Comrades 2020

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  • Furlough: yes. And yes to the longer-term worries of course. It's not the whole business shutting down in my case, but they can't afford to keep us all on at full pay when income has been drastically reduced - events cancelled, companies not wanting to spend on advertising... The time to spend on writing is great. It's just I'm worrying about the short time frame to try to get everything in a state to tick over (with help from a colleague who will still be working) so we can get everyong going again when I (hopefully) return to work.
  • And great re. Hilton and Emirates. British Airways is STILL only saying to 31st May - might be that they are trying to stagger processing everything, of course. I can hope.
  • I've noticed BA still only saying to 31st May but I'm hanging on for Comrades to announce a new date so I can hopefully just change the dates. My hotel was booked through booking.com but via another party and is paid in full and non refundable so I'm just hanging fire there too.

    Really sorry to hear about the jobs Debra and Marty.

    Don't think were going to be out of this madness for a while yet so hope you're all hanging in there.
  • Hilton contacted me direct I'd booked through Hilton honors for 2 Oceans, have to say they were excellent. 

    Another day of lockdown and night time curfew, you need a permit to move. Mass santitation program taking place, drones spraying disinfectant everywhere. 

    Sorry to hear Marty. 

    My brother owns a brewery with taproom and has a small staff, they've had to close and aren't covered under the chancellors rules so not good times. 
  • Dubairunner: sympathies for your brother and staff. Whereabouts? (So we can go get beer there sometime in the future, hopefully, as we're both real ale fans (paid up CAMRA members)).
  • Debra, my brother lived in NZ, OZ and Singapore for 16 years working in senior management roles for the big breweries. He returned to the UK a couple of years ago to set up a brewery with his friend. It's called Round Corner Brewing in Melton Mowbray.
    They are doing home deliveries in the surrounding area at the minute. I haven't been yet, am planning to go in August. He's also a judge on the international beer awards and has won many awards himself, so his beer should be good.

    So lockdown running. 72 times up and down the path behind my villa this morning - thoughts drifted to a track 12 hour - never considered this before. Lockdown running might be good training for this - every cloud, silver lining and all....
  • Dubai Runner, Terry we must this check this place out once the lockdown is lifted, Melton is just under 1 hour away. DR we shall let you know our thoughts on the beer! Terry had a shared a short walk yesterday, maintaining the 2 metre rule of social distancing, we passed a few people on the road / trail, it was either a case of we were giving off a bad smell, or people are very aware of this plague like virus has they crossed the road and kept well away from us! I just hope after this is over folk who walk along staring at their mobile phones like some sort of compass device do the same and don't walk straight into me as I am now becoming accustomed to!

  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Dubai - on their website, the message in the red bar at the top, is it meant to say "brewey" or should it be "brewery" or perhaps "brewed"?

    Couple of mad instances on my run yesterday:-
    Main road, but only a footpath on one side, couple walking hand in hand ahead of me spanning the path and there is a blind corner coming up so in good time I peg it over to the far side of the road planning to get back on the footpath when the road is obviously clear and before I overtake the lovers a bloke on a bike overtakes me and stops right in my path level with them, gets off and proceeds to have a chat right across the road with them, so I end up pegging it into the centre of the road running along the white lines down the middle of the road to stay 2m from both of them - felt really dicey, but no cars came along.
    Then on the way back in similar circumstances I go out into the road as a different couple approaches me and a double decker bus careers round the corner in front of me and I need to dive back on the pavement pretty sharpish to avoid being flattened - I am sure that in general people are wazzing around in their cars way quicker than normal.
  • That made laugh out loud Lowrez! Thanks for that! Risk factor these days is we’d rather run in the centre of the road and risk getting knocked down by a double decker bus than frisk past someone accidentally touching them in return and risk getting the virus! Haha

    I watched couple of hours of The Stand last night, mini series made into movie developed from Stephen King book from 1979, gives room for thought I tell you. Same as Bill Gates’ speech on TED from 2015, he was convinced this would happen one day. He spoke earlier this week and says we are not ready for this at all. 

    First there was stone to kill man 
    Then fear of fire 
    Then arrows
    Then guns
    Then missiles
    Then software virus
    But always has been the silent killer waiting to be disturbed



