City to Bay Fun Run

[crawf]

23,000 join fun run
Article from: The Advertiser

CLARE PEDDIE, ANTIMO IANNELLA

September 16, 2007 03:02pm

A FUN run, walk or ride, the City to Bay was enjoyed by more than 23,000 people this year, including elite athletes, men in drag and the teletubbies.
Director Joe Stevens said numbers were down on last year's event, with 23,121 registered this year compared to 23,606 last year.

He said females continued to out-number males.

"They are more body-conscious I think," he said.

But there were quite a few `she-males' on the road.

One conspicuous group ran in drag for the charity WaterAid, which helps some of the world's poorest people access clean water and sanitation.

David (Davina) Cruickshanks-Boyd from Adelaide consulting firm Parsons Brinckerhoff, or PB, raises money for projects in Papua New Guinea and East Timor.

"I'd been pushing WaterAid a lot as our chairity of choice so the staff called my bluff and said `if we raise $800 will you run in drag?'

"They raised the money so we had to do it."

Another creative approach to fundraising came from Complete Removals. Callum Donaldson and the team rolled a piano, complete with pianist, the full 12km. They raised $1500 for kids with cancer.

"We do piano removals day in day out and so it was a chance to advertise the company and we thought while we're at it, we'll raise some money for charity," he said.

"We've been practising six days a week for the last 10 years, except normally we don't park the truck 12km away."

Piano player Mark Richardson said it was an unusal gig.

"It's a piano player's worst nightmare getting run out of town but it's for a good cause."


Anyone do the city to bay?, I did the 6km run and was impressed with what I did, and thought the event was great (loved the bands playing along the route). Aiming to do the 12km next year!

[ozfoto]

I entered this year- first time I have ever done it. Only did the 6km walk. I was impressed with the organisation of it all.

The only complaint was with waiting for the tram to get back to Kurralta Park. While in line for the tram the rain hit so we were quite soaked by the time we got on the tram. And while generally the trams were running every 5 minutes or so, at one point (and this was while we were all standing in the rain) there was a gap of about 20 minutes which caused a few sarcastic comments about Rann and his trams!

But they can't control the weather, and the staff that were getting everyone onto the trams did quite a good job.

One thing though- although they had tokens available for free travel, why not just make all tram travel on the day free anyway- saves having to print and collect the tokens, as well as having someone there selling tickets for those that didn't have a voucher.