Month: August 2019

We’re in the papers again and travelled a little further. This year we had entrants from further afield including Plymouth, Cardiff and even Barking in Essex. It has been nice to have the support of the Westbury paper White Horse News both during the lead up and reporting this week and it was also great to pick up on a report in the Barking and Dagenham Post featuring Barking Road Runners member Robert Courtier who took part with us, even finding time to rescue a horse on his way round! Good work Robert. Do let us know if you’ve any knowledge of us being written about even further afield.

In the meantime, the response to our re-raffle of the Beyond the Far Side race entry has had a good response. If you ran this year but didn’t win in the race bib raffle, please drop us a line before 9pm on Friday either on the facebook messenger service or by email to robin@orangehelmetevents.org.uk we’ll put you in the hat and announce the new winner on Sunday. Good luck!

We had great fun giving away prizes so generously donated to our event this year and hope if you were a lucky winner that you enjoy your prize.

Race event entries sometimes become available again when the winner finds they’re unable to take part after all and we think it’s only fair in these circumstances that the place comes back for one of our Hemeteers to have the opportunity to take the prize. Good friend and Hilly Helmet Hat Trick holder Mick Farrar has returned his prize to us as he is unable to use it, so we can now re-offer a place in the Beyond the Far Side event held in Westbury in January to our Helmeteers. You can run the 10k event or the 6 hour version on familiar Hilly Helmet territory, let them know which you’d like to do.

If you took part in our event this year, simply get in touch with us via the  facebook page or email robin@orangehelmetevents.org.uk before 9pm this Friday 30th August to be in the hat for a chance to win and we’ll let you know on Sunday who the lucky winner is.

Now our event is over for this year we’ll be keeping an eye on our race bib raffle winners as they take on the events they won at our event. First up will be Catharine Dowling of Frome Running Club who will be taking part in the Redfish Events Warminster Carnival Chase 10k next Sunday.

Good luck Catharine, we’ll be rooting for you!

We’re delighted at the feedback we’ve been receiving for our event this year and after a well earned rest (Read European Masters Half Marathon next month and New York City marathon in November! ) planning for next years event will commence.

It would be a great reward for everyone who makes Hilly Helmet happen if we were able to achieve an award for the event this year.  30 good reviews would help us to achieve this and with several already received, your review would really help us get over the line, so while that warm fuzzy feeling you had Wednesday night is still in your mind we would really appreciate it if you are able to visit the link below and leave a review to help us be successful in doing so. Thanks in advance.

https://racecheck.com/races/the-hilly-helmet-challenge/?fbclid=IwAR09c6QicXF5iDYcJ5RXIp2aaXiOa_LqWtn4Gq1n3BuRiXTz-NsNwYFRpow#reviews

To enable you to plan too we’d like to announce our provisional planned date now, which is set to be Wednesday  August 12th 2020. We’ll confirm this as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, we’d once again like to thank the donors of race bib raffle prizes here’s the list of our winners.

Rebecca Bollen, Rohaise de Voeux, Teresa Edwards, Mick Farrar, Amanda Foote, Jo Fordham, Gareth Hogg, Claire Hunt, Paul Marchant, Christopher Middup, Lois Norcott, Fiona Norris, Gill Perry, Lorna Rogers, Colin Sawyer, Richard Traynor, Jane Tunnicliffe, David Warren, Paul Waterer, Ryan Welch and John Wilmott. This year we gave away prizes before the event to Genna Lovelock who received a place for the Chippenham River Run and two other prizes for the Hazelbury Hurrah went to Dave Perrett and Ian Holmes as both these events took place before ours.

We thank our prize donors once again for their generosity and all our Helmeteers for your support this year and hope to see you again next year. Entries will open in the New Year, we’ll let you know when they do.

Wednesday nights’ third running of the Hilly Helmet proved to be another success with 185 runners taking on less than summery conditions.
The event sold out a week before but as is usual on event day the phone and internet didn’t stop bringing requests for even more places to be added so people could join the fun. Runners  queued to sign up on the night too which was fortunately aided by people unable to make it handing back their places in a generous gesture so the charity could further benefit from the event as well. In all there were over 200 sign ups this year, our biggest ever.

Warminsters’ John Reed put in an impressive performance to complete the course in 27:37 and lead the runners home in slippery conditions with former winner and runner up in previous years Joby Hobbs trailing by just 19 seconds. 2018 winner Neil Golding who had recently come back from a long term injury still holds the course record in 27 minutes flat.