  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    I feel an epic novel coming on spanning vast epochs where the true custodians of The Earth morph amongst us and effect mass extinctions whenever the current dominant life forms begin to threaten their biosphere. Find a list of major chapters here.
  • I recall my history teacher telling us 30 years ago we are long overdue an Ice Age, Perhaps unlikely now with global warming and climate change, perhaps we’ll be advised the SARS-2 likes the heat next!
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Depending on your scientific bent, we are currently in an ice age!
  • baldstanbaldstan ✭✭✭
    Lowrez, good to hear you were out running, and hopefully with no side effects? To be safe and visible perhaps you will need to wear your union flag running suit in future. Luckily I was out fairly early this morning so there was almost no traffic, but still had to do quite a bit of running in the road to keep a safe distance. At one point crossed the road to avoid a family with small children riding their bikes along the pavement, then they crossed the road just ahead and cycled right past me. But on the good side runners seem to be smiling and acknowledging each other more even as we swerve to ensure we're two metres apart. And I'm finding new running routes to avoid the overcrowded Common.
    Debra hope things work out at work and you're writing's going well.
    Out of interest has anyone heard anything from the Belaire? I checked their website and no mention of COVID-19, they're even still taking bookings for June.
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Stan - that was my first run in a fortnight since Liverpool - I am aching a bit today - you start to lose the conditioning so quickly - I am finding the 2m rule a great excuse to be more interactive than usual - some people though are, I think, just "in the zone" and not taking any notice of an idiot smiling and waving at them - on the other hand, maybe they are terrified - of me I mean, not the covid-19. The lie of the land is so confusing these days, on my route you sometimes get a painted bike symbol on one half of the pavement and a pedestrian one on the other then it'll change into bikes in both and then I'll run into the back of a car that's been driven up onto the pavement straddling both symbols - is that allowed because they only have two wheels on each side - ha ha?
  • I think it's all quite hilarious the way people avoid each other. On my run today several times I had to run in the middle of the road to avoid people but there really is so little traffic that its generally not a problem and the runners seem quite grateful.

    I was reading the guidelines for exercise today. A recommendation of 30mins for running depending on your individual level of fitness. I decided I was quite fit :)

    So far I'm ok with all this (although it's a lot more cooking than I normally do ;))

    My neighbour has a South African flag flying so I'm constantly reminded of Comrades.

    And the clocks going forward has been wonderful. So light tonight.

    I'm going to brave the supermarket tomorrow :'(
  • Just been on a webinar with Lynsey Parry and Brad Brown. They're expecting an announcement from Comrades within the next 10 days - apparently they've had a real kicking from the SA Athletics Association and the Govt for not dealing with it earlier. Expecting it to be moved to last week in September - so it'll be warm & humid!  Assuming can get a flight by then which I'm not convinced will be the case, but you never know ....
    Colleague down again Aldershot who has been part of Nightingale logistics build team told me that the government have booked out EXCEL until end of July! 
    That ain’t what media are telling us!
    The death count is all out as reported today now, numbers from PHE / NHS and whether the NOK permits cause of death as COVID ( apparently as in with most cases of Cancer, you don’t die of cancer you die of a failing organ of pneumonia, sepsis, etc, depending what goes on death certificate determines the cause of death - then what is released are two different things. 
    Friend has told just me her daughter who is a Matron has the peak to be 22nd May, that ain’t what BBC are saying?
    but I did hear Trump is moving Easter to August so what he said fes weeks back will stand correct lol
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    1owrez said (on March 17):
    If the strategy starts to work for spreading the infection curve out as far as possible I can see all the events that have been pushed back into October etc having to be shifted again. I too think Comrades is a lost cause, they should call it now and put us out of our misery. We are going to be in lock-down until Christmas.
  • Lowrez, with the regards to the sign I don’t know, but they have bought an old milk float for local deliveries.

    Kenya Airways have cancelled my flight for Cape Town, no problem because if I’d cancelled they would only give a refund voucher. Was only on hold for about 2 mins and they directed me to the internet sales email. They replied very quickly that they are only giving a voucher out to use within the next year. But you cancelled my flight, same answer....

    I’m running but with lockdown it’s up and down the 160m path behind my villa, it’s getting boring now.

    Right off to apply to the Ministry of the Interior website for my permit to allow me to drive to work for night shift.

  • Anybody fancy a run?

    I've set up a group mission on MyVirtualMission.com and would like to invite you to join! Not only will be you having fun, staying healthy, but you will be raising vital funds for WHO and SUE RYDER too!

    To join, go to
    https://www.myvirtualmission.com/missions/45312/c19-national-parks-mission
    and click "Join Mission" at the bottom of the page.

    This missions takes you from Harrogate to Keswick through the national parks, May possibly South of France, then in June.......drum roll.......a whole month to Comrades....but twice, we are going to go down then up, a double year! back to back in style!

    be nice if some of you guys can join, keep running while raising money for charity
    Mark!
    C19 Virtual Mission Control

    ps see new FB site https://www.facebook.com/coronavirusC19missions/
    for more info on this event and other social challenges to choose from.




