But it was also a successful fundraising event, and the nature of this fundraising has matched the nature of the event itself – everybody contributed.

It’s important to us on the organising committee that there is transparency around this aspect of the event so what follows is an overview of the fundraising and an indication of what happens next.

But first, and in case you stop reading here – we would like to send our thanks again to everyone who contributed to an event we’re all so proud of.

What was raised, and how it was raised

At the time of writing, the headline number is that we have raised £8,465. This figure is after costs have been deducted.

This means we have raised in total, £9,283. Deducted from this is the costs of £818. Making the after costs total of £8,465.

The costs

The event cost us a total of £818 to stage.

The bulk of this was the cost of the 100 t-shirts (£598), which were later sold – more on this below.

The remainder was spent on printing (£90), the winner’s trophy and big world map (£49), Oli Broom’s travel costs for the launch event (£60 – he didn’t charge any appearance fee and actually gave us £40 back as a percentage from the books he sold!), and finally jelly babies and face wipes (£22).

It was mainly Lynn who paid for these costs out of her own pocket and she was repaid with cash raised, so thanks to her for putting her money where her mouth was! All costs are receipted.

How the money was raised

The headline story on how money was raised was that many people contributed, rather than one enormous donation. This reflects the nature of the event itself we think, and it is really quite humbling to see just how many people donated.

Here’s some highlights from the fundraising, extracted from the very detailed records we’ve kept:

* CAMMS were the Ashes Ride lead sponsor and paid £1000 for this. Adam Westbrook is the club member who arranged this in his position as UK General Manager for CAMMS: thank you Adam.
* Four companies each paid £250 to have their logo appear on the back of the t-shirts. Thistlewood Consulting (Ian Thistlewood), Metlab (Ian Metcalf), Grey Matters Home Services (Jim Gillson), and Hi-Mark Automative (Jack Yates). This means that the cost of the t-shirts (£598) was completely paid by sponsorship, with an extra £400+ left over. This also means that every t-shirt sold was ‘clear profit’ and we calculate sales generated £600, after a few were given to sponsors for ‘free’. This means the t-shirts raised around £1000.
* The different teams who cycled each did their own fundraising and it is a credit to the respective team leaders who cajoled their team members not just into cycling but also into paying for the privilege to do so! Each team contributed and here’s some highlights from this part of the fundraising:

The Nomads Velo team raised over £1000 – an incredible achievement #oneclub
The Hedgecoe Handlebars team also raised over £1000 – this includes very generous donations from The Robinson Family, John Evans, Cheshire Farm Ice Cream, and Heatkey Ltd
The Centurians raised over £500, made up of a great many donations with particularly generous donations from Richard Thistlewood and Karl Stedman
Chester and Cheshire West Council also raised over £500 from the bikes and collection buckets they had in their Chester HQ
The Balcony Brothers raised nearly £400, including a very generous donation from the Metcalf and Wyatt families
The 3rd XI Badger Brothers (winners of the team race) also raised nearly £400, including a very generous donation from Cheshire Painting (John Townend)
The Ladies Cricket section also raised nearly £400, especially impressive considering how many juniors make up that section of the Club
The 1st XI Pedal of Honour team is still collecting donations but has already raised over £200
Tommy’s 2nd XI team also raised £200
Active Cheshire, as well as supporting the overall event, raised £100 from the satellite bike they had in their office
The pupils and staff at Boughton St Pauls School raised £55

* In addition to sponsorship and team donations we ran a number of activities as part of the overall event and these also generated funds:

The auction at the launch event raised £375 – thank you to the people who contributed the auction lots and to those who made the winning bids
The raffle at the launch event raised £220 and the tombola during the ride itself raised another approx £200. Thank you to Anne Thistlewood who coaxed and then bullied local businesses into donating raffle prizes, including HRH the Duke of Westminster who donated 6 bottles of vintage champagne
The sweepstake to guess the total number of miles raised £260

* Finally, a big proportion of the overall total was generated by people who contributed in general to the event rather than to a specific team by dropping money into a collection bucket or making donations by cheque and BACS transfer.

Although this is an article about fundraising we must not forgot the crucial non-financial contributions also made.

The Bike Factory's provision of bikes made the whole thing possible, Chester Triathlon Club provided the turbos that the bikes sat on, Gravity provided the products to re-align our spines after the exercise (and have also made a financial donation), Whitchurch Sports provided the medals, and Dougherty & Allen provided the massive celebration cake and of course sustenance throughout the event for hungry riders. Waitrose provided the bottled water. Finally, Oli Broom travelled all the way from London to regale us with tales of his own ‘ashes ride’ to launch the event in August. Take a look at the amazing trips his travel company, The Slow Cyclist, offers.

Oh yeh, and over 500 people cycled 13,884 miles in 72 hours. That’s a pretty important contribution too!

What happens next with the funds

The organising committee and the cricket committee are compiling a proposal with a number of ideas to discuss at a meeting on 19 October.

Once agreed, this proposal will go to the next Director’s meeting for approval on how the funds can be spent. The directors of the club of course have to take spending decisions in the overall context of the financial status of the Club, and to ensure the Club’s long term future.

The proposal is not finalised yet but is based on the following principles:

We want to ensure the spend can benefit all sections of the Club, in some way or another, in the spirit of the event itself
We would prefer to spend it on a tangible 'thing' or 'things' - something we can put a sticker on that says 'we did this, as a club'!
We wish to ensure the funds raised are ring-fenced and do not fade away into everyday operational expenditure

If you have suggestions, please share, it's not too late. More detail will follow in due course as decisions are made.

For now, all that’s left to say is thank you for reading this far, thank you for your generosity, and thank you for being part of one of the most remarkable events in the club’s history.

#ThankYou #AroundTheWorld #OneClub