Big Summer Bash - The Preview

The essentials for the weekend

The Big Summer Bash is here. At the time of writing we are just a few hours away from our day of training in aid of MS Society Scotland.
 
There’s been an air of excitement about the club as the date has got closer, with everyone enthusiastic about the upcoming challenge. In 2020 we held our Virtual Lockdown Knockdown as a way to keep the club together in the early days of the pandemic. Life may not be back to entirely normal but now that we can train in person it seemed an opportunity to do a fundraising event. Scott suggested we do an all-day event in aid of MS Society Scotland, with us donning orange belts to show support.
 
With the initial idea in place, it was time to get interest from the club. Happily, everyone was up for the challenge, including Emma who has moved to Yorkshire and Madeleine who is in Edinburgh at University coming back to take part. With considerable persuasion / guilt tripping / literal arm twisting, most of the club signed up. We should have 25 people taking part, with only a few members on holiday and not able to be there.
 
We had some planning sessions to work out the schedule for the day. One was in the pub but that isn’t as ominous as it sounds. It was a Sunday afternoon and the round consisted of two beers, four cups of tea, an orange juice and an alcohol-free beer. Rock ‘n’ roll! This session produced an outline of the day and who would lead.
 
In a pandemic flashback, we had a follow up session on Zoom which nailed down timings and what would be involved. By this point, we had a date and a plan. Now for some logistics.
 
The Allander was booked. In an ideal world, we would have held the event on 13th August. More people available and right before the start of the new school term might have encouraged more participants. Unfortunately, the 6th was the only date we could get all day.
 
Next up was to let the world know. There are so many avenues to promote events. Everyone in the club was encouraged to share our Just Giving page with friends, family and colleagues. We made use of various community Facebook pages. The local Community magazine published an article and photograph about the day.

The MS Society provided a press release and announced the event on their social media channels. Going old school, we put up an event poster in the Allander and some local shops. Hopefully, this blend of channels will generate interest from the local population.
 
Encouragingly we hit out initial target, and a few days later we hit our second. We’re hoping we can hit a third target of £2000 raised for MS Society Scotland. A huge thank you goes to all our supporters; your generosity is much appreciated.
 
With that, it’s time to get our gi ready, pack the Deep Heat and Lucozade, and prepare for the day ahead. Nine hours of martial arts await. Come on BMAC family, LET’S GO!!!!!

You can support our Big Summer Bash by visiting www.justgiving.com/bmacbash.

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