If you’re reading this and wondering whether you should sign up to be a Challenge Leader, I’m telling you now. SIGN UP! It has given me skills I would have never gained from my degree. I’ve met the best people and learned so many important skills which employees love for a job, like teamwork, leadership, and, most importantly, staying organised!

I would recommend having a spreadsheet with everyone’s names in the team and tracking their fundraising progress. Remember, it’s not your responsibility to do it for them, you’re there to guide them. The more organised you are, the more group fundraisers you’ll be able to host, meaning more of your team will be able to join you on the trip.

The easiest fundraiser you can book with your SU is a bake sale. I booked several at the beginning of the year (one every month) which really took some weight off my shoulders. Through organising the larger events such as a fashion show and a murder mystery night, I found a new love for event organising which is now a career I'm thinking of going into!

My Spreadsheet advice for team organising:

I have a tab for everyone’s Just Givings links and what group fundraising events they attended, and then a tab for each group fundraiser we did to track the money raised. We hosted ‘Fundraising Planning Parties’ where the team just got together and planned fundraisers together along with team social ideas. This was so helpful for me as a Challenge Leader and also gave the team a chance to get involved.

In summary

Being a Challenge Leader isn’t just about preparing for the challenge in the summer —it’s about building a team, developing leadership skills, and making unforgettable memories along the way. From planning fundraisers to leading team socials, you’ll gain real-world experience that sets you apart in any career.

Plus, with the right planning and teamwork, you can make the journey more affordable and accessible for your team. If you’re looking for a rewarding, CV-boosting, and life-changing experience, this is your sign to sign up

Step up, take the lead, and make next summer your best yet! 🌍💪✨

Written by:

Amelia Garmain, NTU, Everest Base Camp Challenge Leader, 2024/25

My name is James and I am the Budapest Marathon challenge leader for Southampton Solent University this year. I also took on the UK Three Peaks challenge last academic year as a participant, so I’ve experienced both sides of the story when it comes to promoting the challenge as a leader and fundraising events as a participant!

I’ll kick this off by telling you to not make the recruitment process harder than it needs to be… there are so many great ways to get the word out about the challenge that you’re leading and most of them require help.

For me, my lecturers were a huge help as I am on a sports course, so I was surrounded by people in useful positions who would have loved to do the challenge themselves and were more than happy to get the word out to all courses under the sports faculty across all years. Another option here is to visit your university’s website and find the sports faculty page, where you should be able to find contact details for people who can help spread the news.

If this doesn’t apply to you don’t panic! Your university’s Student Union can work as a hub through which you can contact sports teams/societies who may be interested. Ask captains, managers, social secs, and whoever else you can get in contact with to put information in team group chats, repost Instagram stories and get people talking. Things like this are always easier with existing rapport, so don’t drive straight into sales mode – get to know the person you are asking a favour from before you try and close the deal (this applies to speaking with individuals who are not part of a society but may be interest in the challenge and those in a position to help you). Once you are on good terms with someone who can help you, a message in a lively group chat can work wonders, especially if the message comes from someone the rest of the team already knows and trusts!

Finally, and possibly the most important thing to remember – don’t assume you know who would be interested based on the societies or courses they are a part of. The Solent Budapest team this year is made up of people from several different departments, some of which have never done or even considered something like this before. University is a time to say yes to every opportunity that comes your way and you’d be surprised how many people take this very seriously - So make the most of it! Leave no stone unturned, good luck with your recruitment, and enjoy your challenge!

Good luck promoting!




Written by:

James Brimble, Southampton Solent, Budapest Challenge Leader, 2024/25

Organising a group fundraiser can be daunting, whether it's a large or small event. From my experience, one of the hardest aspects of organising a fundraiser for your team is figuring out how to make it feel like a truly special event. My best advice? Go all in! Organise and coordinate as if you’re planning the Olympic opening ceremony. Before you know it, the big day will arrive, and you’ll have created an experience that not only brings your team together but also raises money for your chosen charity. But what steps do you take to get there?

I’ve organised and helped organise a few fundraisers throughout my time as a challenge leader, including an 8-hour walkathon, bucket collections, and a fantastic speed dating event (I just helped with that one). However, the first major fundraiser I organized, and the most successful, was a 24-hour endurance challenge. When I gathered my group, I found myself struggling to come up with the best fundraiser idea for a large group, and more importantly, figuring out where to hold it so everyone could participate. With little support from my student union (since I wasn’t part of an official society), and Lancaster being a smaller city, I was limited both in ideas and venues. That’s when I realized the first big question of any fundraiser is: What are you doing and where are you doing it?

