Fundraisers of the month for October

Meet Katie, Clare, Florence and Suzie of Yac-Yak running group in Saffron Walden who really go the extra mile to raise money for MS-UK!

Yac-Yak is an unaffiliated ladies running group based in Saffron Walden, Essex. As you can probably guess from the name, ‘talking’ is almost as important to us as running! Our coach and leader Clare Thompson (second left in the picture) is an established personal trainer, triathlete and ultra-marathon competitor, who is also passionate about helping others and supporting various charities, but MS-UK is particularly close to her heart as her sister was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) some years ago and the organisation has been of great support to her at a number of family crisis points over the years.

Katie Barrett (left in the picture) has also experienced the difficulties this disease brings with her cousins. Sadly, her cousin Linda passed away some years ago with MS when treatments were not so well developed, but her daughter in her mid-thirties has recently been diagnosed. Her husband’s family also has a recent diagnosis of MS.

Suzie Nicholson (right in the picture) also has friends recently diagnosed, particularly female friends of a similar age. These were active people who are now struggling with the symptoms and worried about their future and how they are going to be affected, both mentally and physically.

Florence Deller (second from the right), a qualified physiotherapist, is in regular contact with MS patients. She works alongside them and their families providing advice and practical support to help them maintain their independence. Together they make up Yac-Yak team purple… but behind them the rest of the Yac-Yak running group has provided the most amazing support and commitment to helping raise funds for MS-UK over the next nine months.

Our journey began when Katie initially signed up to run the London Royal Parks half marathon for MS-UK on 13 October 2024. Another Yac-Yak member had signed up to run for motor neuron disease. However, following the television coverage of the London Marathon in 2024, and hearing the inspiring stories of many of the runners and their fund-raising achievements, she also decided to include the 2025 London Marathon to her programme of fundraising for her final year at work, hoping she could attract colleagues and her company LabCorp, which involved in the development of new MS treatments, to also support the cause financially.

Suzie also agreed to sign up when she heard as did Florence, and Yac-Yak team purple became official!

In fact, the first event the group took part in was the Saucony London 10K. This run by Clare, Katie, Suzie and fellow Yac-Yak member Lil, was the first fundraiser and we used this to launch our year-long campaign and raise awareness locally by a write up in the Walden Local and launched our fundraising announcing our initial £10,000 target!

So now the fundraising began in earnest, with all sorts of ideas being put forward

• Katie is running regular car-boot sales, plus selling donated goods on Facebook Marketplace, and through local paper free ads. She also has a stall booked to sell a number of baby and child items at a forthcoming Mum2Mum sale in CambridgeMost people have unwanted ‘stuff’ lurking in their spare bedrooms or attics and may feel it’s too good to go to a charity shop, or want it to go to a more specific cause. A recently donated Hoffner guitar fetched £200 on Marketplace, and each car boot sale generally raises at least £150
• Suzie, a professional gardener, is assisting Katie with the sales, but is also running a number of Christmas wreath-making classes, and making wreaths for sale at a Christmas market on 4 December. Florence and Janie are making a magnificent Christmas cake which will raise funds via a ‘guess the weight of the cake’ raffle.
• The team, with support of other Yac-Yak members, ran a highly successful cake and preserve stall, together with a used book stall and Beanie-baby tombola (manned by an MS-UK t-shirt wearing dinosaur!). This raised over £1,000

Our next major fundraising event is a quiz night and raffle being run by the team, which is already a sell out, so should raise in excess of £1000

A further used book stall and coffee morning is planned. Date to be confirmed

• Saffron Walden triathlon club has also now confirmed we will be the recipients of a donation when they run their annual event in May 2025. Yac-Yak are regular team and individual event competitors and Clare was also the coach for the group and supporter for a number of years.
• To ensure we can take money at these events we invested in a sum-up machine, which means we can take card payments with a very low (0.16%) commission
• All events get promoted through our local paper and reported back on to keep public awareness up and Clare (a talented closet artist!) prepared a base poster we also use to promote our events. On average, we have two entries a month in the local paper, and aim for at least one fund raising event a month

Business cards providing a QR code linked to the just giving website were printed and are given to people at every opportunity!

Clare has also set herself a major personal challenge she has called ‘MSM 25-62 challenge’. For the MS-marathon fund raiser, she will run a mile every hour for 25 hours, at the end of the run she will perform 25 exercises, for example 25 burpees, and at the end of the 25 hours she will perform 62 exercises! She will be getting local businesses to sponsor a mile, and all monies raised will be added to our marathon pot.

We feel very honoured to be chosen as MS-UK fundraiser of the month, but we could not achieve what we do without the support and commitment of the rest of the running group. Their friendship and generous spirts has made this possible and has helped to bring us together working for a common valuable cause.