To not sponsor this friend?

[lastqueenofscotland]

I'm prepared to be told I am being!
I have a friend who for years does a number of things for the same charity, that she never bloody trains for.
The first one she did was a 10k which she didn't train for and walked and then got annoyed when the race organisers had all but packed up (small local 10k it had a cut off time she was about 29 mins behind).
Since then she's been a did not finish in the London marathon (again did no training)
Did no training and dropped out very early in the three peaks challenge
And so on and so forth. she is quite sedentary and keeps getting charity places in these events to motivate herself to do some exercise and never gets round to starting...

She's emailed me yesterday about an 2 mile open water swim she's doing in 3 weeks, asking for sponsorship. I emailed back asking how the training was going, and she's not done any as she's self conscious about going to the swimming pool

Aibu to stop sponsoring her? It's not that Indont want to give money to charity but I don't want to encourage her constantly signing up for everything and anything when she has no intention of training and probably won't complete?

I would email her back and say no and tell her to contact the charity and see if there is another person who could take the place who stands a cat in hell's chance of completing it .

I sponsor people who have put in the effort to acheive their goal and am happy to support them and their chosen charities .

Is it a charity you support? Could you suddenly develop an interest in another charity and be busy supporting that instead?

I wouldn't sponsor and I'd gell her she's being bloody dangerous. My mum is a kayaker and often supervises these events from the water. It is the kayaker that have to save swimmers in trouble. Somebody who hasn't trained is liable to panic, if they panic the kayaker cannot safely help them and to try puts both the swimmer and kayaker at risk along with everybody else around them at the time. She's being fucking stupid.

I would do the "only pay on completion" as well, although tbh I thought this was standard.

How on earth did she get into the london marathon? I know hardcore runners who have taken a couple of yeras to get a space

Disco I think that it's easier to get a charity space than a ballot space, but mostly down to luck anyway

Disco if you pledge to raise x amount usually about 2k you can run for a charity. As they buy places

ah yes - i've been down this road before.
with a friend who wanted sponsorship for a charity jaunt to peru.
i said i'd give her the money once she had done whatever it was she was supposed to do before she left for peru.
she never did any of it in the end and from what i can gather, she kept the money that people had given her.

If a charity is one you would like to support, make a donation direct, via their website, and tell her you did it in her name.

I think it's important to separate charity donations and lazy repeat demands for sponsorship - it isn't the charity's fault she doesn't train.

The real issue is whether her sponsorship money for all these events actually reaches the charity at all.

I used to be a pretty good swimmer, but haven't been to the pool for years (lack of time). And now I'm fairly unfit.

I reckon I could still swim one mile if I put my mind to it. Two miles would be a major challenge, but I could just about do it. In a pool. With a background of many years of reasonable technique.

In open water? Not the tiniest chance. I've swum in open water on occasion, and it's a whole new level of hard. Really really fun, but dangerous if you overestimate your abilities.

Your friend needs to join a gym and get fit that way (if fitness is her goal) instead of setting herself unrealistic goals that she can't deliver on. Being sponsored for challenging events clearly isn't working for her and could put her at serious risk.

OP i asked earlier what does she do with the money she collects.Does she keep it or give it to the charity.

dustarr she uses just giving rather than collecting cash

You don't have to sponsor anyone if you don't want to and no is a complete sentence.

I get sick of work emails, facebook and the like of people asking for sponsorship for walking 5k or whatever, it's constant. I sponsor who I want for which charities mean something to me and don't feel bad saying no or just not responding.

Lots of folks also chose to do events for charity as it's cheaper for them than paying entrance fees - not that the by product of raising money for a worthy cause it to be sniffed at of course.

She is taking the p big time.

Ask her if she has any idea how hard it will be and if she wants to ruin it for others by having to be rescued? If she cant even go in a pool she is in for the shock of her life in the sea! Has she even got a wetsuit?

Also she is taking up a space of someone who genuinely WANTS to do it and would even have trained and completed it, not someone who is making herself look good by telling everyone they are doing it then failing miserably cos they cant be arsed to train. After all this time I would be telling her straight to stop wasting everyones time and when she actually makes the right effort to do something and completes it you might give money to charity but not before.

maybe take her out for a 2 mile walk and let her see how far it is

I'm a proficient and experienced open water swimmer - she'll either drown or cause an incident even if she does make it to the start line. She knows wetsuits are compulsory unless it's v hot doesn't she? Bit staggered that some-one can even think about doing an event like this without knowing what they're getting into.

YANBU.

Most sponsorship pages like Just Giving stay open for people to sponsor you after you're done - tell her you're happy to sponsor her but not until she's finished it (which it sounds like she won't).

Doing things for charity is great and all, and I generally think they should be encouraged, but only if people actually have the tenacity to train for them and do them properly. I did the London to Brighton last year and the amount of people stopping after 30 odd miles and waiting for the organiser's vehicles to pick them up and DRIVE them to Brighton was staggering. Yes injuries I understand - lack of training and preparation though, that's just not on. It slows everyone else down.

Two miles is a long way to swim if you're unprepared and potentially puts her in massive danger.

Perhaps someone needs to sit her down and ask whether she could put her charitable efforts to better use - sales, raffles, or simply giving her time to these charities. That or offer to sign up and train with her, maybe she'll do it then.

I would love to know the outcome of her 2 mile open water swim. Just reading that she doesn't train yet took a place at London marathon and didn't even train has got my goat ......... And no yanbu

I used to work for a large national charity and we were always told that if you do not complete your event you are obliged to contact everyone who has sponsored you and offer them a refund. Sites such as JustGiving should then easily be able to refund everyone. If she doesn't want to do this then she should really then do another event to make up for the failed one and roll-over the sponsorship she has already raised.

Still if she drowns you won't have any more requests.

Just say "not this time thanks" and be done with it. If she asks why tell her she never completes these things anyway and sponsor money goes to people who actually complete these challenges.

I'm a misery who hates sponsoring people though.

God that sounds quite dangerous doesn't it? Couldn't she drown?

Why not offer to sponsor her for losing weight or getting fitter instead - then she might actually haul herself off to the gym.......

The whole charity sponsorship of running events winds me up. I've tried to get ballot places in so many events and never do because so many paces are allocated for charity runners (and I also get the whingeing emails from charities who have realised that they have bought too many places and are going to "lose out" if I don't take up one of theirs). Why can't we go back to a system where everyone just buys their place and then decides if they are going to raise funds or not?

I won't let my dds ask for sponsorship - they have to make cakes or sell old toys etc to raise funds. Otherwise they'd be sponging off friends and relatives all the time.

Has she not worked out she can't put her feet down or grab hold of the rail at the side if she's struggling? And without training some poor sod behind her will just steam into the back of her?