Hello, I’m Ryan, 29 years old and London will be my first ever Marathon!
I’ve already been on quite the journey this year, losing 20kg (4 stone) and completely changing my approach to eating & drinking. I’ve completed the Thorpe Park triathlon, 2x half marathons, Yorkshire 3 peaks and numerous 10k races. I live in the Reading area – currently acclimatising to going for training runs in the sub 0 temperature we’re now experiencing!
My younger brother Adam is visually impaired. Watching him navigate the world with courage, resilience and sometimes frustration has deeply shaped my view of what fairness, opportunity, and support really mean. I wanted to use this marathon to help a charity that not only supports children and young adults with visual impairment, but also uplifts entire families. That’s why I chose VICTA.
I’ve organised two fundraising events so far, fantasy football and a darts tournament, both were a huge success!
Fantasy Football:
At the start of every football year (August) all my friends, my family and their families etc all join a fantasy football league. Usually putting in some money for the winners – this year I volunteered to run all the admin (which I had no idea was so chaotic!) but to put my London Marathon spin on this. 50% of all money will go towards VICTA and the remaining 50% as prizes.
Everyone was more than willing to get involved and donate, yes you do have to chase up people to remind them to pay – but people were donating above the minimum entry even if they had already donated before so I was extremely grateful.
I would 100% recommend a fantasy football fundraiser! It is a fun event that gets organised once, but you are continuously involved, we have prizes for manager of the month which is actually seeing people reinvest the winnings back in to the charity pot!
Darts Tournaments:
This was a fantastic event for an evening in the summer when we had daylight and warm weather. I actually was fortunate to host this event twice, one featuring my football team and other with my school friends!
The event was hosted at my house, which saw 14 mates (per event) all squeeze in. Consisted of a BBQ, and the darts tournament. Donation was £15 minimum and everyone was split into either league A or League B. I have two dart boards, so we had games constantly being played and a live leader board, once all games were played we went into a knock out to eventually crown our winner!
We had a raffle at the end which depending on how you performed reflected the number of tickets, so everyone had a chance of winning!
Apart from how bad my friends are at darts and how many holes I now have in my wall… everyone was so generous and interactive! Throughout the evening we started adding side games to raise more money e.g. hit bullseye on your next through we will all donate an extra £5 each.
When the weather is back, I’d love to do this again. I love a BBQ and hosting so any chance I have to do that, I certainly will be – I’m already thinking of ideas how I could do a winter version!
What’s your advice for other team members?
Crazy fundraising ideas evolve into the best! Doing something different and being creative stood out and got a lot of people involved and it’s actually helped me think of even more ideas for the future – so don’t be afraid and run with a fundraising idea, you may be surprised how well it works out!
Would you recommend these fundraising ideas to others?
Yes I loved doing both the events, they were relatively straightforward to sort and the benefit of not having a large set up cost – anything similar to darts that you can host at your home with friends over, a games night etc. you’ll be blown away by just how supportive everyone is! With both events combined I raised just over £400.
You might be able to guess the theme of the Darts Tournament from the photos, but thought I’d also share a picture of me and my number 1 fan, Nephew Jackson – for clarity, it’s me on the right.
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