I wanted to do something that would really stand out, so I came up with the idea: Can we cycle and run to Kilimanjaro from Lancaster? The second question, however, still remained: Where could we do this? The student union and university gym weren’t viable options, so I had to look for non-student venues in the city willing—and more importantly, happy—to host us. I reached out to the local army reserves, an institution that is always eager to strengthen community ties. They were thrilled to host my team and played a huge role in the event’s operations.

If the army reserves aren’t an option, consider reaching out to other groups, societies, institutions, or companies that either have a venue or are looking to strengthen community ties, support charity work, or help students. The key is to find a place where your fundraiser can thrive.

Operations & Publicity

Once you’ve secured a venue, the next step is to focus on two main areas: operations and publicity.

• Operations: This is where you ensure everything is safe and in place to achieve your fundraiser’s goal. This might include preparing safety briefings or checking that you have enough bikes to cover the distance.

• Publicity: This is what turns an event into a success. Posters, word of mouth, and announcements are just the basics. To really sell your event, try to secure sponsors, partner with other groups (like the army reserves), and send press briefs to newspapers and local tabloids. This will help you reach new and interested people who want to both attend and donate. Additionally, encouraging your friends, their friends, and your team’s friends to spread the word helps the event go viral. The more people you get involved, the more exposure you’ll have, leading to greater donations.

You’ve hosted your event, and thanks to your efforts in publicity, it was a huge success. The key period for receiving donations is the day of the event and the following week. This is when the event is still fresh in everyone’s minds, and people feel the most passionate about supporting it. For example, in the weeks leading up to our 24-hour event, we raised about £1,500 in donations. On the day of the event, we raised around £2,000, and in the first week afterwards, we collected another £2,500.

The core principles!

Smaller events, like bucket collections or walkathons, require a bit less organizing, but the same principles apply to all fundraisers:

• Organize like it’s the biggest event of the year—because it just might be

• Don’t hesitate to reach out to anyone who might be able to help—not just student institutions.

• Tell everyone, then tell everyone to tell everyone!

• Get as many groups involved as possible—share the fun!

• The day of the event and the weeks afterwards are the most crucial for donations, involvement, and exposure.

Happy fundraising!

Written by :

James Gill, Lancaster Kilimanjaro Challenge Leader, 2024/25

So let’s start at the start. The first step is to choose your platform(s). Considering the target audience of your posts are students, you want to use the platforms that the students at your university are active on. Personally, I created a challenge specific Instagram account and then used the information meeting event on Facebook to share some of the Instagram posts on Facebook as well. What are the kind of posts that work well? From my experience, the following are useful in getting your challenge out there and getting people to sign up for the information meetings:

• Trek introduction video: create a quick elevator style pitch video to introduce yourself (put a face to the challenge to build some trust along the way!) and the trek to the account.

• Trek itinerary/route to provide the viewer with some more details about the challenge itself

• Fundraising post to elaborate on the fundraising aspect of the trip: what work does the charity do, how will the fundraising help them, what skills can fundraising build, etc.

• Info meeting details: spam your account with the details of your information meeting(s) to get as many people to sign up as possible!

• Q&A stories: let users ask questions and post the answers for everyone to see. Can even save these into a highlights to create your own FAQ page.

• Team member introductions: as people join your team, introduce them on your account! This can help inspire others and keep the trek active.

To create these posts, I used Canva in combination with the pictures and videos provided by Choose a Challenge on the Challenge Leader Hub to make them aesthetically appealing. I’ve found that keeping the posts short and sweet works best; put only the essential info on the photos and elaborate in the caption (and be sure to use some emojis to make it more interactive!).

Once you’ve got your posts together, how do you get them out there? Naturally, posting on your own account is step one. Optimal posting times tend to be when students are online; posts that I posted between 10am-12 and 6-8pm usually got the most interaction. On top of that, you want to make sure that your account stays active, by posting something at least every few days. A good way to optimise the timing and frequency of your posts is to use a scheduling app like Hootsuite. Not only does this let you make a solid virtual recruitment plan, but it can automatically post your posts for you at the times you specify!

Last but certainly not least, get people to share your posts! I asked all of my friends and family to share the trek info post on their accounts and made sure to post about the challenge on all the university / overheard Facebook groups I could find. Secondly, I contacted the sports clubs within my university and asked them to share the post on their social media. In particular, I created a few personalised posts for the trek specific societies like the mountaineering society, hiking club, etc. as their members are most likely to be interested in your challenge!

And that concludes the short rundown of how I approached virtual recruitment, which worked out quite well for me! As a takeaway, I’d like to emphasise that even if you are in a position to do loads of in person advertising for your trek, adding such a virtual recruitment campaign on top is a great way to keep the trek active and remind those who are interested to sign up!

