Me and my pink exercise bike...

A few tips for fundraising and training from June, one of our Nottingham team...

“I am sure most fellow Kilimanjaro climbers will agree that although tackling a 19,000ft mountain will no doubt be tough, our fundraising target is also a big challenge! After setting up a Just Giving webpage, it quickly became apparent that this alone would not be enough to help me reach my target. So, I started looking on the Be.Macmillan website for fundraising ideas, and came across lots of make-your-own fundraising materials which were fantastic and gave me lots of inspiration.

One of the pre-made posters was designed for a pottery event, with the slogan “We’re Potty About Raising Money”. Inspired by this, I organised a fundraiser at Creations Pottery Cafe in Loughborough at the end of May (to coincide with half-term), where people came along for pottery painting, face-painting and a toy tombola. The owner kindly donated a proportion of sales to Macmillan. There was a lot of mess but a lot of fun, and kids and adults alike had a great time “going potty for Macmillan”. A few customers shared their stories about the great work that Macmillan nurses have done for them, which made me even more proud to be part of a great cause.

That same weekend I roped in some friends to don green wigs and help out with a cycling challenge in our Loughborough Boots store, as well as helping me run the raffle/tombola stand I set up. With help from the store, I took along a (pink!) exercise bike which I placed at the entrance with a couple of collection buckets.


June and friends during their Loughborough fundraising

We each did 10 kilometre stints, and altogether we covered 110km. All whilst enjoying the lovely aromas coming from a nearby fish market van! And we also managed to get into the local newspaper.


Coverage in the Shepshed Echo newspaper

Overall so far I have raised around £2,000.

It still feels like I have a long way to go so I have a couple more cycling events planned with bigger Boots stores over the summer as I really think it’s a great way to train and raise money at the same time. From experience, I think that the sillier, sweatier and more tired you look, the more willing people are to donate!

I hope everyone’s training and fundraising is going well and I look forward to reading about it on this blog”.