Derby Ramathon - 2015 leader for Virgin Money fundraising

We are pleased to let you know that this year's current leader for Virgin Money fundraising is the Derby Ramathon. We caught up with Race Director, Richard Kay (handicap -1.5) who let us into a few secrets on how they have motivated people to run, runners to fundraise and charities to be involved with the event.

Ultimately we have tried to look into the reasons for everyone taking part in a running event so we can try and give everyone a satisfying experience for taking part in the Derby Ramathon.  For a lot of people it is about getting that PB time so we make sure that we can deliver the best course and making it as accurate as possible - being a course measurer helps with this.  For many entrants, the half marathon distance is a big challenge and we have found that the percentage of people fundraising is a lot higher than it is in a 5k or 10k event so we have had a lot of focus around the charity angle and making sure that people have the information they need to start fundraising.

As local people, organising a local event, we also wanted the emphasis to be around fundraising for local causes.  Our official charity this year was Macmillan and whilst they are a national charity, we teamed up with Derby County Football Club to encourage runners to fundraise for 'Team Mac', which was a group set up under Macmillan where the monies are spent within Derbyshire.  Rainbows Children's Hospice is another local charity and they are the official Mini Ramathon fun run charity.

Some other things that we do are:
-Volunteers helping out at the event have £10 donated on their behalf to one of the official charities,
-Ask for feedback from the entrants of how much they have fundraised so we can have more accurate records of how the event helps,
-We encourage charities to get on board with the event by providing entries for their charity runners,
-We provide each charity a space in our Stadium Square for promotion (aka Race Village),
-We provide each charity a space on our website for information about their charity,
-The main official charity had their own cheering area near to the finish line.
-We offer specific prizes including one for runners who raise over £200 for the official charity.

Congratulations to the Derby Ramathon on this superb achievement and we wish you all the very best with your future events.