Written by:

Melanie Meijer

-Cardiff Kilimanjaro 2021/22 Challenge Leader

One of the biggest fears most new challenge leaders face is recruitment. Whilst this is by far the most demanding element of your year as a challenge leader, it can also be the most rewarding. I'm hoping that by the end of this blog you will realise that, actually, recruitment can be one of the highlights of your Choose a Challenge experience.

Your role as a recruiter is fundamentally one of sales and, as with any sales role, trust is key. Whilst a quick post on Instagram with a cool photo of Kilimanjaro could attract attention, is it really going to convince students to part with a sizable chunk of their student loan to take on such a significant fundraising target? In my view, there are two key components to ensuring you build trust with someone considering your challenge. The first one and by far the most important is accountability. Put your money where your mouth is and advertise yourself! Stick your face on all the promo you can get your hands on and make sure people know you are the challenge leader. When people pay their registration fee, not only are they paying because they believe in themselves to reach their fundraising targets, but they believe you are going to be able to help them get there! It makes sense, then, that the next key component to building trust is being knowledgeable about your trip, and about Choose a Challenge. If you’re going to discuss the trip with potential signups, you’re going to need to know the basics. Familiarise yourself with the pricing scheme, some key highlights of your trip and you’ll be good to go!

In traditional recruitment, you would have been able to sit in a public space with banners and preach about what an amazing opportunity you’re offering passers-by, have a conversation with them and naturally build trust. The beauty of the Choose a Challenge system is that you don’t really need to sell the trip. You just need to sell your info meeting, where the amazing team at Choose a Challenge will run a deep-dive and Q&A to answer any of the burning questions your signups-to-be will no doubt have at this point. In an ideal world, this would have been the way I approached my own recruitment, but obviously, things were different this year.

While the COVID pandemic completely changed the way we recruited over the 2020/21 season, the key ideas really didn’t change that much. As I wasn’t able to sit outside of the university and shout at people, I instead made a quick video running through the basics in about 30 seconds. No doubt you’ll hear Choose a Challenge bang on about this ‘Elevator Pitch’ style, and for good reason! Getting the information across quickly and efficiently is vital especially if you advertise online, where people can get bored in the time it takes them to swipe onto the next post. I took my video and spammed it wherever I could, getting it into overheard pages and asking Instagram pages if they would also share it. The more people that hear your story, the more likely you are to find new signups. The key here is resilience and patience. Not everyone will say yes, but that’s fine! There are plenty of students to get through and not a huge amount of time to do it in.

Think outside the box! On a student campus, there are always 101 things trying to grab the attention of undergrads just trying to make it through their next lecture. If you’re going to be the one who gets them, you’ve got to make yourself stand out. Set up a ‘recruitment Tinder’ to try and find potential ‘matches’, plan a flash mob with your mates! Try and feature on the university gossip social media channel or even create a bedsheet banner!  The only limit really is your imagination. 

If you’re going to take anything away from this blog post, know that recruitment doesn’t have to be scary. In some ways, it was my favourite part of my Challenge Leader experience. From sneaking around the student village, putting up posters, to having those conversations and getting to know students, I have annoyed basically every Swansea-based Instagram or Facebook page with news of the trip. Have fun, be yourself and the signups will come.

Written by:

Kieran Burnie - Swansea EBC 2020/21 Challenge Leader 

As a student fundraiser, it's crucial to find a balance between fundraising, your degree, your social life, activities and your chill time. When you add being a Challenge Leader into the mix, this becomes even more vital.

As a leader, you have the responsibilities of setting an example, catering for everyone's questions, linking relevant resources and often acting as a welfare officer to the team. You must put others' needs first to make sure everyone is comfortable, happy and bonding as a team. But when does ‘me-time’ start? 

It’s not an easy task at first, but it’s also not impossible. Time balancing and management can become simple with some work on your communication, teamwork, organisation and planning skills. As a past Kilimanjaro Challenge Leader in my final year of university, I know this battle too well. Knowing when to compromise on time and give all attention to your team and when to take some me-time can be achieved, believe me. 

Communication

There are people all around you that are in similar situations or are always keen to listen and support you. One of our values at Choose a challenge is that we create communities. I’m sure every one of you is in numerous group chats and social groups! My first advice is always to reach out and see what others are doing and take some inspiration. Look to your societies, SU, RAGs, course mates, friends and family members to see how they balance their time and use that. Communication can preempt many issues before they occur. 

Talk to your participants frequently and make sure you know exactly where everyone is in their fundraising and training journeys. 1-2-1 meetings are ideal for this. 

If your team and network are happy, then you can afford to ease off and focus on your personal life. In saying that, even if your team isn't perfect and hasn't hit their targets on day 2, relax and organise your time accordingly. Allow some extra time to support someone who needs it, and then reward yourself with some ‘me time’ after.

