London2Brighton Fundraising Quiz for Walk the Walk

In 2013 I completed my first 100km walk from London2Brighton – for those of you who were there I don’t think we will ever forget the mud!! I vowed I would never do that walk again… well that was my “Steve Redgrave” moment!!! Yes – you’ve guessed it – I’ve signed up again… mainly due to the persuasive techniques of my great friend Jo Wilson, who is desperate to complete a 100km walk. (I’m sure I’ll remind her of this when we are about 80km into the walk)!

The one thing Jo was concerned about was the fundraising element, we each need to raise £395 (and a further £100 each if I can persuade her to come to The MoonWalk Scotland with me) so we put our heads together and decided we needed to run an event well in advance of training to raise the funds – so that it was one less thing to think about prior to the walk.

After a lot of debate we decided to run a quiz. With neither of us having run an event like this before – how do we decide where to hold the event, who would run the quiz, could we get enough people to attend, should we try to run a raffle, should we go around town looking for prizes?… the questions were never ending.

We soon found a Quiz Master – the partner of one of Jo’s colleagues (the brilliant Allen Jenner); he had always wanted to run a quiz. So we took the gamble and allowed him to pull together the questions etc.

A pub was soon found for the venue – the Pike and Eel in Daventry. The landlady Bev was so welcoming and has a fantastic heart of gold. We were allowed to take over the whole bar area and on a Saturday night!!

We then worked on the raffle prizes and asked a few friends if they had anything they could donate… word got around and we were inundated with prizes… hampers… a meal at a local pub… Waitrose/John Lewis voucher…a teddy bear (more on that)… chocolates… smellies… and so much alcohol.

With 2 weeks to go Jo was ready to pull the whole event…it appeared we only had 2 definite teams entered – a lot of talking but no commitment. In the end we decided it didn’t matter if there were only 2 teams… at £5 per head entry that was still £60 toward our fundraising and we would have raffle money on top of that. Each £ counted.

The Saturday night of the quiz was a miserable wet, November night… again doubt started to creep in… would people still turn out?

Why did we worry… around 12 teams arrived all keen to do battle and have an enjoyable evening.

Raffle tickets started selling like hot cakes… Allen looked the part proudly wearing a Crew Bra T-shirt – it was suddenly all coming together.

The quiz was over – it had been a success, everyone enjoyed themselves.
We were about to select the raffle winnners’ when Bev came over and stopped us. She knew that the one prize of the Teddy Bear could potentially bring us more money in.
So an impromptu auction began with Bev putting in £20… the result was £50 raised on one teddy bear!!

In total we raised £652.30 – an unbelievable amount… we are at the end of November and our L2B fundraising target is complete… not that we will stop there; but it takes the pressure off and allows us to focus on the training.

What did we learn… do not be afraid to ask for help; discuss your thoughts with other friends… you never know who would help. It is never too early to start. Shout about what you are going to do… sometimes we enter a walk and undersell ourselves… you would be amazed what happens when you tell people about it.

We both want to thank everyone for their support. Without the fantastic support of our friends in Daventry, the wonderful Allen Jenner, Bev and the locals from the Pike and Eel none of this would have been possible.

It is now Sunday morning and more plans are afoot… another quiz in the Spring and a celebration event on the Bank Holiday Monday following L2B (I hope someone has a wheelchair available!)

It goes to show that there are some wonderfully generous people out there…now it’s a small matter of making sure we don’t let anyone down… 2016 will be training and making sure we complete London2Brighton 100km and MoonWalk Scotland two weeks after.

Pat

Our fundraising team, Polla and Elisabeth would be very happy to chat through any fundraising ideas with you, just get in touch here