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Hull Marathon, 1st Female!!
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Alan - Sorry if i upset you, but as you can imagine, I am still seething by what happened in Hull. When using statistics, generalisations are made but there are always exceptions which are to be applauded. I must say I have never heard a bad word uttered about the Liverpool event.
Going back to the Hull event, the organisers, TORO CSC, announced the event in a blaze of publicity last August, having had no consultation whatsoever with the local clubs, or the local UKA officials. They had no previous experience of organising mass participation events on the public highway. They then started taking entries before a course had been approved, and before a permit had been applied for. At the time they started taking entries, they were not even affiliated to UKA. Every attempt by local clubs and officials to get them to follow the same procedures as everyone else were ignored, and it was also felt the £38 fee for club runners was excessive. TORO claim they received 1400 entries and, along with several sponsors who supported the event, they must have had an income of over £50000.
What did the runners get for this. A race riddled with problems, no mile markers (except one at mile 13), very few marshals, with major junctions relying on PCSO's, the route followed on the day being different from the measured route, resulting in the Certificate of Accuracy being withdrawn, roads which were supposed to be closed and traffic free, being full of mixed runners and traffic, long stretches of the course with no water stations, the lady lying in second place being misdirected, resulting in her only running 23 miles, being awarded with the prize when she "finished", and many of the prizewinners still not having received their prizes, their e-mails and letters to the organisers going unanswered. On top of this, the organiser appears to have gone into hiding, has pulled the plug on all his websites and Facebook page, and has not been heard of for 2 weeks. Even the media can't contact him.
This company has seriously damaged the reputation of road racing in Hull, and has taken a great deal of money in entry fees, without appearing to spend an awful lot on the organisation of the event. Events such as this damage the reputation of the sport, whether put on by clubs or private companies, and whether charging a high or a low entry fee.
🙂
Alan,
A bold statement was made but the evidence on the forum is that it is a true statement.
And yes I know exactly how much it costs for road closures, medical support, PCSO's, marshalls etc, and that is why I can accept high event costs when these type of costs are incurred.
Piers
RicF,
Road closures are very expensive approx £1000 per road closed, obviously unit costs go down if you are closing say 40 roads.
Regards
Piers
🙂
Peter - I'm not upset, just trying to advise that given the content of the report in which Liverpool was highlighted we are not all profiteers. It seems easy to bracket private sector organisations together and tar them with the same commercial profiteering brush.
It's just not the case in Liverpool. I am a runner and have been for more than 35 years. It's where I got my experience and understanding of runner's expectation and helping deliver the Liverpool half marathon for 10 years in a voluntary capacity certainly helped.
I appreciate where event delivery is concerned that I will never keep everyone happy all the time (particularly where cost is concerned) but equally it doesn't stop me trying. Profit has never been a motivating factor for me. Helping the running community has and will continue to be so as long as I'm involved in Liverpool events.
RicF
It's the traffic management that costs the money especially if there are diversions required. The council charges only about £80 plus advertising and sundry costs.
One of the races I manage has one road closed with minor diversions requiring traffic management and thats about a grand.
I'm also involved with a large city centre half marathon whose road closure costs were I believe in the order of £8-10k and they shut about 12 roads though two of those were major roads.
The cost of all race management is going up mostly driven by UKA insurers (ARC have a different insurer with fewer hoops to jump through)
A lot of the sponsored commercial races, think Nike/Bupa races are now not bothering with EA affiliation.
Piers
The Hull marathon had on lane of the southbound Humber Bridge carriageway closed even though the original certificate said we were to run on the footpath. Had that money been spent on some mile markers and a couple of marshalls in Pickering Park...
In other news, two cheques were received yesterday. Paid in today so as long as there's no Greek-style default progress is being made.
Almost every one in athletics be they coaches, officials, race referees, timekeepers, marksmen, starters, course measurerers, etc, etc do it for nothing.
Piers
That doesn't mean I begrudge people putting on races being a commercial entity, it's just then I feel they need to be brilliant and alot are.
If things go wrong they should then apologise and recompense.
Piers
🙂
Barnsley/Hilly - been reading thread, and congratulations to you both from an ex-colleague (Geoff, Honley). Clearly huge disappointment about the organisation of the race, and big sympathies, but bloody well done. Hilly, I remember 2/3 years ago when I'd not long been running I asked you how many times you ran a week and your answer was every day, sometimes twice a day. Well it's paid huge dividends. Again, bloody well done.
Did anyone run his 5 lap marathon ? At £15 entry you could argue that if it was a one lapper like the big ones - it would cost almost £80 ! Ffs - whys he so much more expensive than a Parkrun - bla bla bla..
Keep Left - Hi and thanks! Despite all the hassle, we both enjoyed our runs!
Hope running is going well for you!
I see that Karl Jackson hasn't been completely quiet since the Hull Marathon. He managed to set up a new company, Quantumleap Ltd on 20 April. This is the 5th company he has been involved in since 2008. His list reads as such:-
3XTri Ltd Registered 12/8/2008
Triexperience Ltd Registered 10/7/2009 (since dissolved)
Toro CSC Ltd Registered 29/7/2010
Yorkshire Marathon Ltd Registered 20/7/2011
Quantumstorm Ltd Registered 20/4/2012
In my last post, I referred to Mr Jackson's new company as Quantumleap on one occasion. The correct name is Quantumstorm Ltd
Has anyone heard about the manchester marathon?
Baggage area a complete disaster, runners where getting hypothermia standing round searching through thousands of bags with no numbers on aparently some volunteers walked out...
Its a clear indication that small triathlon events companies cannot organise a major city marathon, I think they must have asked Toro CSC for planning advice!!
Terrible, god knows what it this is doing to the reputation of running events in the UK
I run a fair few races each year and I've never had the problems that they had in Manchester and Hull. Plenty of great events around.
I was really making a point of small triathlon events companies trying to organise a major city marathon.
Nothing about any other event that is currently ran well
.
🙂
Totally agree.
Why oh why, would a big city council give tenders to unproven, inexperienced generalists.
??46 and ??5 to have your chip posted. Shurely shome mishtake.
Just seen ToroCSC have cancelled a triathlon for next weekend at short notice. Has anyone heard anymore about the Hull Marathon ? I've had no reply to 2 emails.