The Black Moon Rising half marathon on 30th December saw us draw the curtain on what has been a very eventful and rewarding 2024. Despite the sadness of losing our dog Mena – many of you encountered her on the races, expeditions and home visits – 2024 has witnessed many highs.
It’ll be churlish of me not to mention Clare, who left her managerial role in the NHS in April, joining the business full time. It has required Clare to adapt to the ebbs and flows as is the nature of the outdoor industry but she is really getting to grips with it and I’m excited to see how she drives the business forward in the new year.
We’ve partnered with some lovely people in 2024. Claire from Treetops Hospice reached out in spring and by summer, we were helping HW Martin to engage in a charity trek which raised over £8000 for the hospice. We further cemented our relationship with Charity Challenge and both of us supported them on Snowdon and Scafell Pike overnight challenges. Additionally, we route marked and supported the trekkers on the Coppafeel Peak District trek.
In the Duke of Edinburgh scheme, we’ve trained and assessed young people directly with the schools or through partnering up with DofE providers. In this respect we had some great expeditions with COG Youth Services, Adventure Expeditions, Lupine Adventure Cooperative, Mere Lane Outdoors, Chiltern Adventures, Rich Adventure and Alfresco Adventures. Additionally Jamie continued to support Adventure Expeditions with the delivery of the Sheffield SAFE taskforce programme of activities and rekindled his association with Explore Outdoors in Suffolk and had a week with them in October.
Our races hit new highs this year. Four sold out – Snow Moon, Spire Ultra, Linacre Infini and Black Moon Rising. Amberaid had two showings this year – the postponed Storm Babet edition finally had its outing in March and the usual October version also took place. Feedback for all events was overwhelmingly positive with three events – Cordwell Colossus, Amberaid and Linacre Infini – all being awarded Racecheck Gold Awards.
One thing we were very proud of is the ratio of female / male runners at the races. In contrast to many others races, we were often at 50 / 50 and the Cordwell Colossus actually had a 60 / 40 split. These figures really demonstrated commitment to being as friendly and accessible as possible.
Which brings us on to our joining the SheRACES network as a supporter and accredited race organiser. We’ll be working with them and other organisers to really promote female friendly events for the ladies in 2025.
Volunteers are key in ensuring we keep people safe and on track during our races and we are blessed to have really friendly, motivated people join us at the events. Sometimes we are a little “down to the wire” when it comes to filling those marshal posts so we have updated the volunteering section on the website in order to try and help matters in the new year. A massive thanks to everyone who has helped us this year; without you these events simply would not happen.
Guided runs were less frequent this year but the uptake has been good. We also helped Orange John, Mountain Walks and West Highland Adventure Tours with their National 3 Peaks and Yorkshire 3 Peaks events. We even managed back to back Y3P days during one eventful June weekend!
The navigation sessions were all well received this year; the standout moment was finding ourselves face to face with a red deer stag in the Lawrencefield Woods during one night navigation session. That was quite a stand off and had us all spellbound until the stag got bored and calmly walked into the darkness.
That particular encounter has been at the top of what has been a fabulous year of outdoors in some of the nation’s beautiful areas. Our wildlife and countryside provided some memorable imagery for us and our participants and once again we will be putting our energies into being as eco friendly as we can in our endeavours. A recent change has seen us source local prizes rather than trophies likely originated from China and the best example was Amber Valley Wines prizes for the Amberaid winners. The vineyard is less than a kilometre from the Amberaid checkpoint!
And so to the new year. We are taking our FREC3 course in February and will aim to collaborate more in the event and expedition field. We have other partner charities tied to races coming up and our cherished memories of Mena will be very much kept alive by “The Trails of Mena” marathon and half marathon on 22nd March. Clare is taking charge for the Pink Moon ladies half marathon on 12th April and has an energetic bunch of ambassadors to help. We’re also helping Wingerworth Wobblers with their “Wobble” on 8th March.
Exciting times ahead, and hopefully you can share them with us.
Meantime we’d like to wish you all a very Happy New Year.
Jamie and Clare
