Remembering Not To Forget

Anyone who wants to! Remembering Not to Forget Trustees will be pushing themselves to contribute as many kilometres as we can, but we’d like as many people as possible to get involved in this challenge. As well as raising funds, we also want to use this challenge as a way of raising awareness of dementia (see also: How will you use this challenge to raise awareness of dementia?).

Furthermore, research shows that regular exercise can reduce the risk of dementia so by encouraging people to be more active we hope that we can help people reduce their risk of developing dementia in later life.

We’d love it if your company, school or other group would like to organise an event to contribute some kilometres and funds. A swimathon? Sponsored run? Hopathon? You decide, and we’ll provide you with advice to organise your event. We’ll also be approaching cycling/ running/ swimming clubs to encourage people to sign up as a challenge for 2017. If you’re a member of a group which you think might be interested please let us know.

In order to count towards the total distance, the journey must be powered by human energy and the distance travelled must be measured and submitted to us (see also: How will you record progress?). The journey must take place between 1st January and 31st December 2017.

For example, we’ll count:

• Events taken part in during the year. Some of the trustees will be cycling Lands End to John O’Groats in the summer of 2017. We’ll also be taking part in other events and advertising these on the website if anyone wants to join us.
• Training distances for events.
• Distances collected at Round the World participation events: we will organise a number of events during the year for people to take part in and contribute distances. Details of these will be added to our website and Facebook page, and publicised in our newsletter (sign up here if you don’t currently receive this but would like to) and on Twitter.
• Commuting kilometres.
• Distances undertaken in the gym – static bikes, spin classes, treadmills, rowing machines, even a Zumba or other aerobics class, you just need to be able to measure the distance travelled (e.g. using a pedometer if the distance isn’t captured by the machine itself).
• Steps per day. If you already count your steps every day with a FitBit or other fitness watch, why not see how far you can travel in a year?
• Going for a walk with the kids around the park? Record the distance you travel and add it to our total. If four of you go for a 2km walk that will be 4 x 2 = 8km. Every kilometre counts and we’ll appreciate them even more knowing that a kilometre is a long way for little legs!
• Any more unusual journeys you undertake – dragon boating, scootering, ski-ing, kayaking, climbing…

The possibilities are endless! Just record your distance and let us know. And once you’ve recorded your distance, we hope you’ll let your friends and family know you’re taking part in the challenge using our hashtag #roundtheworldRNF (see also: How will you use this challenge to raise awareness of dementia?).

If you’re not sure if your activity counts as ‘self-powered’ just email us and we can let you know.

Unfortunately we can’t count any donations of kilometres without proof of distance travelled – e.g ‘I went for a swim in a lake and I was in for about 20 minutes so I reckon I swam about a kilometre’.

Absolutely! Use the challenge as motivation for a New Year’s resolution or just to get outside and get active in the cold weather.
We’re encouraging people to get involved by contributing distances, but how you do it is up to you. How much of a challenge do you want to take on? Here are some ideas to get you started.

• Set yourself a distance and see how quickly you can achieve it, e.g. how many months would it take you to run 1000km?
• See how far you can cycle/ run/ swim in one month.
• See how far you can travel in 2017 and ask people to sponsor you per kilometre.
• Take on a chunk of the equator*:

From	To	Distance
Siriba, Kenya	Nanyuki, Kenya	400.5km
Kampala, Uganda	Kismayo, Somalia	1,112km
Quito, Ecuador	Macapa, Brazil	3,045km
Kismayo, Somalia	Pontianak, Indonesia	7,423km

*Please note that these distances are provided as guidance only, and are correct according to websites including timeanddate.com. These locations are all either on or less than 50km away from the equator.

We’d love it if you let us know what challenge you have in mind so we can track your progress and encourage you along the way. We also hope to feature supporter journeys on social media (see also: How will you use this challenge to raise awareness of dementia?).

See also: How will you record progress?

Aside from the benefits of regular exercise and the sense of achievement that comes with completing a challenge, if you choose to set yourself a challenge we will mark your achievements at the end of 2017:
Everyone who completes their target distance

• will receive a certificate
• and raises over £250 will receive a certificate and a medal
• and raises over £1000 will receive a certificate, a medal and a T-shirt.