  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Mark, are you expecting people to sign up for £17 without asking about the £17? I'm asking about the £17! I have a load more questions, but, why does it cost me £17 to run this and where does it go?
  • yaya, all that info is on the website. The Social challenges are £9.19, 50% to charity at least, the remainder to pay for medals and postage, plus spot prizes (have teamed up with friend the owner of Lincolnshire Runner).... (if do not get 500 particpants *need to place the medal order* then that portion will be added to the charity donation (hence at least), remainder pays for the site hosting and domain I had to purchase, then transaction charges from one of the ticket platforms. If I am lucky I shall have about 50p per runner. The Virtual Challenge exactly the same costings plus £8 charged per runner to enter. Don't tell me he who pays £40k for 7in7 grumbles over £17 mostly for charity, come on Lowrez be the first to sign up! haha
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Thanks Mark, but where does it say all that? I am probably looking right at it but I can't see it? I'm not grumbling about a charge but I do want to know what I get for my money. I have clicked everything I can find (I think) and I keep ending up on pages that talk about the Virtual Mission platform, but not what the C19 National Parks Mission is providing. If I look at the mission profile here:

    https://www.myvirtualmission.com/partners/group-profile/3774

    Where it should list the causes associated with the mission, it says none?

    I agree with you, 777 cost a daft amount of money, but I knew what I was getting for that. Plus I get to choose where I spend my own money!

    I think this concept is great, so you run x miles and they get applied to the mission route, and you can see how far you have got, and it also displays where those miles were actually run too? Nice! The way the page reads though I initially thought I'd have to go to Harrogate? Plus there is nothing about charity on the page? No reference to WHO or Sue Ryder? Where do my enthusiastic followers go to make donations? And where is the running total of what has been donated to the charities?

    If I dig real deep and try to uncover some T&C I find that "My Virtual Mission shall retain a fee of 5.5% + all transaction fees charged by PayPal (typically between 2.5% - 3.9%)" - by comparison Virgin Money Giving charge a 2% platform fee and a 2.5% payment processing fee on donations (and they present the option for the donor to pay those fees on top of their intended donation so that the charity gets the headline amount displayed) . Sorry for being so "picky" :)

    Am I calculating what you said right above? Unless 500 people sign up there is no medal? And that you will gain 50p per sign up? So you personally will benefit to the tune of £250? Are you going to donate that to WHO and Sue Ryder? So what if less than 500 people sign up? Where does the medal money go? To charity?

    I'm not implying anything here, but, the way the money is processed is not very transparent, in the T&C it says "Sponsorship gets paid directly into the PayPal account of the mission owner or the pre approved charity/cause that the mission owner has elected, minus the associated fees as outlined above." So as it stands, with no causes being associated to this group, nothing is geared up yet to reach WHO or Sue Ryder? Do you get all the money paid to you via Paypal? Do you not feel somewhat exposed if that is the case? In what way are you later going to illustrate that the charities received their cash? If a collection was made on Virgin Money Giving it would be put directly into the pocket of the charity (I am not affiliated with Virgin Money Giving by the way, just using it as a charity giving platform example).

    I feel like I'm being exceedingly negative, but I just want to see things laid out in plain English and be confident that the charities are going to receive their dues, at the moment I can't see that declared anywhere in what is being presented? Or a representation of what on-going total has been donated to the charities anywhere?

    It's a great concept, allay my fears please :)

  • Hi Lowrez, thanks for your feedback, someone else has came back with similar items. It is as I have to admit proving a but of a headache. Perhaps if I had sent the link to the website that I had to create and pay for all of your questions would have been answered, so I am sorry for that. See www.mile2ultra.com and most is answered there. However this virtual mission does not provide a medal as such, only a digital one that is said on FB (sorry forgot you do not use FB or you would have seen answers to your concerns and links to website there, I don't like FB neither once this is finished I'm not keen on it as you aren't neither) Sadly the MyMissions website does not allow for much information to be added, it is limited to character count in most insert boxes, and the charity part on there is only for corporate team events and with which you can add info re charities, I did mention to the chap who I spoke with in Wisconsin that it would be better if this was on for all. As for fees, My Mission retain average $8 per runner, they then pass the money back to me via Stripe (after they Stripe) have taken their cut, which is around 1.4% plus 20p per transaction (Paypal charge 1.9% plus 20p). On the website I have put a link to the charities where at least 50% will go to the charities. Medals can be purchased if wished but again this subject to min of 500 being ordered, I have stated if this is not reached then the amount will got to the charity, i.e. only 400 medal orders placed, then £2000 will go to charity.
    However, your great feedback and what a few others have said I am going to change the pricing matrix altogether dropping the pricing of the Virtual Mission to £12, £8 for mission cost, £2 going to charity (less to charities is better than nothing at all) remainder of £2 towards transaction costs, website, etc. 
    The C19 Missions will be reduced to £7.19 with 50% of fee to charity. Anything not going to charity pays for transaction and web fees, etc, if I am left with a £1 then that will be luck, but I am not doing it for profit or myself, but for charity, also hopefully will get people outside and get the mojo back.
    Thoughts Lowrez, thanks for your feedback.