First lady was Jen Marlow, completing the course in a time of 33:58. 2018 ladies winner Vicky Cooper still holds the ladies course record with a time of 33:42.

The prize for Best Helmet went to three time Hilly Helmet runner Jenna Lovelock for a stunning papier mache creation featuring the logo of the charity Brain Tumour Support as well as an intricate 3D brain design, completed with flashing lights as if it didn’t stand out enough already. Jenna was clearly delighted having come close last year with her unicorn creation.

The total raised from the event this year has surpassed our wildest hopes and we can’t thank everybody enough for their generosity through giving  time, donations of money and prizes and of course our event partners who foot the bill to make it all happen and ensure our charity Brain Tumour Support get every penny you give us. We have calculated an approximate figure without including the prizes donated to our race bib raffle or funds donated to buy equipment and pay race expenses.

This includes a box of goodies we raffled off in a separate ticketed raffle, race entry fees, donations to the charity collection boxes and sales of charity items on the night, donations to the Robin-Mark Runs just giving page, a cheque from Waitrose at Warminster for £450 and at least three of our helmeteers who set up sponsorship to add to our total, raising around £600 between them too.

Adding all this up gives us a total of at least £4000, a staggering amount and as the representative from Brain Tumour Support stated, an amount that will fund a support group for half a year. I am very proud of you all, you’ve really made a massive difference thank you so much and we hope to bring you another memorable, fun event next year.

UPDATE – After a recalculation it turns out that the amount will actually find the support group for a period of 9 months rather than the previous estimate which was based on a lower total previously calculated, so even better news.

Thanks to our amazingly generous event partners and prize donors our legendary race bib raffle is happening once again this year with a total of 12 race entries, 3 massages and other great prizes all going to our runners again this year. Today we received another two event entry prizes from our event partner Stampede Sports. The Hullavington 10k is fast and flat (the exact opposite of our event) and will be run for it’s second year while the 2nd offering is a trip back to Westbury to take on Hilly Helmets’ older brother the White Horse Gallop with which we share part of the route, with the added opportunity to get up close and personal with the white horse.

Stampede Sports owner Darren is an experienced event director and has supported Hilly Helmet since we first had the idea 3 years ago and we can’t thank him and all our event partners enough for helping us get the event on and spread the generosity like they all do.

 

With online entries closing this Sunday, once entries are collated we will be sending out final instructions via email. ALL numbers are to be collected on the night so please make plenty of time to arrive and collect your number and drop off your bag if you need to. We are happy to arrange number swaps even on the night, so if you are not running please ensure we have the details if somebody else is taking your place. It is essential we have the correct details of the person actually running on the night.

Prize presentation for the race will take place shortly after the last finisher crosses the line, though the race bib raffle will be done while runners are out on the course to save time at the end. All prizes will be marked up with winning numbers and located upstairs in the bar so finishers will be directed that way to see if they have won once they cross the finish line and have collected their goody bag.

Weather permitting, there will be a BBQ laId on by Westbury cricket club as well as a bar serving alcoholic and soft drinks (and teas and coffees) We appreciate them laying on these services, so please support them if you can. While on the subject of the weather, it’s still looking changeable for the day so bear that in mind when selecting gear for the run. We will advise on the day as to the condition of the course.

Many thanks for your tremendous support once again this year.

 

After applying earlier in the year we were really excited to receive the news that Hilly Helmet on behalf of Brain Tumour Support had been selected for the Waitrose Community Matters shoppers tokens collection in the Warminster store back in June. The campaign runs every month and Waitrose split £1000 between the three charities selected for each month.

On Saturday, Hilly Helmet founder Robin-Mark Schols went along to meet Sarah, the local Community Matters officer for the store.  She presented him with a cheque for £450 for Brain Tumour Support which will be passed on at his visit to the charity headquarters this Tuesday.

“£450 is a lot of money and the charity will put this to good use. It’s a great boost to the events’ fundraise too”, said Robin-Mark. Sarah, whose life has also been touched by the disease with a friend recently going through a brain tumour was also delighted Waitrose were able to help. “We often have one stand out charity from the three chosen”, she said.

Once again, we thank Waitrose for their support for our event and hope we may see a representative from them on the night.

After entry closed for this years event on Friday evening we received a number of enquiries from people  who had planned to enter but didn’t get in before the limit had been reached. We didn’t like the idea of disappointing people and today took the decision to add an extra 25 places, so hopefully you’ll have a chance to get in now if you did miss out. These are now available online until entries close next Sunday or until sold out, whichever of these happens first, after which any remaining places will be available on the night only.  We thank you all once again for your fantastic support.