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...