Teamwork

This is simple if you get it right. Trust in your team to be independent and tackle their personal goals however they wish. As a leader, you can rely on the team outside of the participants for their support and resources. Make sure the communications links are made clear so participants know where to go and make sure any resources and like are accessible.

“Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who....” know where to ask! It’s down to you as a leader to keep a watchful eye to offer support guidance when they need it but haven't asked.

Organisation

The best tip to gain a balance and control is to stay organised. Rotas and schedules may seem trivial or only relative to work or revising but they can save you a headache in your day to day life too. You can allocate your time accordingly to where it's needed, prioritise other tasks and then set some time to relax. As a student, your priority will shift from deadlines to team sport matches, to fundraising 1-2-1s and so on. Having a plan and still staying flexible to change in those daily/weekly/monthly schedules will be an asset to you when managing your time. 

As an old leader, I used to balance my time between revision, my Dissertation, RAG, Lacrosse, team support, weekend fundraisers and street collections, nights out, training, matches and of course, lectures, seminars and workshops. If I didn't have a rough weekly plan and a to-do list with a colour-coded priority ranking (pastel colours are where it’s at), I would not have graduated with an upper second class honours degree, Challenge Leader of the year or hit my fundraising target! But I did!

Planning

Plan everything in advance! Try and get all your participants 1-2-1s completed in a few days and tick off another item on the to-do list. Do your market research! Sounds odd, but know what your audience needs or what they would enjoy. This is in regards to a fundraiser, ask around and work out what people want to see or do! Plan to make a realistic amount raised and strive to hit it. Any event will go well if it is thoroughly planned out in advance. 

My biggest tip to life management for the Challenge Leader at university is to set aside some weekly time to plan. Plan your next steps, career path, a bar crawl and most importantly, your fundraising. I used to dedicate 20 minutes a week in an evening while my nuggets were cooking, to brainstorm fundraising ideas and to rethink my network mind map. All notes, I would use my team around me and communication to develop those ideas into events with my charity support rep. 

Then when I could spare some time or a themed holiday/event was approaching, I had a little black book of events that I could put on at the snap of my fingers. This is how I hit my target and could just work for you.

Fundraising and Our Best Advice from my time as a Challenge Leader and student fundraiser

These suggestions and ideas are all from my experience, for specific ideas and clarifications, please contact your charity representative. 

The best tip from my experience  is to, first of all, do your market research and to plan, but then to make sure every event and idea hits one of three themes:

A Service 

You want your donors to be gaining something or be benefiting in some way from your fundraiser. This is usually the easiest way to fundraise. You can put on raffles or bake sales where people have a chance to win or buy something. Or you could run events where as long as they gain something, they will donate.

A WOW factor 

You could do something so incredibly impressive that people will want to donate either because they can’t believe their eyes or because the feat you have just achieved is worthy of their donation. For example, Felix climbed the height of Mt. Everest on his stairs at home during the April lockdown. A student at my university cycled across Dartmoor on a Unicycle. Then one of my old teammates cycled for 24hrs on a static bike at home. IMPRESSIVE

Something silly

This speaks for itself. If you entertain people and get people to laugh and, it's doing them a service but, because they are smiling and having a good time. They may feel more inclined to donate. For example, bathing in beans or tea, a 24hr danceathon or even fancy dress at an awkward time such as dressing up like a snail and crawling around the library or supermarket? Could be funny... In saying that, please follow government guidelines if we are still in restrictions. All ideas can be made virtual if you are creative!

Use your initiative and things outside the box. What are the old reliable ideas that never fail and what has never been done before? 

The key is to do a variety of events. One or two huge ones that take a large amount of planning, some medium events that take a few weeks to sort out and then some small events that you could do the next day. 

Please reach out if you would like any ideas on some of these size ranged events. Your partnered charity will also have a vast amount of supporting materials that you can reach out for. Lastly, you can also take a look into the National Association of Student Fundraisers ‘NaSFA’, who are a friendly team of volunteers who are always happy to help. You can find their website, their Facebook group and even a youtube channel. 

Please reach out if you would like any ideas on some of these size ranged events. Your partnered charity is your primary resource. They will also have a vast amount of supportive materials and ideas that you can reach out for. Lastly, you can also take a look into the National Association of Student Fundraisers ‘NaSFA’, who are a friendly team of volunteers who are always happy to help. You can find their website, their Facebook group and even a youtube channel. 