It’s quick and easy to set up your own fundraising page on MyDonate, which you can share with friends, family and colleagues:
1. Go to: BT Donate and follow the Registration guidance. You can also set up as a fundraising team – see guidance under ‘Start Fundraising’ section.
2. Please make sure that you link your page to the main Round the World event page (instructions under ‘Start Fundraising’/ ‘Organised Events’ heading on the same page).
3. If you choose to personalise your thank you message please include a link to the Remembering Not to Forget website: rememberingnottoforget.org.uk.
4. You can also log into your account by downloading the MyDonate app, or through Facebook.
5. You can run reports to access details of your donations under ‘Create a report’.

If you have questions about using MyDonate after setting up your page please check the FAQs: BT Donate FAQs or contact us.

If you would like to organise your own event we can also provide you with additional support and resources (e.g. hard copy sponsorship forms if you would prefer to use these).

We’ll also ask you to sign our Fundraising Agreement which gives you more information about fundraising for us.

We know how many sponsored events there are going on, and we completely understand that you may not want to ask people for sponsorship. Here are some other ways you can support this challenge:

• Donate your kilometres, and share details of the challenge on social media (see also: How will you use this challenge to raise awareness of dementia?) without asking for sponsorship. This doesn’t have to be a big commitment – you could just contribute a 5km run one weekend (though obviously we’d be grateful for as many kilometres as you can provide!).
• If you’re taking part in a marathon or other event this year for a charity you can donate your training kilometres to us, even if you’re fundraising for another charity. Your pain will be helping people twice over!*
• Share details of the challenge with family members, friends and colleagues who might be interested in getting involved – add them to the Facebook invite, send them the link to this page or download and share a hard copy of the FAQs.
• Put up the poster in your office, local gym or sports club.
• Sponsor someone else taking on a challenge. We’ll have a list of upcoming events and sponsorship pages on the Round the World page on our website.
• Participate in or volunteer at one of the events we organise – we’ll be adding more details of these to our website and Facebook page, and publicising them in our newsletter (sign up here if you don’t currently receive this but would like to) and on Twitter.

*If you’re taking part in a sponsored event in aid of another charity but would also like to donate your kilometres to Remembering Not to Forget, please make this clear in advance to us and to your sponsors to ensure transparency.

Alongside raising funds, a really important element of this challenge is to raise awareness of dementia. We’re asking supporters to publicise their efforts on social media using the hashtag #roundtheworldRNF, sharing details of the challenge and any photos. You’ll also be able to share details of your activity on Strava (see: How will you record progress?). We’d love to add photos of supporters getting involved to our website and social media streams too.

In addition, we’ll be holding Dementia Friends sessions during the year to change people’s perceptions of dementia and help to transform the way the nation thinks, acts and talks about the condition.

We’ll record our progress on our website, showing how far we’ve travelled around the equator, as well as our top contributors. We’ll publish an official update on the first of each month (and in between if we reach a milestone). In addition, we’ll showcase any particularly weird and wonderful ways of travelling that supporters come up with!

Strava

• We have set up a club on Strava where supporters can log each activity. You’ll be able to access geeky stats about your activity, as well as other people taking part, give people kudos on their activity and share photos and comments to keep in touch with other people contributing kilometres. It will also be easy to share your rides/ swims/ runs on Facebook or Twitter from Strava using our hashtag, #roundtheworldRNF.
• If you’ve not used Strava before – don’t worry! You can set up/log into your account through their website or it’s free to download the app.
• Find out how to add yourself and your activities to our club. The club name is ‘Remembering Not to Forget’, type of club ‘All’.

FitBit
If you have a FitBit but don’t currently use Strava, it’s very easy to link the two up, use this link after you have created an account on Strava:
Connect Fitbit to Strava

If you use another app or, or would prefer to record your activity another way (e.g. using Google maps to measure distances) that’s no problem. You can log your distances through our website, you can email us your distances and we’ll add them for you.

We’re reliant on supporters providing us with honest and accurate data about the distances they have travelled so please ensure you check your submissions carefully! Remembering Not to Forget is not able to check individual submissions and does not accept responsibility for any inaccurate data submitted.

No, you can send in your distances in miles as well, we can convert them for you. We have to use one unit of measurement for the overall total for consistency.

Yes! We’d love to have contributors from all around the world, in keeping with the global theme of our challenge. It doesn’t matter where you’re based, just follow the advice above to contribute your kilometres and share your progress.