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Getting Involved - Organising An Event

The Event

The event is a gathering of people who want to support the Children's Hospice Movement. It is designed to enable anyone!, whatever their age or physical condition to take part.

Children’s Hospices need regular and continuing income every year. The event is intended to be an annual event held on the Sunday prior to May Day Bank Holiday. The intention is that the event will spread nationally over the next few years.

The organisers of the event at each venue will nominate which Childrens Hospice is to benefit from the funds raised at that venue.

The IT'S CHILDSPLAY vivid green T-shirts are an important constituent in that they help to create an image and brand for all the events being held on the day, with the consequent benefit of increased publicity.

The Venue

The venue is where every entrant finishes. It needs to be a large area, big enough to accommodate the expected number of entrants. It needs reasonable access to public transport, some car parking and an area for picking up and collecting of entrants which is easily accessible for the disabled.

Registration and collection of sponsorship monies.

There will need to be a facility for registration and collection of sponsorship which should be under cover - if you are expecting 500 people then your peak will probably bring 200/250 per hour, if you have 1,000 then your peak time will probably lengthen to 300/350 per hour. Your entrants will present themselves in groups and so for 500/1000 entrants you will need to receive 50/60 groups per hour.

The finishing point should normally be open from noon to 5pm.

Consequently, at this level of entry, there will be a need for at least two collecting points - not everybody will bring cash and some will collect their sponsorship after the event. There will also need to be a treasurer to receive and log monies with helpers to count cash. Organisers will need to designate someone to collect and receive monies from entrants after the event.

All monies collected will be paid into the separate Its Childsplay account and the Its Childsplay Committee will be responsible for the collection of the gift aid.

Where entrants, who have not previously registered, pay in sponsorship monies they should be given IT’S CHILDSPLAY T-shirts, subject to availability.

Sponsorship forms are important for the collection of Gift Aid. Every effort should be made to ensure that they are properly completed and collected together at the end of the event.

Facilities at Finishing Venue

There will need to be toilets available

Some refreshments available

Any entertainments at the organisers discretion.

Risk Assessment

A copy of the risk assessment used by Taunton Vale Club in previous years is available for reference.

Designated Startinq Points

The basic principle of the event is that entrants are able to start from anywhere and travel by any means to the finish. The only condition is that

they have sponsorship - they can do anything they wish, at any time before the event, to raise that sponsorship.

However some entrants prefer to follow a recommended route and this was confirmed by the first year's experience. However entrants must be made aware that the routes are advisory and are not marshalled and do not have to be followed.

Any number of starting points can be arranged at the organiser's discretion and the routes can be organised in such a way that entrants can join along the way. The important point is that it is easy to enter and take part.

Arrangements can be made to man the starting points, take registrations, issue sponsorship forms, take sponsorship monies and hand out T-shirts - it is important to have as many people wearing T- shirts as possible

Start and finish banners and all necessary signage will be made availablae to each organising Club.

Registration

Pre - registration is only important as a means of assessing how many people are likely to attend on the day and, more importantly, to enable T­shirts to be distributed before the day or available at pre-selected start points.

Registration on the day is only needed for those who have promised sponsorship but not yet paid in.

Ideally full registration on the day, including all those finishing would enable organisers to determine how many people attended. This is, probably, not worth the effort involved.

For information there were 210 pre-registrations for the Taunton event in 2008 and the final estimated attendance was 700. There were 400 pre­registrations in 2009 and the estimated attendance was 1000

Distribution of T-shirts before the day is very much an ad hoc arrangement and depends upon the willingness of the organisers. In Taunton T-shirts are delivered to each registered group leader, and a pre-registration stall is set-up on the Thursday prior to the event at the Farmers Market where T-shirts can be collected. In Wellington and in Shepton Mallett pre-registration was available in a shop and neither was particularly successful.

At Weston-super-Mare event each finisher was given a leaflet/certificate with thanks for taking part, details of the Childrens Hospice being supported and details of where to send sponsorship monies collected after the event. These leaflets provided a means of assessing numbers taking part.

Website

The Its Childsplay website is at www.itschildsplay.orq and each event has its own page. The organisers of each event are able to access and edit their page.

Pre-registrations can be made on-line, separately, for each event and sponsorship forms can be downloaded.

Promotion and Publicity

Promotion and publicity depend, very much, on the circumstances of each event. It is the domain of each local organising committee.

In Taunton 2008 the main publicity for It's Childsplay came from the Somerset County Gazette who promoted the event as a Childrens Hospice event organised by Rotary. A press release and photographs were made available to the newspaper every week and we received full coverage for several weeks before the day culminating in a double page spread reporting the event itself. That final report justified the faith put into the T-shirts. Although this support continued in 2009 it was not as regular and did not have as effect as the previous year.

Local newspapers should be contacted at an early date and encouraged to give support. Press releases will be provided by the central committee to keep everybody up to date with progress but local organiser should keep up a regular flow of information to the press. Stories of local families being helped by your Children's Hospice are always of interest to your local press.

Posters and leaflets should be delivered to as many business premises as possible. The designated starting points should all be publicised locally.

In Wellington and Shepton Mallett there were shop window displays and, in Taunton, a stall at the Farmers Market.

Every town has its own Childrens Hospice support groups and these should be utilised.

In 2009 we are intending a leaflet campaign in schools. Leaflets will be distributed to each child to take home to involve family and friends in the event.

Banners and posters are available. These will be intended to publicise the finishing venue and any attractions and to direct attention to the website.

The Taunton event in 2010 will have various attractions at the finish all provided and organised by the Taunton Round Table. On the Saturday of the weekend there will be helpers from local organisations - Scouts, Cadets, Childrens Hospice Support groups, Lions Club etc. in the town with collecting tins handing out leaflets publicising the next day's event