Anyone have experience of organising a fun run?

[uhoh1973]

We are thinking of organising a fun run to raise money for our school. 5k. Has anyone had any experience of organising one? Any tips? How does insurance etc work? Timing, we want to keep our costs down.
What things can you add on to make money.
What were your costs. What did you raise? What was the greatest hassle? How many Marshalls ish will we need?
Many thanks

[carrie74]

Yes, I'm on a committee that organises a 10k and 1k for the kids. It takes a year of organisation, the UK athletics association may be a good start, also ask a local 5k team for advice.

We've had insurance cover via PTA, also UKA offers it I believe. We use a chip timing company. We try to cover costs via business sponsorship then entries are profit. It's useful to have a large committee to cover it , we have about 10 people: 1 race director, 1 in charge of the timing, 1 publicity and PR, finance, website and entries, marshals and course director, secretary, the 1k race director, a start/finish supervisor, a site director.

About 100 marshalls, parking an issue. Need barriers, portaloos , goody bags, water, safe bag drop, medals, trophies etc. It helps to have quite a few experienced runners on the team to explain the norm.

It's a big money raiser though, we've made between £5-£10k each year. Small income streams from professional photographer (captures each runner), taking a cut from local businesses having stalls. You need A LOT of support, we basically use the whole of school (parents, teachers), local community groups (paramedics, sports clubs), and the goodwill of the community (which sees a lot of letters hand delivered to each resident on the route).

[uhoh1973]

Wow wee! Thankyou. How many entrants do you get? What are your costs? Many thanks.

[carrie74]

We've varied our numbers over the years, but because so many costs are fixed, the more runners you have the better. We've allowed 500-700 but may try 1000 in the future.

Costs are approx £10k

[uhoh1973]

Wow! That sounds a major undertaking. We have less than 80 children so wouldn't manage to muster 100 stewards. We will probably aim to 200 to 300 entrants. But we'll done you! Thanks for your help. Much appreciated.

[Hippywannabe]

How much are you hoping to make (if you don't mind me asking)? I've just organised my 13th annual one for our school.

[uhoh1973]

We do an annual walk with max 300 participants and we raise about £4000 net. So it would need to be in the thousands to make it worth our while...

[jennielou75]

We can luckily use a neighbouring schools field. We don't measure it but the children are sponsored per lap around their track. Each year group has a different aim for number of laps. We have parents on the start finish line of the track and spread around the track. Each child has a tvek wristband which is marked by a sharpie after each lap. It costs little but raises quite a lot. The children dress in sports clothes and the adults dress up a bit ott to make it a fun run atmosphere.

[uhoh1973]

Hey that is a fantastic idea. More simple and involving the children! How much on average does each child raise? Many thanks!

[jennielou75]

On average around £10 each although some a lot more and some nothing, they do pay £1 on the day to wear their sports clothes which adds to it. They each get a certificate and reception and year 1 get those plastic medals from baker ross. We just keep it low key and it works for us. We have parents and teachers running with the children. When they have had enough they stop at their class base where their water bottle are and the ta is based.

[uhoh1973]

Wow that's fab thankyou. Having just been to sports day I got the impression some of them were very unfit so this could be a fab idea. Many thanks for sharing :-)

[Normanpriceisnotarolemodel]

I'd advise against organising a 5K. With Parkrun, people can run a free, timed 5K every Saturday of the year. So you are very unlikely to attract entrants who don't have a connection to the school. A 10k would be more likely to attract non-school related entrants and generate more cash.

[jennielou75]

It depends who you want to take part. We had the children running and sponsored. Parents came to watch and support. We didn't have a set or measured distance the children just did laps around the track but you could make your own track using cones. If you want it to be a school based fun run for all the children to enjoy then keep it simple.