and Matt met bike and cycling gear distributor Company Z, who came from a lead from our very own internal magazine editor/press and PR officer and friend to the stars Clare Airey. She developed a very good relationship with Company Z when they got involved in supporting Team GP on this year's L2P.  They are now very keen to sponsor our cycling programme, potentially with a whopping £20K! Watch this space...

We also had huge interest in L2P and have now had to close route three, with a couple more getting close to filling up as well! Nicole Cooke came to the show, chatted to our lovely cyclists and had a photo shoot in the new cycling kit as well.

Also, Halfords donated a bike to the team! We're not exactly sure if this was a direct result from the Cycle Show, but we are now the proud owners of a brand new Boardman road bike! We're not entirely sure what to do with this shiny new beast. Gem did suggest that it is the perfect frame size for her, but we think we may auction it or perhaps have a competition with our cyclists. Any suggestions please bring them this way events@action.org.uk

Trekking tit bits

Moving on from the weekend and into this week, Matt met up with UTC yesterday to go over the final details of the Namibia Trek. We have 52 sign-ups for the trek which sets off in just five months time.

In other trekking news, the Trek For Tiny Lives website went live this week and the first enquiries have been trickling in. The brochure is almost ready so we'll soon be full steam ahead to recruit participants for the trek to China next year.

And relax!

This weekend is a little quieter for most of us, who are happy to be able to relax after all this excitement... Except for Matt, who landed in Bulgaria this morning for a weekend-long stag do with beer, guns and other male amusement! Don't panic, he has taken his U-Tag bracelet with him and we have made sure the data on the USB says if lost for him to be delivered back here on Tuesday!

 

 

 

 

____________________________________
Gemma Rooke

Events Officer

 

tel  :  01403 210406

fax :  01403 210541

ddi :  01403 327444

grooke@action.org.uk

www.action.org.uk

 

News from the Chicago Marathon front.

 

Action Medical Research are pleased to announce another successful Chicago run this year! 

 

With over 45,000 runners and over a million spectators  we were all blessed with great sunshine and thankfully  NO WIND!   3 'Action' runners took to the streets of Chicago running the 26.2 mile circuit.  The route itself came together in a matter of hours and the atmosphere was truly electric from start to finish.  With wide open roads we found ourselves getting into our pace quickly and with the many water and snack stops en route, our energy levels stayed high!

 

This is one marathon to get involved with.  The slick operation and the dedication from all the staff and volunteers on the day made it a wonderful experience for us all. 

 

I myself finished the run in 4 hours and 27 minutes. 

 

 Oly Watts

 

 

 

Back on dry land...

What a totally awesome time we had at the Sail the Solent challenge!  33 people rocked up on Friday night to meet their skippers who would be taking them out on the 6 boats for the weekend.  Suzy and Gemma went to meet and greet the teams, some of which had never met each other before and had a great night getting to know everyone and get the banter started...

 

Suzy's highlight of the night was meeting the rather wonderful record breaking sailor Alex Thomson!  Suzy is a massive fan and he came down to the Landers bar in Gosport for a few drinks with his mates before getting accosted by us! 

 

So, after a few get to know you bevvies at the Landers, the teams and their skippers went off to the boats to get used to the motion of the ocean before setting off Saturday morning into the Solent. 

 

The weather on Saturday was fab for learning the ropes, the sun was shining the sea was pretty calm and the skippers showed the teams all they needed to know to get the most out of the sails and the tides while Suzy and Gem bounced around in the rib avoiding the thousand other boats and a sea plane to make sure everyone was having a good time (and blagging cups of tea and jaffa cakes off the lovely team Bail out - Plan B)

 

Lessons over, all our teams moored in Cowes for the night and really got themselves geared up for the big race on Sunday!  some with a few too many pre-celebratory drinks we think... although we were assured on Sunday morning that the vomiting was tactical to reduce the weight of the boat! 

 

So Sunday morning came round sooner than the daylight did and we were all up at 5am to get the most out of the tides for the day's race...  it was hard to tell the weather in the dark at first but once on the boats it was instantly obvious that the calm waves of the day before had gone and we were in for a choppy day at sea.  It was perfect for the race, teams set off and the wind kept everyone moving quickly towards the needles...

 

It was very close at the start with Bail out - Plan B in the lead and Ross' Virgins tailing them with just seconds in it, but a slightly late start meant the tides changed and the race had to be restarted at the needles...

 

again close the whole way round, teams with anchors not stowed had points deducted, boats with handicaps given extra points and the times were recorded as each boat crossed the finish line.  Team Chakana crossed first with Bail out - Plan B a very close second.  Here come the Girls and team Helles Belles were almost neck and neck and all the boats made it through the finish line within 8.5 hours of the race start!! 

 

champagne was flowing and spirits were high all evening as the teams waiting to hear those all important results....

