3 weeks since our last post so what have we been up to?
We want to see if we can get some major sponsors on board to help out with the things we don't have, like 2 dozen of the same golf shirts that need to be embroidered or 6 pairs of golf shoes that we'll need to keep our feet dry and comfortable. So we've been sending out inquiries to see if any companies want to get on board with what we are doing and supporting us with these things. Obviously our fall back is to purchase all of this ourselves but we'd love to get the backing of a company that sees our challenge as great PR and something that they really want to get involved with. Anyway, so far we've had a couple of replies and neither positive, as expected most companies get inundated with requests and have already pledged allegiance to a certain charity and committed their donations. We continue to live in hope and plug away to find someone who's interested. If you're reading this and you work for one of those companies and you're interested, please get in touch
On the courses front unfortunately Ballyclare have a junior competition on the day we're in Northern Ireland so Rachel at Tourism Ireland is making some inquiries at other venues. We have 3 courses confirmed and have written to them to start making arrangements for the days and look forward to working with them in the coming months to really get a buzz around what we are doing and hopefully get some cold hard cash against our donation target.
We continue working on our training schedules and practice sessions to get ourselves physically and mentally ready for the challenge. We've had one day playing 42 holes non stop, which wasn't too bad but was less than half a day of our challenge so we've got another longer day planned in for Easter Monday where we hope to complete 4 rounds. Beadlow Manor Golf club have allowed us to use their 2 courses to practice via a short term membership so big thanks to them.
We've also started to make inquiries into the nutrition side of things so that we understand the demands our bodies will have during the challenge and can put together a detailed meal plan for the week. We've found @GC_Nutrition on twitter and we're discussing the possibility of them doing something for us.
A final mention goes to our latest supporter, @skycaddieSteve from @skycaddie. He has been in touch and offered to loan us some devices for our challenge. We are really grateful to him for this support, with the quality of sky caddie devices it will really help with courses we don't know and the speed of play. If you've not done before check out their products they really are good. We look forward to meeting Steve in early June to collect the devices and get a demonstration.
So all in all things are ticking along. We've got some plans to put in place regarding collecting sponsorship, particularly around the Manchester Golf Show and our sponsor a hole and "guess our scores" competition. If you're at the show or going to it please look out for us and come and have a chat.
In Aid of
Sunday 30 March 2014
Sunday 9 March 2014
Motorhomes and Manchester
After a couple of quiet weeks, with Andy burying his head in books studying, me getting used to a nocturnal life with my new born son and not a lot of success with the motorhome issue, last week was one of the more positive we have experienced. Last Sunday the 4 of us, that's Andy and I and our two strong support team of Ian (Barmy) and Simon, got together to see exactly where we were and what plans we needed progress or put in place. Motor home and course confirmation figured quite highly on the agenda along with trying to find ourselves some major sponsors for balls, shoes and shirts, sorting out the website and the Manchester Golf Show. As most meetings go the agenda went out of the window after about 2 minutes and we had gone in about 7 different tangents before we'd had half a pint. I think in the end we came away with a few actions but not really much clearer on what success looked like. The major decision made was that we were going to have to pay to hire the motor home. Thankfully through the generosity of parents we had two contributions to our challenge budget that would cover about half of cost, we were looking at a bill of over £1,000 for a vehicle before we'd put any fuel in it, so this was a big help. Monday arrived and I'd spent much of the night feeding, winding and rocking whilst filling the times between scouring the web for motor home options. Andy was following up the leads we already had to see if there was any hope there but by Tuesday morning we still had nothing. Nothing, that is on the motor home front...
I had previously found the London Golf Show twitter account and whilst attempting to find the dates also came across the Manchester Golf Show account. I've always fancied going to one of these but never got round to it in the past but it did make me think that it might be a good opportunity to meet a very large number of people all of whom share one thing in common, golf. Now if ever there was an audience to promote our challenge to, this has got to be it, trades and public all in the same place all there to talk, play, live and breath golf. I floated the idea with the team on Sunday and agreed we should inquire, which I did, on Monday. After a very positive conversation with the MD of the company behind the show we have a stand on block F60 and a short slot on the stage each day to promote our challenge!!! So we're going to Manchester from 25th - 27th April where we hope to promote our challenge, collect some sponsorship and see if we can do a bit of networking and find a few major sponsors from some of the other exhibitors. If you're planning on attending pop along and see us to find out a bit more about us, have a go at our challenge sweep stake or even sponsor a hole. If you're from a golf company and interested in going a step further in sponsorship then get in touch before hand and we could be promoting your involvement at the event.
