Part 1

It seems like only yesterday that the Action 100 Bike Ride was brought to a glorious end, with all 500 riders arriving safely, and thoroughly exhausted, in sun-drenched Chobham.

But I have to remind myself: that was last August, and we are already working very hard on the next one!

We - that is a group of 11 volunteers from Bristol and surroundings, and our Community Fundraiser from the Charity Action Medical Research.

Action Medical Research is a leading national charity whose aim it is to improve the health and quality of life of everyone through its medical breakthroughs.

The Charity was founded in 1952 as the National Fund for Poliomyelitis Research, in response to the polio epidemic that was sweeping through the country at the time. In the intervening years, the charity changed its name to Action Research and has made breakthroughs in numerous other disabling diseases and conditions. In September 2003 they became known as Action Medical Research (AMR).

The interesting thing about AMR is that it has touched the life of everyone in the country, and most probably beyond. AMR's support has been crucial in the development of life-saving polio and rubella vaccines, the artificial hip operation, ultrasound scanning in pregnancy, new treatments for epilepsy, and discovering the link between taking folic acid and preventing spina bifida. Now, the charity is looking for answers to a wide range of medical problems that affect all age groups, including premature birth problems, pre-eclampsia, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, stroke, dyspraxia, Parkinson's disease and osteoporosis. (www.action.org.uk)

But, lets get back to the Action 100 Bike Ride, one of the charity's biggest fundraisers.

In 2007, we ran the 26th one, and they only happen once a year! So this has been going on for quite some time. Now I haven't been organizing all 26 of course... I am far too young!

I have been involved in the organizing committee for the last 3 years, after taking part in the Ride in 2004. I was reckless enough to indicate that I was interested in helping when I filled out the feedback form after the Ride!

Joking aside: being part of the committee has been a blast most of the time, and putting together such a major event, seeing the happy riders enjoying the big day, and handing over the raised money to the charity has been exhilarating. We are talking of about £50,000 here every year! It's just great to know we are making a difference, and help funding vital medical research that improves and saves countless lives.

Well, this was just a quick introduction to the world of the Action 100 Bike Ride.

Next time, I will tell you more about how we are putting the Ride together, and our trials and tribulations along the way.

In the mean time: if you are interested in helping either on the day of the Ride or as part of the organizing committee, or if you know of a company or an individual who would like to make a major cash donation, you are most welcome to contact me on ev@mond.co.uk.

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Part 2

To organize and market the Ride, the committee has to be on the ball all year really, so after recovering from the Action 100 Bike Ride last August bank holiday, we started in October to work on the Ride for 2008 (scheduled for 24th August.)

The Riders and supporters needed to be thanked and de-briefed, the budget for the 2008 Ride needed to be discussed, and the approach to potential sponsors needed to be planned.

I think one of the hardest things in organizing the Action 100 Bike Ride is finding a major cash sponsor. Obviously we want to cover the entire cost of the Ride through entry fees from the riders (currently £15) and any money or support we get elsewhere, so that every penny that the riders raise in sponsorship goes straight to Action Medical Research.

We have been very successful in that quest over the last couple of years, and we have been very lucky to have a myriad of organizations and individuals who are enthusiastic about the Ride and help us out for free, or greatly reduced prices.

But finding a major cash sponsor is always a struggle. I think the reason is that only larger companies can afford to make such a contribution, but most of them have chosen charities that they have been supporting for years.

The other problem I see is that Action Medical Research doesn't have just one focus, one that people can identify with, like Cancer Research or the British Heart Foundation. AMR is involved in so many different kinds of research, and as I said before, touches the lives of everyone, without everyone knowing about it.

But hey, we DO like a challenge, and it's our job to not only organize and run the Action 100 Bike Ride, but also to bring AMR and its work closer to the people.

Back to the organizing committee and its work. The committee meets religiously once a month in the evening (as most of us have full time jobs), and in the last 3 months, we managed to get quite a bit organized already.

A number of sponsors have been secured, including the Bristol Evening Post who will be our media partner, @ Bristol, who kindly agreed to open its doors to us for the Bristol registration on the day of the Ride, Gullivers Truck Hire, who will give us two free vans to use for the Ride, Gary's Bikes who provide all of the bike repair and support on the day, and I.J.McGill Transport, who will provide and subsidise a couple of lorries to transport the bikes back from the finish to Bristol and Bath.