 

In 3rd place; Team Chakana

In 2nd place (with only 45 seconds in it); Team Bail out - Plan B

and in 1st place....

 

Here come the Girls!!

 

Jackie has this to say about the event "Who would have thought it.......certainly not the other five boats....but we actually won!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We are all very bruised and battered, but it was a fantastic experience for such a good cause.

"Our boat was called Dream Chaser...what a great inspirational name for us, she was very cranky and lots of things went wrong with her, even our oven blew up on the last morning, but she got us over that finish line in one piece!

"The weather on the race day was not good to say the least, the wind was ...well windy! to say the least and some of those waves.  oh my god, I have never been so    frightened,     exhilarated,     exhausted,    **** scared,  emotional  and then incredibly proud in my life!

"My shipmates were fantastic...the two rambos, Kelly and Jo who had incredible strength, Mandy whose skills at steering were beyond compare, Lucy my lovely daughter, was the  good all  rounder, all over the place, had to keep hanging on to her incase she disappeared over the side! Ann and myself ..the senior members .... were the ballast, we both put everything we had into it, the adrenalin and Andy calling us a bunch of Pussies gave us the strength to do our bit.

"Last but by no means least to the Action Medical research Team, for the fantastic organization , and most of all for all the hard work that they themselves do for this fantastic charity.  I would recommend to anyone who needs an extra kick in their lives to go on their website and look at all the fun and challenging fund raising things they do!"

Thank you Jackie!  So in all it was an amazing weekend, already the teams have raised over £20,000 for Action Medical Research and we cannot wait to see more people on this event next year!

 

 

 

A busy weekend of activity...

So we were busy busy busy here in the events team this weekend with THREE different things going on meaning we had to 'spilt up' to cover everything at once!

We had a stand at the Cycle Show at Earls Court since Thursday, showing off our amazing cycling events to the crowds.  It was really pleasing to find out how many cyclists already know who we are within the market and we got loads of fantastic positive feedback on our cycling challenges, with many mentioning how our events are the best they've attended!!!  We LOVE feedback like that!!!!!

The awesome Olympic Gold medalist Nicole Cooke also dropped by to hang out for a bit and i will post a photo as soon as i get one!

Thanks to everyone who dropped by and said hello.

So while Matt and Jo were chatting to cyclists in the rather snug Earls Court, Suzy and Gemma were freezing their bits off in the solent on our Sail the Solent challenge...

6 boats of novice sailers raced around the Isle of Wight in this new challenge of ours, no one fell in and everyone had a wicked time, more news on this later once the girls return.

Finally our own Oly Watts and a handful of other brave Action Medical Research braved the cold in the windy city Chicago for the marathon.  Early reports suggest it was a great run and everyone had a fantastic time.

Cycling, Sailing and Marathon Madness this weekend!

 

It's going off like a frog in a sock this weekend!  The Cycle Show got underway yesterday with Jo and Toby securing lots of exciting freebies and new contacts with the big cheeses in the cycling world, who are all fighting each other to get involved in our cycling programme...  This of course is a slight exageration on my part, but there was a lot of interest in our regionals and London to Paris ride on Trade Day at the show.  Matt and Jo are now full steam ahead to shmoose the crowds at Earls Court all weekend and fill another L2P route.  Route 3 is now full and in other wonderful news we're ahead of recruitment by a 102% from this time last year!!  Get on yer janner! 

 

if you want to secure your place in the biggest ever charity London to Paris and see the Tour de France finish the day after we hit the french capital you can sign up today at http://www.action.org.uk/get_involved/london_to_paris

 

While Matt and Jo are wooing our potential 2010 cyclists, Suzy and Gem are off to Gosport to welcome the participants on the first ever Sail the Solent Challenge!  34 sailers, 6 skippers and 6 boats will be competing this Sunday in a wet and wild round the island race around the Isle of Wight...  Suzy and Gem will be on the Rib making as much noise as possible (within legal noise pollution levels) to make sure the local paper come down to give us a glowing review and attract even more people for even more boats to compete in 2010!

 

and to make sure we spread the name of Action Medical Research to all corners of the globe, Oly is in Chicago preparing for his big race on Sunday in the Chicago Marathon.  Oly flew out yesterday and should be waking up any time now to the crisp fresh air of the windy city.  Good luck Ols and the rest of the Action Team from all of us back in "rain with some sunny spells" england!  and for the rest of you, we'll be getting updates this weekend as to how our road runner is getting on so we'll give you the full rundown next week... 

 

 

Matt's marvelous discovery!

We're pretty excited this morning as Matt "super geek" Buck has discovered how to email blog updates straight from our email accounts!!  Blogging for technophobes - brilliant!

 

why not follow us on twitter??

www.twitter.com/amr_events

Despite a rare disease knocking the team down like flies this week, we've still managed to keep our little pot of events simmering away nicely...


staff on the run!

