Hi,

My name is Colin Dalton and I've been the main fundraiser for 10 years for New Hope Children's Centre in Kenya. In that time I've personally organised and led challenges ranging from entering teams in marathons to swimming the equivalent of the English Channel, from Charity Celebration Balls to cycling across the country offroad. We have joined organised events and organised our own including The Gruellathon & The Overnight Channel Swim. 

The great news is through these events we have raised over £100k in that period and been able to make a difference to the lives of hundreds of children in Kenya. The downside has always been the amount of time and effort involved in organising these events. I can't recall the number of times in the run up to an event where I have said those words, 'never again!' only to see the success of the event and immediately launch into the next one.

Each time I get a little better and a little more efficient but I tend to offset this with making the challenges bigger. Am I alone in thinking that things don't need to be so tough and events don't need to be so time consuming?

I've got 2 questions for the charity connect network:

1.  Have you got any tips / thoughts / tools that you use to make life easier when you are organising an event?

2.  What are the major time consuming parts of your events that if made more efficient / streamlined would make events easier to organise?

Any responses would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

Colin.