The flyers that include the registration forms are with the printers, the first press release has been sent out, and all volunteers that helped us during last year's Ride have been contacted to see whether they would be willing again this year.

The technically savvy gentlemen in the committee are currently working hard to develop an interactive map of the Ride that riders can play with on the web and download to their GPS! Woo hoo, we are becoming high-tech!!

Well, I think that's about it for an introduction to the world of the Action 100 Bike Ride committee.

Until next time, when I will report on our further progress, any hick-ups and successes.

Naturally, if you are interested in helping either on the day of the Ride or as part of the organizing committee, or if you know of a company or an individual who would like to make a major cash donation, you are most welcome to contact me on ev@mond.co.uk.

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Part 3

In my last two blogs, I introduced you to the world of the Action 100 Bike Ride. I talked about the charity Action Medical Research, who we are running the Bike Ride for, and I rambled on about how the volunteer committee works.

Now it's time to get to the nitty-gritty of organizing the Action 100 Bike Ride.

As I mentioned before, we start in October to work on the organization of the ride, and now we are in full swing.

I am very happy to report that our entry forms have been printed, all 10,000 of them, and are now being distributed to our 'target audience'. This audience consists of previous riders, people who have taken part in other challenges in order to raise funds for Action Medical Research, leisure clubs, sport clubs, bike shops (obviously), doctors surgeries, universities, libraries and every other outlet that is prepared to display and hand out our forms. As you can imagine, distributing 10,000 forms takes a heck of a lot of manpower, and we are relying on a huge number of volunteers to get this mammoth task accomplished as soon as possible.

The other great news is that we have finally found a sponsor! Now, this is always one of the hardest parts, but we have managed to excite Barcan Woodward Solicitors, a Bristol based firm, about our Ride and the work that the charity does. Luckily for us, most partners in the firm are avid cyclists, so they loved what we do and agreed to be head sponsor. This is brilliant news, as it will enable us to reduce the running costs of the ride, and increase the overall net income donation to the charity, which we hope will be more than £65,000 this year. In return, Barcan Woodward gets plenty of publicity from us. The firm's logo now features on our entry forms, rider's handbooks, posters, and the ride web site, and we have another couple of marketing activities up our sleeves that Barcan Woodward will play a role in.

You might have seen the press coverage recently and hopefully noticed the funky photo of the solicitors in their lycra outfits posing on Queen Square for us... We are delighted to be working with this enthusiastic firm!

A continuous task during the year before the Bike Ride is trying to get free or heavily discounted supplies. So far, we have managed to secure our bananas for the day! (I know, it doesn't take a lot to make us happy!) We need to supply at least 3 pieces of this energy rich fruit to each of our 500 or so riders on the day - that's a lot of monkeyfood to go shopping for! Luckily, Agrofair agreed to supply us with the lot.

Now we are still looking for water and/or energy drinks, biscuits, energy bars etc to keep our riders energized with, so if you know someone who knows someone....please let me know!

Oh, one more thing I wanted to mention today. One of our biggest challenges for the Ride is the signage. As you can imagine, we need to make sure our riders know where to go (we have to count them all in at the Finish), that they are safe whilst in our care, and that they stay motivated throughout the 109 miles. So we have about a truck-load worth of nice bright yellow plastic signs that get fixed onto lamp post and everything else that's static along the A4, giving directions, safety warnings, but also encouragement messages to our riders. Over the years, we have devised quite a sophisticated system that allows us to fix the signs along the route in 3 teams of two people on the day before the Ride. However, it still takes those 3 teams more than 9 hours to get this done!

So again, if you fancy doing some path finding and signing work on the Saturday before the Ride (23rd August), then please, please, please contact me! We will be eternally grateful, I promise!

Well, I think that's about it as an update. I will report back after the next committee meeting mid March.

Naturally, if you are interested in helping either on the day of the Ride or as part of the organizing committee, or if you know of a company or an individual who would like to make a major cash donation, you are most welcome to contact me on ev@mond.co.uk.

And don't forget: The Action 100 Bike Ride happens on Sunday, 24th August.