  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Hi Mark, realise you have put a heap of effort into this already so sorry if I am making more work for you. I am on facebook, but don't tend to spend heaps of time on there, although being cooped up lately I have been kicking around on it a little more than usual; I did take a look at the fb link, but there too I couldn't find too much more to answer my questions. One amazing fact I uncovered in the general facebook T&C was if you donate through their links to charities they stand the full transaction cost and all the money you give goes to the charity, so I assume the stand-alone Sue Ryder link on your page is like that. It would be amazing if you could leverage that somehow. There are a few charity sites out there that do similar, when I ran Xiamen (blimey in China just 15 months ago!) I used BT MyDonate and they charged 0% if I remember correctly
    They have shut that down now, obviously just a side line for them and their vast corporation standing the platform fees. But, there are other up and coming charity sites with a zero cost base giving all of the donation through. I'll go and have a look. It also makes me wonder if there are any other platforms out there than can present a virtual run like this for free, given a large chunk of society is temporarily out of work it would be amazing to set up this virtual function where whatever you run gets applied to the route you were going to do just for the fun factor.
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Couple of links here on various giving sites, not the latest news on the subject, but I'm not searching further on this for now:-

    https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/apr/09/which-charity-website-use-fees

    https://fundraising.co.uk/2018/02/09/round-up-low-cost-no-cost-fundraising-platforms/


  • baldstanbaldstan ✭✭✭
    Anyone else missing the SDW50 today? Might have a lunch of cheddar and white bread sandwiches with ready salted crisps and chopped banana, washed down with flat coke, to recreate that aid station vibe - only without all the smiling faces, but I can picture those.
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Mmm, that lunch sounds amazing! Many years ago a runner from the USA handed me a bottle of root beer saying it was lovely; I spat the first mouthful on the road and felt ill for several miles. For years I have assumed that Dr. Pepper was a root beer until for some reason I tried a can of the diet version in a lunch meeting at work recently and it tasted nothing like the poison I had been handed all those years ago. Since then I have been binge drinking it and trying other concoctions such as cherry Pepsi Max etc... these all have zero calories and people tell me they are exceedingly bad for me, but I can't figure out why that would be the case? I'm off to make a banana and cheddar sandwich! Good one Stan :) (fallen off the Keto wagon again!)
  • Cheers Lowrez,
    The issue with Charities is they seem to get tied into the 'most popular' donating sites, i.e JustGiving, I have raised the question with several charities I have raised for in the past but this just seems to go in one ear and out the other. When I ran MdS in 2018 I raised just short of 5k, I recall it was around £120 that Royal Marsden could have had 'extra' if they used different sites. The problem is you have to select the charity from the donation site and if they are not listed then you have to use the sites they use. Facebook you are quite right and others like Totalgiving do not take any 'commission' a such and do it FOC, how they do it FOC I have no idea. I have raised money for Sue Ryder for the last few years, and have raised a fair few thousand but this week I was a little saddened by their un appreciative response when I told them what I had set up and I was raising money for them again, for the same reasons as myself they have launched their own appeal yesterday requesting donations so 'have to put all their energy and social medial efforts into that', I would have thought that gathering as much as possible form as many sources as possible would be far more beneficial, but obviously not. Hence to say I am a little disheartened by them, any donations in their direction will be now be given in person (with no tax or deductions) to Sue Ryder Thorpe Hall (where my mother in law was cared for) and not Head Office. Also, the WHO donations are done by their own Solidarity Link so again no deductions are made there neither. Have four people on board the virtual mission now, but at the much reduced price of £9 (cost of £8 for virtual, less Stripe 1.4% +20p) I 'running' at a loss but hey it's all for the love of running and trying to inspire others and raise awareness. Thanks Lowrez
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    I've been there on many occasions too, it seems that the lower cost giving sites don't yet have the breadth of charities such as Just Giving. JG get bad press at times but if it wasn't for them billions would not have been donated charity, they broke the ground on this method. Charities will be getting huge amounts of cash in from the leaders despite the charges being levied, the charities don't see that being take off the top line, plus they know the processing fees taken are less than the banks would charge for cashing a cheque. It looks like its the likes of me and thee that are pushing them to sign up for the low cost options - if we can get their attention.

    It obviously costs some money to run a giving platform, I think the likes of FB and BT just take the hit, they make vast profits anyway and it makes good press. Shame so many scams run on FB too!

    I can't find any free services that do group "virtually credit my miles run to another route and illustrate it" facilities. Racery looks very good, but it's not free.

    https://racery.com/virtual-races/virtual-charity-events

  • Slow DuckSlow Duck ✭✭✭
    edited April 2020
    Baldstan - I was meant to be marking part of the SDW50 course today... :( 
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