CANCER RESEARCH
Event Assistant 2019
During my role as an Event Assistant I helped organise the Race For Life events within the South West region.
My responsibilities included roles such as; Course Manager, Start- Finish Manager, Stage Manager and I also took the role of Finish Host on a number of my events.
I carried out these roles during the Race For Life's that took place in; Penzance, Falmouth, Truro, Stithians, Exeter, Plymouth, Exeter and Salisbury.
This position required extensive training prior to the events which made it easier for adapting to other roles during the events. I absolutely loved this role and all the skills it has helped me develop, I have also met so many incredible people. This is my favourite example of the benefit an event such as the Race for Life has on its local community and for a national charity.
​
The roles:
​
Course Manager
Course Manager was a very intense role as it had a huge amount of responsibility. The first job would be to go through the risk assessment for the course that the racers would be running. It was vital that any risks and hazards were highlighted on the course as well as the right directions! This was very complicated and came with many challenges. Once the course had been set up and the risk assessment had been updated, it was time to welcome your volunteers. The volunteers who would be distributed around points on the course to help the runners needed to be properly informed about all the health and safety guidelines (this included important information about GDPR as many people would be taking pictures and signing up as volunteers). In addition to this the volunteers would be on site at 6am and sometimes in very bad weather conditions so it was essential to motivate the team of sometimes up to 30 people and also make sure important messages were understood. Once volunteers had reported to be in place, we would be in charge of communicating course updates to those on the finish line and other spectators. I loved this role as I thrive under pressure and get a lot of satisfaction seeing everyone enjoying themselves.
​
​
​
Start-Finish Manager
This role has no hidden meaning! I was in charge of the start and the finish of the race, this meant announcing the first runner back and keeping all those to follow motivated to get to the finish! This sometimes meant being on the mic for up to 2 hours. This was a fun role and again, meant I was in charge of a group of volunteers that would be giving out medals and waters at the end.
Stage Manager
Throughout the day there would be a host, an energiser and sometimes special guests speaking on the day. Stage manager meant that I would be in charge of making sure the schedule was being met and in time for the racers. Looking after the guests and those that came to support are very important jobs. It was also good to have a strong relationship with the technicians on the day to make sure that any sound problems could be solved quickly. Watching back stage the runners and supporters come together and having a good time was my favourite part of this role.
