Well it has been yet another roller coaster month, we have had to bid farewell to Rogue Run, the Channel swim and quite possibly our beloved van, but itâs not all doom and gloom â mum retired and we had a party (as social convention dictates), I learnt that labels only make you unhappy, I published book 3 of The Dragon Realm Chronicles series, and the husband and I have learnt that while we have our health, good jobs and a fantastic home, patience is a virtue which we are both lacking at the moment.
Bear with me this blog post could be a âseveral parterâ!
Rogue Run â Alas finally a weight lifted from my shoulders
Rogue Run is the European charity car driving holiday that my business partners and I have run (excuse the pun) for several years. Originally there were six members in the event team but over the years we have settled (unintentionally) upon three directors and periodical outside help. We have learnt over the last two years that as the participant list has grown 3 people in the event team are not enough. Those that volunteer to help us soon realise that the organisation of such an event is not a 5 minute job, and so they then cannot continue, which we donât blame them for. It sounds pessimistic, but with events such as these you do it for the love, not for what you get out of it.
This year, we had to cancel Rogue Run at the last minute. Understandably we came under scrutiny given that this was our holiday and the event team did not blame anyone for getting upset. However, some actually accused us of not organising the event at all and that is why we cancelled.
This is complete nonsense and I for one became very angry at such an accusation, given that we never warranted such an attack.
We wouldnât cancel unless there was something serious afoot. Unfortunately, we could only give limited details which did not help our reasoning behind it, but one thing I can confirm is that it had nothing to do with the troublemakers who were clearly trying to get out of the event three weeks beforehand â like I said, we have run this event for years, and we have honestly witnessed every trick in the book as far as participants are concerned.
I am happy to say that the majority of the participants from this year formed their own road trip, so at least they went away and things werenât completely ruined for them.
Since the cancellation, we have also been questioned as to the amount we charged for the registration fee of the event. The way we have always marketed Rogue Run, is that we organised the campsites and ferries, participants just need to add fuel and food. We are a not-for-profit company, which mean just that, but for the record, here is the difference between a fully fledged event/company and a road-trip among friends:
- Legal documentation has to be air tight (which they are if I do say so myself).
We have undergone enquiry from other driving holidays, the biggest dispute has been from the event that our event team met on. They tried to take us to court for copyrighting the idea of a road trip. Under UK legislation you cannot copyright an idea, ideas are never absolute or guaranteed that is why they are called ideas. This is the same for discussions floating ideas on forums etc. You also cannot copyright an event theme, you may be the first one to come up with the theme, but you cannot stop others from creating their own variations.
You can be sued for breaching trademark copyright and taking business away from a competitor. The other driving holiday who tried to sue us for taking their participants, even though we could flawlessly prove that none of their participants were involved, nor had any even registered with us.
They then tried to sue us for copyright infringement for their trademarked logo, and of their name because it had the word ‘run’ in it.
Their name wasn’t trademarked so that was thrown out straight away, their logo is trademarked, but there was no similarity between their logo and ours, so that too fell flat on its nose as well!
Legal documentation not only comes into play regarding the company setup, logos, restrictions, registrations but also the obligations under the terms and conditions. For example, the obligations between participants and event team, and also those lovely people that try and get out of the event 3 weeks before it is due to take place and as a result, costs us money!
Now, given that we have in-house people to adhere to our legals, which should they provide their expertise for free?
- Terms and conditions
These consist of the usual event details, data protection information and safe harbours, our views on anti-social behaviour, and our involvement if participants get themselves into legal trouble abroad. They also clearly list out the agreed obligations of the event team and the participants for the run. Despite the woolly arguments, this year the obligations were met by the event team.
- Marketing
Yes there is a cost for this no matter how minimal. We also attend several events/car shows per year to raise the profile of the run and the chosen charity all of which have an entry or trading fee.
In between car shows and public appearances we also try and post on social networking sites as often as possible to keep the momentum and enthusiasm going. Most of the time these are free, but it does cost to boost the occasional post.
The final stages of the marketing/information process are to notify participants of what to bring with them in a fully exhaustive information pack. This is standard, but if there is one thing we learnt, the information pack can go into pages and pages of detail however you will still get participants missing things and not reading it properly and with regards to customer services there is only so far you can go.
- Customer service
Some of the event team members deal with international client services within an industry leader as part of their day job. My concept on client/customer service is that I would always treat people the way I would like to be treated, communication is key, however there is a line. If someone wants something for nothing, if there is risk involved, and if someone is just being plain unreasonable, the customer is not always right.