Matt took part in Run to the Beat last weekend and completed the race in an impressive 1 hour 50 minutes - putting him in the top 10%! Superstar!

Not to be outshone, Ols is taking on the Chicago Marathon next weekend and is heading off to the windy city on Thursday to take in the sights and sounds and carb it up USA-style before the big race on Sunday. Good luck Oly! If you would like to sponsor Mr Watts, then you can go to justgiving.com - only kidding, obviously he's running for our favourite charity! You can sponsor him here http://www.action.org.uk/sponsor/ollywatts

While Oly is away, Jo and Mark will be setting up the stand at the Cycle Show, which kicks off next Friday (9 October). Jo and Matt will be manning the stand for the weekend and are hoping to pull in some more cyclists for L2P 2010 to take our total number of riders signed-up so far over the 300 mark.

Let's hope that 2010 can be as impressive as this year's ride... Oly revealed this morning that we have just had a record-breaking year. Get your champagne glasses out as we announce that we've raised a whopping £840,000 from this year's ride!!!

In other exciting news, Suzy and Gem are off to Gosport on Friday to meet up with the participants of our first ever Sail the Solent Challenge. Six boats will be competing against each other next weekend in a race around the Isle of Wight before a well-deserved celebration and awards ceremony on the Sunday.

Suzy's really excited about the new event and we're so thrilled that it's been so successful in it's first year. Lee Collier will be on board to take photos of the race and we're hoping the local press will be at the celebration dinner to write up the shenanigans of the weekend.

That's about it for this week. Suzy is battling bronchitis to make it up to the Peru reunion this Saturday and the rest of the team are battling the nerves of waiting for the Virgin London Marathon Ballot results in the post...

China Trek a great success

So as everyone knows Matt has been spending the last week and a bit in the Far East, supporting our fantastic trekkers on The Great Wall. The group was great and there were many laughs had by all. Highlights include one of our trekkers total inability to understand any type of game we played in the evenings, myself and the doc hunting down a big snake (after the whole group has passed it, health and safety always on show!), the amazing views from the wall, Beijing karaoke and much much more. Everyone had a great time and I think we have made some real charity friends for life within the group so all in all a huge success!

Also this weekend Matt and Jo went to Newcastle for the Great North Run…We had 118 super runners complete the run on an unsually hot day in Newcastle!  Everyone did amazing and we hope the legs have recovered well!

In other news we have signups flooding in for all our events at the moment, Namibia has hit 40 pax and L2P is already on an amazing 230 pax! Route 3 has almost sold out already!!! Registrations are also flying in for Peru and all of our running events!....Recession over!

Think that’s it for now.

MAtt

The team have kicked off the Autumn season in style with two fantastic challenges taking place last weekend and all this week...

Race the Sun, with rain and near-nakedness!
This event saw a crowd-pleasing 65 teams descend on the Lake District for a day of climbing, cycling and canoeing from sunrise until sunset. All teams completed the course despite the rain (Race the Sun??) The weather did clear up at the end of the day and it was all smiles at the finish as the last team came in wearing... well, nothing except some rather eye-popping under crackers! The celebration dinner went down really well with an emphasis on the superb camaraderie during the day from everyone - teams, marshalls and supporters. Team Ghostboaster 1 picked up the award for fastest time of 7 hours 34 minutes. There were some great contenders for the Team Spirit award. Skanka's Lucky Egg had their very own custom-made Cool Runnings bobsleigh outfits, and so many teams showed real guts considering the wet and cold conditions. However, it was Altiora Peto, a team of 17-year-old school friends and a dad, who bagged the award when one of their bikes was damaged at the start on the off-road section and they all took it in turns to run carrying the bike to the mountain base section - and still climbed Helvellen and completed the day in a fantastic 11 hours 4 minutes!
We've had some great feedback from the day and already teams are asking when they can sign up for 2010!

News from the Far East
Also at the weekend, Matt flew to China for the Great Wall trek. The party arrived safe and sound on Monday and since then Matt's been Tweeting his heart out... news from the East is; Jackie Chan is filming while they are out there, Matt saw a huge snake, had a great night for Lucy's birthday, and discussing the pros and cons of She Wees... so we expect that all is going really well. Expect more news when he's back next week.

Hi Everyone, just started blogging for Action Medical Research.

We have a huge number of events you can take part in throughout the year and help us raise funds for research into conditions and illness that affect babies and children, including our Touching Tiny Lives appeal, looking into the causes and prevention of premature birth.

Whether you are a cyclist, a runner, or someone looking to improve their fitness or take part in a once in a lifetime experience, there is something for everyone.

We believe that all children should be born healthy and be given the opportunity grow up healthy.

Have a look at the website www.action.org.uk/get_involved to find out more.