In my time as a student fundraiser, I have come across many fundraising ideas. We think the key is to do a variety of events. Such as, one or two large events that take a significant amount of planning, some medium events that take a few weeks to sort out, and a few small events that you could arrange for the next day. Below I have listed just a few ideas and broken them down into large, medium and small events. (Please look in detail of each event/idea, there will always be rules and guidance you must follow and sometimes limitations you may not have considered)

Large:

Challenge yourself to take on a tough fitness challenge. You can raise money for completing the event but you can also add little bonuses to it. Such as, having people donate to add a song to the playlist, donate for a specific outfit, or donate to add a unit of distance per mile. Make it entertaining! If it’s a virtual challenge, go on a virtual tour and share photos of where you may be. Rant and rave over social media.

• Host an event and charge entry, provide prizes, run bonus fundraisers such as raffles and snack/food and drinks stalls. 

  • Races (can be virtual)

  • Zumba or fitness sessions

  • Giggs and music events

  • Christmas market (can be virtual - invite local businesses or students who have hobbies and skills, charge per table and perhaps a % of profits can go to charity?)

  • Speed dating 

  • Club nights

  • Swap shops

  • Dance competition (can be virtual)

  • Outdoor movies

  • Talent show (can be virtual)

• 24 hour events (GO LIVE!)

  • Gaming stream

  • Danceathon

  • Baking

  • Cycling 

  • Walking 

  • Silence

  • Movie marathon

  • Eating challenge 

Medium:

• Reach out to Rotary/Lions clubs and businesses for sponsorship. Can you provide anything in return for a donation? A talk about the charity cause? Promotion?

• Message your old school to arrange non-uniform days, book sales, swap shops, yard sales, game stalls at fairs or cake sales

• Weekly quizzes (can be virtual)

• Weekly fitness classes (can be virtual)

• Weekly yoga classes (can be virtual)

• Karaoke nights 

• Dares for Dollar - Have a list of 10 or so dares with appropriate sponsorship and allow people to add dares. Film and live stream each one. (We recommend that you choose the 'dares' in order to keep it within your comfort zone and for safety)

• Host a scavenger hunt (can be virtual)

• Eating challenge (can be virtual)

Small:

• Have a clear out and sell some old belongings. Host a car boot sale or sell over an app or virtual platform

• Learn a new hobby or skill

• Sell a craft

• Give up a luxury item or action for a period of time

• Plan a raffle or tombola (great to double up with a large event). Please run this part your charity are raffle guidelines are very strict. Please read the guideline here and also check out this helpful pack that WWF made for our leaders.

Rant and rave about everything you do! Make sure everyone knows what you’re doing and how they can view and get involved! Share EVERYWHERE!

Our final tip is don’t fundraise alone! Team up and host joint events with your teammates and use your network! Get your friends to take on some of these challenges and events to fundraise to a different audience, sharing your fundraising page in the process!

Choose a Challenge are always here to support and help where we can, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us for advice if you or your team needs it. Your charity partner will be the main point of contact for fundraising queries as they are the experts.

Much love, 

Mike xx

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]]>Life Management at University Whilst Fundraising and Leading a TeamGuest UserFri, 04 Sep 2020 11:42:37 +0000https://www.chooseachallenge.com/cl-blog/virtual-recruitment5964a7828419c27cc3329509:5b880ec3cd8366411d01363c:5f5115dd9bbc7c5ddd7ff58b

It is that time of year, where we now have all you lovely challenge leaders on board and can begin the journey of making the 2020 recruitment season the best one yet… but with a twist!

With the ongoing pandemic, everything is now virtual, including our recruitment. We are here to give you advice, tips, and examples on how to build your virtual presence and become the ‘virtual’ go-to face on campus!

Developing Your Virtual Presence

So HOW do you become the virtual face on campus...? 

SOCIAL MEDIA of course! Before making any posts, do your market research and share across all of the relevant University platforms. Utilising a business point of view will be the most effective approach. Imagine bringing out a new product, you will want to know the target audience, their mindset, and where is the best place to reach them. It’s the exact same as advertising your challenges and information meetings!  

For example, the Three Peaks challenge might be very popular in an adventurous society (such as Scouting DofE, Trekking, Mountaineering, First Aid, etc). Once a targeted and personalised post has been created, then create a blanket generic post that is still enticing to share across all networks (such as halls pages, fresher event pages, fresher group chats, subject pages, and society group pages). 

What is the key platform? Is it Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Email …. even Tinder? Whichever platforms you choose to promote on make sure to adapt and make it relevant!

Types of posts

We find that a combination of varying posts is the best way to capture engagement and to stay relevant. Big bulky text can often bore the reader and be discouraging. Short snappy posts that state the highlights (as seen in the below examples) can really capture the attention of any audience.

The aim is to not sell a sign up here but build that virtual presence and get the trip known on campus. Lots of frequent small posts combined with video posts will for sure guarantee yourself a virtual presence on campus! Get some separate video posts uploaded too, just schedule then for different days or a morning and afternoon to text and image posts. 

