The “Marathon”.

Despite some variable weather forecasts leading up the first bank holiday weekend in May our Marathon day on Sunday 4th dawned fine and sunny, and remained so for the whole day. 627 people took part in the 21st Heritage coast Walk/Run which was about an average number for recent years. Most of the available club members turned out to assist with the site and course preparation on Saturday afternoon as well as on the day itself when we were ably assisted by both Inner Wheel and Rotary wives. Many other family members, friends and volunteers also willingly helped and without this help we simply could not resource all the various points and tasks. Well done and thanks to all involved. Much ‘kit and tackle’ has now been returned to its respective storage venues until mobilised again next year.

Without any doubt the Club now has to consider several different and important aspects arising from this years event. A debrief meeting has already taken place and such is the concern surrounding some of the issues that arose that the Marathon committee will not be having their usual summer recess, but will necessarily continue to debate the future operation of the whole event during the months ahead.

I have previously voiced my own concerns about the sheer physical effort required of members to put the show on, as well the lack of any resilience within the club should any key member not be available on the day. It was not surprising that these concerns were also raised at the debrief meeting.

Perhaps the other main issue to debate is the actual format of the event itself. Having noted that just over 600 people entered we actually had 265 register on the day itself which is a record in the history of the Marathon. I don’t think that the difference in the cost between

pre registered entries and entries on the day had anything to do with this, my own view is that the ‘type’ of entrant is changing, and has this been slowly happening over the last few years. We must certainly recognise this factor when considering the future. It is already clear the amount of sponsorship money pledged is significantly down on previous years and this is our main charity fund raising event after all. This is certainly a shift from sponsored fund raisers to enthusiastic runners who just enter the Marathon as a running event and pay only Ł4 or Ł5 to do so. Very rough calculations show that it actually costs the Club about Ł4 for each entrant in terms of putting the event on, therefore it doesn’t take much working out to see that unless we change things we could be operating future events at a loss!

There have been other views expressed about the date of the event and whether it was clashing with other events in the area. I firmly support the view that the Rotary Club of Saxmundham and District were here first!

To finish on a positive note it must be recognised that our marathon is a unique and prestigious event which has much to commend it, and we receive very many accolades from entrants on how well organised it is. Without doubt the new Marathon committee will have much to deliberate on in the months ahead, but as this is a whole Club commitment I ask that if any member has construtive criticism or new ideas on the way forward then they submit in written form, for ease of reference, to Gordon in time for his next committee meeting on 22 nd July, please.

Carl Ib.

I was very pleased to welcome Carl Ib into the Club as a transferring Rotarian from Woodbridge Deben. Carl has now boosted our membership to 28 and we look forward to him having a long and happy association with us.