Charity Marathon Event Management Help - By: Andre Issey

The first thing to do is to arrange a stakeholders meeting at your gym or fitness club. Sort out who will be helping to run the event, who will be making the key decisions and what peoples individual tasks are. Getting your local Gym manager involved is a crucial step, as they will have a large network of contacts and resources at their disposal. A charity run can raise anything from a few hundred to several thousand pounds/dollars! Use an event for a good cause by capitalizing on people's desire to help others and to get in shape.

Secondly, for maximum exposure ensure your event takes place on a specific day or month. Like Movember was a recent initiative run throughout November. With the date set, it should happen regardless of external factors (i.e. weather!). Once you have a date, you then need to decide a starting time. This is a crucial element as fitness centres and gym have notable peak and off-peak times. Ultimately you want as many people involved as possible and to ensure this, you will need to look at the venue usage statistics (a good reason for including the gym manager). Once you have decided the time, the race length and route is another major detail to conclude. Don’t make it too long (you shouldn’t look to exclude the less fit and healthy members) and likewise, don’t make it too easy as the fitter members will overlook your event.

Simplicity is the aim with any kind of public event. Advice and information should be clear and coherent, participation should be fun and enjoyable and most importantly, every aspect should be measureable. You might want to measure: money raised, money spent, participants involved, time spent on organising etc. Approaching potential sponsors to finance, publicize and even organize the event could make the event even bigger and better. Sponsors will always want to promote their product with giveaways such as T-shirts, hats and other merchandise.

Thirdly, create a sign-up process for your Gym event. This would ensure greater exposure and helps to identify what kind of numbers you can expect to get at the event. The more participants mean more spectators which results in hopefully more money being raised! For a short race charging participants an entry fee is often preferred over having to rely on sponsors (who often pay by the mile). Massively important: Road closures, traffic restrictions crowd control and other general security issues are huge importance’s and should be arranged and sorted as soon as possible.

Fitness clubs, health centres and gym venues offer a great atmosphere to arrange such an event. Make full use of the community spirit and try and get as many people involved and taking part as possible. These often offer exciting PR potential for the gym venue so more often than not, will be embraced by the people ‘upstairs’. Remember for the day to be a success, have fun! If you have fun, so too will everyone else. In this instance, money does mean fun!

About the Author

The author works for a no-contract and no frills gym that provides access to health and fitness facilities, in quality surroundings 24 hours a day. These include Southampton fitness club, Ealing Gym andgym Southampton.

Article Directory Source: http://www.articlerich.com/profile/Andre-Issey/54899

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