One style we find really effective is personal posts made by you. Why not self-record and explain the odd text? Your face will become known and the element of trust will be built!

Facebook Examples:

Instagram Examples:

Tinder Examples:

TEN TOP TIPS

1. The key to a good post - make it short, sweet and filled with our beloved EMOJI’s 

2. Video tips - the Facebook algorithm (which you’ve all heard us discuss) loves videos and promotes them more. But make sure when you post a video to do it on its own without extra photos!

3. Personalise your content - Record yourself talking about the trip. A great example is the one many of you saw us show on the training day of Kieran from Swansea. Use the elevator pitch you have made, find a nice setting, and get your mate to film it!

4. Timing - When posting, make sure to adapt to ‘student hours.’ We all know students aren’t morning people so posting at 7am won’t reach many. The best times to post are between 10am-12pm and then 6pm-8pm!

5. Utilise those around you - Whether you have a RAG or not, you have people around you that can help! Get your housemates, course friends, society connections to post/share/like/comment on all your social media posts.

6. Cross advertise - scheduling different styled posts on different days or the morning and afternoon, will increase the efficiency of your post and the audience you will reach. Cross styled techniques can be effective as well, build your recruitment plan to incorporate multiple promotional activities at the same time. Schedule posts, send direct and blanket emails, and have other background promotion going on too, such as tinder or Tik-Tok. 

7. Postgraduates and Mature Students!! - A lot of the time they have separate Facebook pages/websites etc. Try to find your Post Graduate/Mature Officer or representative and ask them for help to promote to them as they do get left out or do not see a lot of the events going on in the Undergraduate Pages!

8. Mike’s Hootsuite Tip - Hootsuite (click here for link) is a scheduling app that can be paired with the majority of social media platforms. All kinds of posts can be drafted in one sitting and then automatically posted at a time that suits you. This is beneficial and you can make a solid recruitment plan with this tool. It couldn't be easier to draft those enticing posts and maximise engagement while you're not even sat at your laptop! This app really is a hoot…

9. Challenge specific Instagram/social media account! It’ll be a great focal point to advertise, build hype, and live stream important details and fun activities!

10. Airdrop! - When walking around campus, find airdrops that are on and airdrop them a link/poster/video to get them interested! (Thanks for this idea Jack Galloway)

The overall Key to a great recruitment period is Communication and Organisation! 

We hope this helps you make the most of 2020/21 recruitment! Please message Halina or Mike or email team@chooseachallenge.com if you have any questions or queries.

Not only is the decision important for your budding new Freshers, who’ll no doubt be keen to get stuck into some fundraising, but also your existing trekkers, your committee, and you. This blog aims to address the aspects of selecting challenges that work for your campus, how you can avoid making mistakes, maximise the number of fundraisers on your treks, and importantly, ensuring your new committee are in-the-know.

We sat down with everyone; RAGs, independent leaders, Student Union reps, at our annual Strategy Day and came up with a list of six major factors to consider when choosing your challenges (we’ve thrown one or two of our own in too) - let’s get started:

1) IF IT AIN’T BROKE, DON’T FIX IT

If the challenge was popular, do it again. The likelihood is that, because of it’s popularity, word will spread and people who missed the mark will want to be involved next year, along with the fresh crop of Freshers. You want to generate that “wow” factor of being the society/student group that runs the e.g. Kilimanjaro Trek - this can’t happen if your best challenge changes every year.The worst thing that will happen is it will downturn slightly, but not capitulate. Consider all of your previous challenges as levels of risk based on how many students were recruited; e.g. highest number recruited = low risk to choose again. Lowest number = high risk, etc.

This is without a doubt the most important point when selecting incoming challenges, and something that incoming committees often trip up on due to poor handovers; if they don’t know a challenge has worked they’re less likely to choose it again.

“As long as it runs successfully, Kilimanjaro will always have a place on our campus. Whilst it’s important to adjust other elements to support your demographic, the fundamentals remain the same.” - Lydia (Plymouth RAG)

2) TRENDS: LOCAL AND NATIONAL

Partially relating to the above, you want to ensure you’re looking at the trends at your university over not only the past 12 months, but the past few years. By trends here I mean both registration numbers (local) and what’s generally more popular (national). If your registration numbers for a certain trek have been declining, for reasons unknown to you, consider changing it for something that is working well nationally. A suggestion here from us would be the Morocco Atlas Trek, which has seen multiple factors of growth over the past two years.

That said, it’s important you at least try to understand why a certain challenge hasn’t worked well before attributing it to trends. For example, if you have a poor Challenge Leader for a trip two years in a row, it’s more than likely that this is the main reason for it’s poor performance rather than trends. Try to understand why a challenge has performed badly before assessing how to address the issue.

