proper planning prevents p*** poor performance

Preamble

So … the best part about having your own website, is the ability to write and publish whatever you want; no pesky word limits or picture size restrictions to worry about – and in this case, it means Alison waffle through and through. And I can swear as much as I like. The difficult bit is keeping people interested enough to read all of the aforementioned waffle; let’s see how I get on! 

Background

Henry’s mum, Joan Smith, was diagnosed with Alzheimers about 5 years before she passed away in 2021 although there had been some tell-tale concerns in the 2 years prior, that led to tests and the eventual diagnosis (delivered (I am told) by an East European consultant with the bedside manner of the Stasi). Henry actually floated the idea of doing something to raise money for the Alzheimer's Society (AS) for a year or so but became a bit more serious about it in early 2023. 

We have both been riding scooters since our teen years; my first scooter rally was Morecambe (admittedly on the train) from Mum & Dad’s house in Stoke in 1982 (I was 15 in case anyone was wondering); Henry’s first one was Great Yarmouth in 1986 even though he had bought his first Lambretta 2 years previously. Since those early days, separately and together, we have spent more than the last 40 years (now that's a scary number) travelling the length and breadth of Europe, rallying, touring and racing on scooters, pushing the boundaries (a little bit) of what ‘Italian ladies shopping mopeds’ were initially designed for. 

These two completely unrelated things led me, in a roundabout Alison kind of way, onto His Lordship’s madcap idea: he jumped from a vague “I want to do something to raise money for charity”, straight to “let’s revisit all of the 28 towns that hosted national scooter rallies from 1981 to 1989, in one trip, riding Lambrettas and raising money and awareness for Alzheimers”. I said I’m in! And so it began… 

Preparation

Before we did anything else, we really had to research our backsides off, to establish which towns hosted which rallies in what year so we could at least put together a rough route and set our dates before ‘going public’. The only thing we actually knew, was that we wanted to end The Tour at the VFM Isle of Wight National Scooter Rally, starting on 23rd August 2024. The research in itself took for-bloody-ever as we had to rack our ageing memories, hunt out old photos, tickets, wristbands, magazines and even t-shirts to identify those early national rallies. And then double and triple check our findings - luckily, we know just the right kind of scooter nerds to help us!   AND even then we had to go back over each town again - more than once - to pick out some memorable spots where we would take pictures and also meet anyone foolish enough to come out to see us. In a lot of places 'our' landmarks have either changed beyond all recognition or simply do not exist any more so I reached out to our scootering contacts around the country for inside / local knowledge. What a wonderful, fabulous, amazing can of worms that was to open... 

I managed to launch our Facebook and JustGiving pages in October 2023, setting what we thought was a reasonable and achievable target and starting with a simple list of the identified towns and a somewhat less-than-optimal route. We also started some necessary back-office stuff – like coming up with a logo to use to identify and bring everything together. At this point I should say that we were helped by so many people, who all gave up their time and effort to help us, that it is difficult to express how grateful we are. You can find a (hopefully complete) list of those unsung heroes on our Roll of Honour page https://beforeweforget.uk/roll-of-honour.  

At the same time, we also had to put our team together – this initially stood at 3 (Henry, me and Mungo); Mungo however, runs a scooter specialist workshop and knew from the outset that he would be limited to what he could do on the tour itself, especially in the run up to the Isle of Wight scooter rally, but was a vital part of the team for the whole time. We did start mentioning what we were doing to a few people and Alex ‘Beef’ Bateman and ‘Double-hard’ Dave Harrison (both from the Lowriders SC / Weymouth) instantly volunteered and (more importantly) committed to be part of the team. 

I also contacted the Alzheimer’s Society and was introduced to one of their regional fund-raising co-ordinators and a PR person, both of whom really rounded out our team and by the time I launched our website in early December 2023, we had (just about) gained a bit more of a clue, confirmed the team and amazingly, had already raised around £1000. 

In January 2024, the fundraising notched up a gear when we started our Pre-tour activities, with the first in a series of on-line auctions (of items that had very kindly been donated) and in March, the first in a series of evening do’s; this was hosted at the Cinque Ports Club in Uckfield and both the venue and our fabulous DJ’s donated their time, effort and money towards our activities. These activities were followed by many more auction items as well as do’s in Gosport and at the Dirty Devils SC rally in West Sussex. We were also heavily engaged with the AS who were a bit bemused by what we were doing; I think they were more used to coffee mornings and sponsored walks or swims.  Regardless of which, they were completely on board and extremely helpful and supportive.

