End-of-year message from Kenneth Foreman, London Marathon Events Ltd Head of Charities
In just a couple of weeks we’ll have welcomed in the new year and hopefully we’ll all be looking forward to better times ahead.
The past year has been one of the most challenging in our history, as I am sure it has for your organisations. The charity sector, along with the mass participation sports industry, has, in many cases, been devastated by the events of the last year and it will take a long time for us all to fully recover. However, despite the hardships, there are many reasons to be positive about the future.
In the last nine months we have seen that when we come together we can support each other and rise to challenges in new and innovative ways. The creation of The 2.6 Challenge in April, in just a few short weeks, helped charities raise more than £11 million when it was most needed. The move to virtual events, with more than 38,000 runners from across the world taking part in the Virgin Money London Marathon – The 40th Race – along with My Prudential RideLondon and the virtual Vitality London 10,000, allowed people to still feel the joy of taking part in an event while also raising much-needed money for good causes. These collaborations demonstrate what we can achieve by working together and it is this that gives me hope for the year ahead.