3) STUDENT DEMOGRAPHICS

Know your audience. Every university is different, some way more than others - hence the common interests, values, and expendable time of students at university A could be vastly different to university B. The best example here is Bangor University vs. Cambridge University. Or the University of Cumbria vs. LSE. One university naturally draws in the outdoorsy type, and the other is much more rooted in academia and science. This is why two students from Bangor University got a record-breaking number of students in a Kilimanjaro team in a first year - 42. Not only because the leaders worked hard (and they did!), but because the demographic welcomed it with open arms.

The question, then, is, what to do in the case that your demographic is not suited to outdoors activities and fundraising? If you’re a well-established RAG, you’re already there. Keep doing what you’re doing; it’s the student community and social side of RAGs that often swing the students’ whose priority is purely academia. If not, try and work towards becoming more established as a social society and focus on one or two big challenges. Have more of an appeal than just overseas challenges (not that people should need more!) - being a multi-faceted society will help massively during promo.

4) COMPETITION

Something often overlooked by RAGs is how two events can often compete with one-another. This can be the case both with our challenges and challenges offered by our competitors. For example, Everest Base Camp and Kilimanjaro often tend to compete, and Machu Picchu tends to compete with other events ran external to us.

To alleviate this, we’d highly recommend running e.g. Machu Picchu instead of, not alongside, other competing events. And if you feel you’d like to run other competing events, simply swap Machu Picchu out for an Everest Base Camp or Kilimanjaro - simples!

5) YOUR CAPACITY AS A SOCIETY

A fairly straightforward one. If your society is very fresh off the boat, you’ve only got a handful of committee members, and/or you’ve only ran a handful of challenges in the past, probably best not to bust out a Kili, EBC, and Machu all in the same year. Be realistic with yourselves. Remember that having one big team is heaps more beneficial than having three or four small teams; team cohesion will be higher, therefore more people will fundraise; more people will hit their targets and travel; more money raised for charity and more likely to return for more!

If you’ve run a Three Peaks this year, maybe consider adding a Morocco to your portfolio. If this is too much of a risk, then maybe replacing Three Peaks with Morocco would be more viable.

6) UNIVERSITY FACILITIES

Does your Student’s Union support your recruitment and fundraising? Do you have an established sports department? If you have difficulties with these then you’ll need contingencies in place if you’re running bigger challenges. Unhelpful institutions can prove to be tough roadblocks throughout Freshers and later down the line. It’s important to know you have the support of your SU before stepping on anyones toes.

Sports-wise, if you have a large department, definitely consider choosing a marathon!

That’s just about all I can muster this afternoon - I hope it’s helped!

I’d love to hear your opinions so if you agree or disagree with anything I’ve mentioned above then please stay engaged and chuck a comment on here or on Facebook - I’d love to hear from you.

The all-important Challenge Selection Form will be released towards the end of April, start of May, at which point you’ll have one month (until 6th June) to complete the form to confirm your challenges for the next academic year.

Any questions in the meantime? Pop us a line at rag@chooseachallenge.com

Every year, we make a huge effort to spread challenges and the student fundraising that follows around the UK. After all, it’s what’s created immense memories and funded awesome causes! If you’re reading this, the likelihood is that you’re the first ever Choose a Challenge Leader on your campus. This blog aims to continue that journey.

This is your chance to create your legacy and ensure that your campus remains an entry-point for fellow adventurers and fundraisers.

THE THREE (MAIN) METHODS

CREATING A SOCIETY

Difficulty - Medium

Starting something from scratch can seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. Last year’s Challenge Leader of the Year, Dylan (UCC), managed to start running challenges from Cork’s Pharmacy Society. Not only does this save the hassle of creating a new society, but the entire existing audience of the society is retained.

“PharmSoc allows us to have access to all the University’s services and facilities. It provides a foundation of support for challenge teams and ensures PharmSoc continues to build communities and have an impact on students” - Dylan Burke (UCC)

In order to entrench challenges fully, however, you’ll want to follow the lead of Jack Galloway (Huddersfield). Jack went from leading a Bilbao Marathon team in 2019 to now being founder and president of the University of Huddersfield’s Challenges Society, which now runs three separate challenges. Read all about Jack’s story in his blog here.

To get started setting up a society, simply get in touch with your university’s Activities officer (usually a Sabbatical role) or Student’s Union representative and they’ll point you in the right direction of your university’s processes. All you’ll need is a few friends or team-mates to fill some committee roles and you’ll be good to go!