So it's Tuesday and we're confirming the show and following up another motor home option. We'd finally found one available (within budget, but in Durham), filled in our details and awaited the confirmation. A couple of hours later and the booking's confirmed, Result!! At the same time, Rachel had come back to us confirming that Concra Wood were definitely on board, Ballyclare are interested and just awaiting confirmation and that Tourism Ireland are covering costs of ferries and accommodation for the Irish leg of our challenge, Result x 2!! Two days work and we were pretty pleased with the result
Wednesday comes along we get an email from the booking company about excess mileage costs giving us an additional £175 to our already increasing challenge costs. No sooner had we digested this information then it all became irrelevant. Marquis Leisure, a company we had contacted a couple of weeks ago came back to us. In return for some PR and publicity for their business and the MD and his daughter (plays off 6) to join us for a few holes on the last day, they would provide a vehicle for us for the Scotland - Wales - English legs. I couldn't believe the offer or the irony of the timing! We very quickly accepted the very generous offer and almost as quickly cancelled our previous booking. So we now have a new major sponsor and you should see their details to the right on our new look blog page. If you have any motor home needs we'd recommend you check them out.
So the final piece of the week comes from the first of our challenge supporters - Kevin Brown at Today's Golfer Magazine. As you know from previous posts Kevin has been helping is since the start to find the courses and promote our challenge. On Wednesday he confirmed that Portpatrick are on board for the Scottish leg of our challenge and that he had posted the first article about our challenge on Today's Golfer's Website - there's a link to it on the right too. Kevin has all the details of our challenge and will be penning an article to go into the April edition of the magazine out on 17th, so make sure you grab a copy and check it out.
Bit of a long post this time but hopefully you've stuck with it. Things are really taking shape and we're looking for more people to get involved, individuals, groups and companies. You can see that our blog page has been updated with a number of links which we encourage you to check out. We're in the process of building our webpage but that should be here soon and will have more content about our challenge. There's also a link to our donation page if you're feeling generous and want to support us for a great cause - My niece has pledged the first donation, which we are very proud of her for - it's her mum, Nancy, that tragically passed away from a brain tumour.
If you want to get involved follow us at @five5sgolf and send us a tweet or email us at Five5sgolfchallenge@gmail.com
Thanks for taking the time to read
I had previously found the London Golf Show twitter account and whilst attempting to find the dates also came across the Manchester Golf Show account. I've always fancied going to one of these but never got round to it in the past but it did make me think that it might be a good opportunity to meet a very large number of people all of whom share one thing in common, golf. Now if ever there was an audience to promote our challenge to, this has got to be it, trades and public all in the same place all there to talk, play, live and breath golf. I floated the idea with the team on Sunday and agreed we should inquire, which I did, on Monday. After a very positive conversation with the MD of the company behind the show we have a stand on block F60 and a short slot on the stage each day to promote our challenge!!! So we're going to Manchester from 25th - 27th April where we hope to promote our challenge, collect some sponsorship and see if we can do a bit of networking and find a few major sponsors from some of the other exhibitors. If you're planning on attending pop along and see us to find out a bit more about us, have a go at our challenge sweep stake or even sponsor a hole. If you're from a golf company and interested in going a step further in sponsorship then get in touch before hand and we could be promoting your involvement at the event.
So it's Tuesday and we're confirming the show and following up another motor home option. We'd finally found one available (within budget, but in Durham), filled in our details and awaited the confirmation. A couple of hours later and the booking's confirmed, Result!! At the same time, Rachel had come back to us confirming that Concra Wood were definitely on board, Ballyclare are interested and just awaiting confirmation and that Tourism Ireland are covering costs of ferries and accommodation for the Irish leg of our challenge, Result x 2!! Two days work and we were pretty pleased with the result
Wednesday comes along we get an email from the booking company about excess mileage costs giving us an additional £175 to our already increasing challenge costs. No sooner had we digested this information then it all became irrelevant. Marquis Leisure, a company we had contacted a couple of weeks ago came back to us. In return for some PR and publicity for their business and the MD and his daughter (plays off 6) to join us for a few holes on the last day, they would provide a vehicle for us for the Scotland - Wales - English legs. I couldn't believe the offer or the irony of the timing! We very quickly accepted the very generous offer and almost as quickly cancelled our previous booking. So we now have a new major sponsor and you should see their details to the right on our new look blog page. If you have any motor home needs we'd recommend you check them out.
So the final piece of the week comes from the first of our challenge supporters - Kevin Brown at Today's Golfer Magazine. As you know from previous posts Kevin has been helping is since the start to find the courses and promote our challenge. On Wednesday he confirmed that Portpatrick are on board for the Scottish leg of our challenge and that he had posted the first article about our challenge on Today's Golfer's Website - there's a link to it on the right too. Kevin has all the details of our challenge and will be penning an article to go into the April edition of the magazine out on 17th, so make sure you grab a copy and check it out.
Bit of a long post this time but hopefully you've stuck with it. Things are really taking shape and we're looking for more people to get involved, individuals, groups and companies. You can see that our blog page has been updated with a number of links which we encourage you to check out. We're in the process of building our webpage but that should be here soon and will have more content about our challenge. There's also a link to our donation page if you're feeling generous and want to support us for a great cause - My niece has pledged the first donation, which we are very proud of her for - it's her mum, Nancy, that tragically passed away from a brain tumour.
If you want to get involved follow us at @five5sgolf and send us a tweet or email us at Five5sgolfchallenge@gmail.com
Thanks for taking the time to read
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