I in particular have noticed over the years the increase in people wanting something for nothing, or they will want you to do everything because you organised the event, so naturally you have to organise the people of the event. We are not tour guides nor have we ever marketed ourselves this way. We would provide all of the information necessary, and perhaps naturally lead some convoys, but at the same time we would not be there to babysit. There is a reason why we have an 18+ age limit on the run.
While there has to be customer service in place, we wanted the whole run to have an informal tone, but at the same time if a participant wanted to try and insult us on a public forum, pull out of the event a few weeks beforehand costing us money, threaten us etc we were not going to take it â why should we after all, just because we are proving individuals with an event, does mean we would be at their beck and call 24/7.
- Booking of campsites and ferries
Unlike other events we booked the campsites and mode of transport to Europe, this was normally in the form of a ferry. The ferry never proved to be the problem it was usually the campsites. We used to get brilliant discounts as a group, but at the same time a lot of campsites did not like big groups there because other driving holidays had spoiled it for the rest of us.
- Charity obligations
We always associated ourselves with a charity, not because it looked good, but because it is genuinely gratifying when you help underfunded charities continue to help their patrons. We mainly dealt with The Jennifer Trust and the Multi-Sports Club. We also made it so participants could raise money for their own charities so they did not feel obliged to just be tied into ours.
- Business expenses and accountancy
Luckily one of the directors is an accountant, but still even though we are not-for-profit the books have to be balanced, again paperwork that you wouldnât normally encounter on an informal road-trip among friends.
With all of this in mind, the amount of work this event takes to organise is actually quite staggering. This year in particular we did get to breaking point, as Rogue Run was scheduled to make its last run in May. We as an event team knew we could not carry this on for much longer, the participant list kept growing every year which was great, but with an event team who has to dedicate at least 250 hours per week on their own jobs, it was hard to keep this going.
Additionally we received some quite serious news that would have a long term effect which I cannot (and will not) go into further details about. So we decided to make this the last run, keep it quiet and go out with a bang and make sure everyone had a great time.
However, this wasn’t going to be the case.
You always get the odd trouble-maker and this is nothing new to us, we have seen it all over the years, but this year we did not need it. You know the type of folks I am talking about, the ones that pick holes in every post you list, try to make it look like a dispute is solely your fault, when letâs face it, in any dispute there are always at least 2 parties involved and there is a certain level of responsibility on both sides. Well we got to the point where we knew for definite that we would be a few extra cars down, this being so close to the run meant a deficit for the event team, so we had to take a long hard look at the pros and cons of keeping the run going and decided that in the end it was cheaper to cancel than continue. So we grudgingly posted the cancellation and gave everyone a refund.
To be more colloquial for a second, this sucked beyond belief, we hoped we would never have to do this, but it seems to be a year of event cancelling, for example 2 events so far this year have cancelled on me, but I have not held it against them being a business owner I know the trials and tribulations of events, however from our cancellation we were expecting two things:
1) Upsetting a lot of people, which we tried our best to ease the burden of, after all it was their holiday we nearly ruined;
2) Our resident trouble-maker would undoubtedly cause more trouble, and they did.
On a brighter note, the run has been taken over by a Rogue Run veteran, and still went ahead in May.
While we do admit this situation could have been handled a bit better by us, there is a very serious element involved, we would not just cancel this event that we have been running for years on a whim, or because someone was being mean to us, we have seen every type of customer scenario and we are all in grown-up jobs and deal with difficult individuals every day.
For the good points, Rogue Run was set up as a not-for-profit venture and that is exactly what we did and we have accomplished several things:
- Created a road-trip which is cheaper in comparison to others.
- Created a road-trip that treats both genders equally. Just because you are a female doesn’t mean you can’t love cars exactly the same way as men do, and at the same time Rogue Run was never a âlads magâ type of holiday, women were never expected to be âeasyâ or drape themselves across bonnets â again unlike some other events out there. Rogue Run would also never include adult entertainment within itâs scheduling.
- We raised thousands for several different charities namely Multi-Sports Club, Jennifer Trust.
- We had so many laughs and made many brilliant friends and met some amazing people along the way;
- We proved that people can do something fun, raise money for charity and not be pushed into corporate sponsorship or commercialised so companies can make a huge profit.
Overall for the event team, it was a great venture to be a part of, but I am also relieved to be moving on.
So what is happening to us in the future, well Rogue Run will be wound up as of June 2015, we will go our separate ways (well except for Jon and I obviously) and get involved in other things.
The world is our oyster again â watch this space!