“Over the first few months the society grew from the 7 original members to a remarkable 138 members…we have tripled our fundraising output year-on-year” - Jack Galloway (University of Huddersfield)

REFER-A-LEADER *NEW*

Difficulty - Easy

A brand new process we’re very excited about: refer-a-leader! Earn some sweet sweet bucks simply for introducing one of your friends to us. If they confirm a challenge with us and register, you’ll earn an easy £50. If they go on to recruit over 10 participants for an overseas trek, you’ll earn a sweet £100. Easy as relaxing on the beaches of Zanzibar!

Our refer-a-leader form is NOW OPEN and will remain open until 31st May. However, the earlier the better! Spaces are limited for our Challenge Leader positions and we’re very keen to get our new leaders on board in the next month.

UTILISE YOUR TEAM

Difficulty - Very Easy

Utilising your team means reaching out and seeing if anyone has been inspired by your position as Challenge Leader. I’ve written very easy - this is of course conditional on the size and engagement of your team. Got a really keen fundraiser? Someone seems like they want to get involved next year? Ask them to get in touch with us and we can get the ball rolling with on-boarding them as a 2021 Challenge Leader!

We’ve got a bunch of graphics and videos you can use to spur any keen beans on - find them here.

We’ll be releasing the all-important Challenge Confirmation Form - the form you’ll use to confirm your 2021 challenges - on 1st May, giving you ample time to get cracking with the above!

If you’ve any questions in the meantime, please don’t hesitate to pop us a line at team@chooseachallenge.com.

Our team started in 2018, when 7 students got together to take part in the Bilbao Night Marathon for the charity Mind. It was many of the teams first year at University and we were looking to do something amazing that will make our free time valuable. We spent many weekends doing amazing fundraisers including cake sales and bike marathons in order to reach our target. We grew together as a team and I can confidently say that so many of my strongest relationships at University were developed because of this opportunity. I also had the pleasure of watching other students in my team develop and showcase their skills through the whole year.

Coming up to the end of the year we decided we needed to do more challenges as a team, and we wanted to find a way to make these challenges available to the all students at Huddersfield. Working together we developed the University of Huddersfield Challenge Society, with members from the Bilbao team taking up important roles within the team. We worked with Choose a Challenge to decide what challenges we wanted to do but also started to develop our own challenges. The society structure is similar to that of Choose a Challenge we have students who play the role of challenge leaders, promoting and establishing our challenges. We are now an established society at the University and have an amazing team working together to ensure all students have the opportunity to do something amazing.

After months of development the society launched in September 2019 and the work began to fill our challenges. Over the first few months support for the society grew from the 7 original members to a remarkable 138 members. With this we took on three Choose a Challenge, challenges which we ended up with over 20 members taking on amazing trips around the world. We have also tripled the total fundraising output we have per year, whilst introducing new charities to our University, this is something we are very proud of and it forms the basis of our main aim each year.

The society has given the team freedom to book rooms and stalls to be used for meetings and fundraisers around the University. It has also developed a community of amazing people who are all striving to better their own lives but also support great causes around the country. Establishing the society has also allowed us to utilise the University to the best of our abilities, advertisement soared this year which is likely the main reason we received so much interest. We can now also rely on the Students Union to support us and push our teams further, allowing us to reach even greater fundraising goals each year.

For me the society represents the power that students can have to make a real change, we have not only built a community of amazing people, but we have also used our position to promote charities and campaigns around the University. This includes campaigns such as Travellers Against Plastics and our continued support for opening sporting opportunities to all students regardless of their circumstances.

Huddersfield was not my first time at University, when I went to University for the first time, I found myself feeling isolated and spent a lot of time on my own. But thanks to this team I have built a group of friends that I feel I will take forward with me for life. The society and Choose a Challenge have given the opportunity to build relationships and develop myself in ways I never expected. It would be my advice to all to take on this amazing opportunity but to not only allow it to be a one- year thing. I now have the chance to take on more amazing challenges but to also share my love of adventure with others. Whilst I agree taking on any challenge is an amazing feat, I would still always say that making it an everlasting legacy is truly something special.

Many people will look at this and think that it must take so much work to set something like this up and I cannot lie it can be challenging. However, the team at Choose a Challenge and at my Students Union supported me from day one, offering me advice on how to build and grow the team in a way I could have only hoped for. My interpersonal skills such as my teamwork and communication have developed so much, and I now feel confident to promote events like this and speak to people I would not have normally had the chance to talk to.

I am now coming towards the end of my time at University and will soon be leaving the Society to focus on my final year. However, I look at the team we have with confidence that the society will grow year on year. We have built the foundations of something very special and feel that the team will be in place to offer these opportunities for many years to come. I would always say to others that they should try make something more from their challenge. If given the chance build a team that can carry on the amazing work you have done whilst at University, allow yourself to look back on your time and realise how much of a difference you have made to the students of the future.