We also had team calls – at first these were every two weeks but they moved to weekly as we got closer to D(eparture)-Day and pretty much consisted of me updating everyone else on what was going on.  I was also trying to promote the tour and used social media and both my own media contacts as well as the AS’s to spread the word as far and wide as I could – this led to multiple interviews in person, in print and a few minutes of stardom on ITV. Funnily enough, one interviewer asked me what was the most difficult thing about organising the whole tour; my answer was getting all 5 of us on a call! 

While all this stuff was going on, Henry had to prepare his scooter... the current engine set up OBVIOUSLY wouldn’t do and so, of course, this meant the purchase of a new top end and a serious rebuild (or 2) - more on that on our page (see link below). My preparation was much more simple - I just bought an inflatable cushion for my seat! 

Oh and we got to be media stars when we had an official photoshoot and even got a spot on our regional ITN News. Full details can be found on our media page: https://beforeweforget.uk/media

The connection between the tour organising / ongoing fundraising and our passion for all things scooters, had an added benefit in that we still got to do what we love, even while the necessary but onerous 'behind the scenes' stuff was still taking place.  A lot of the clubs and organisations that manage scooter rallies were massively supportive of what we were doing and made space for us, to have a stall in their trader areas so we shook buckets and offered stickers and other goodies in return for cold hard cash - all the while drinking, listening to music, dancing and spending time with friends. Perfect. This also allowed us to spread the word even further as everyone who passed our stall became an opportunity for us to talk to (and shake the bucket at)! Poor, poor people (generally poorer when they left us though)! There was a couple of extra benefits as well though; Henry managed to add Northern Ireland to the list of countries that 'the red one' had been ridden to when he made the trip to Portrush scooter rally. And bizarrely, on the ferry on the way back, he got talking to a Scottish scooterist who just happened to come from Girvan (and who's fella was from Ayr) (I really hope I've got that the right way round); these towns were a bit of a blank spot on our tour - where we knew very few people - so when one of them reached out to me via the website, I was just a bit overwhelmed and more than happy to pick their brains. 

Ayr / Girvan were by no means isolated in offering help. The amazing response of people over the ten months or so of preparation, not just in donations (although that was amazing) but in volunteering to support us: messaging us with offers of putting evening do's on, donating auction items, meeting us en route to ride with us and even offering us accommodation; it was all quite simply mind-blowing.  I'm not sure however, that we really grasped how this would manifest itself when we actually got on the road.

Henry's route plan was pretty much the last puzzle piece but even that fell into place (just in time) and the level of detail was everything an 80's scooter rider could ever want: it included road numbers, target town names and even the garages for fuel stops - being in the modern age though, it was on a spreadsheet and had postcodes. It didn't however, have Happy Eater or Little Chef locations and I am not sure if I should have been disappointed by that! He did find a nifty gadget that fitted to his Lambretta's handlebars to take his Sat Nag (and no I don't mean me - I wouldn't fit). 

All joking aside, sooner than I would have liked though, sh*t got real!!  

** Logistics

We had 4 scooters and 2 vans with a plan to have 2 scooters on the road at all times. One van in the front as advance party and the other bringing up the rear. Each van had tools and fuel on board. Henry wanted to ride the whole tour so between the three of us, Dave, Beef and I were splitting the van driving / scooter riding between us. The route was designed around travelling an average of 250 miles per day with fuel stops/bum rests every 60 or so miles.  

** Blue Dot

Back in 2016, together with some very good friends I did a bit of a charity scooter ride to raise some money for Breast Cancer. Whilst in preparation, I found this nifty phone app called Bluelane that we used as a tracker - our progress was displayed as a blue dot on a map that allowed anyone even remotely interested to see where we were, in real time.  Needless to say, we decided to use this nifty bit of kit again and I make absolutely no apologies for the gratuitous 'filler' pictures of maps with blue dots! 

Disclaimer / Apologies. 

In all my other articles, interviews, updates etc, I have deliberately avoided name-checking people so that I didn't cause offence if I missed anyone off.  For this epic, I am going to take the brave step of naming people but apologise in advance if I miss anyone off or add anyone in by mistake: I'm so sorry!  I will also edit this write up at will, to add names when I am reminded... I also make no apologies for the absolute photo dump that is just about to descend. I really wanted there to be one place where I could put all of the many, many photos and videos that I took or otherwise have access to. If anyone wants to send any over to add... please let me know. For those of you that have already sent or posted photos and videos, I am working on the basis that you don't mind me using them; if this is not the case, please let me know!