Sportive rip offs 750 x £27 = £20250

DaveMoss

Still recovering from organising the Drumlanrig Challenge yeaterday. At one pont on Friday, haveing driven 150 miles to put out signs then spent a few ours making my share of the sandwiches, the thought did occur to me that to work that hard for my employer I would need a very big pay rise! this on top of many hours by me and the team before the event. But i do it to raise funds for tearfund, and do it happily, as do the other 27 helpers on the day and the army of cake bakers and sanwich makers who provide the feedstocks.
Now here is the thing, you choose your own entry fee!, it's a total donation to tearfund, you can enter for free, but optional donations still average over £30 a head. So I guess that price level is about right for the product, and we should still have faith in human nature. The event expenses are covered by running a coffee morning , selling home baking ( and left over bannanas ) and other fundraising.. We maid over £11 000, but if I were to pay the volunteers minimum wage, add employers NI and overheads, pay myself and the main co organiser £15 an hour, we would give it up as a loss maker.
I would not pay to ride a sportive organised for private profit. Can't see the point, I'd rather ride the club run. But folks like Wiggle and Evans I suspect are doing it more for publicity and to produce bike buyers than for direct profit. Their events probably represent a real bargain.

If you prefer your entry fees to go entirly to charity, look at http://www.tearfundcycling.btck.co.uk
or join me on the Bethany Edinburgh sportive, June 2nd, see www.entrycentral.com.

On the issue of police having no powers, should the for profit orgaisers not have a street trading licence for the feedstations?