20 at 20
It’s our 20th anniversary year! Rat Race has been creating extraordinary adventures for everyday people since 2004 and we want to mark the occasion.
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In seeking to celebrate this big birthday, we’ve considered some pretty grand gestures but hey - everything we do is pretty grand already!
So instead, the Rat Race team were asked to come up with their own ideas of how we could make the lives of our staff and customers better: To commit to 20 pledges in our 20th year which we are confident we can deliver on. All of which will enhance the experience of all involved in our company: 20 at 20.
​We’ve chucked around all sorts of ideas between us and every single Rat Race full-time team member has contributed to this list.
If we manage half of what’s on this list, Team Rat Race will be very proud to have made a real difference in our 20th year. Still, we like a challenge: The idea of course is to get the lot ticked off by the time the time we’re all singing Auld Lang Syne…
1
PROJECT JUNGLE
We’re going to buy a piece of jungle in Central America and protect it, re-plant it and run jungle training courses from it: This is our flagship legacy project. You can learn all about it here.
2
B CORP CERTIFICATION
Underline our unwavering commitment to environmental and social responsibility by making an application to become a certified B Corp. You can read about what that means here.
3
TRAINING
An ongoing commitment to training company-wide: All full-time Rat Race staff will choose one thing that they really want to get better at; and commit to start that this year via learning.
4
SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER AS A FULL TEAM
We spend a lot of time together on trips and events, working hand-in-glove worldwide. But to get the full crew together is rare. This year we will do 4 big things all together, including some summer fun and Xmas japes plus an incredible foray for us all at our amazing new group adventure centre - Forest Facility.
5
RAT RACE 100
Attempt to run, walk (or crew) 100 miles as a full team. This will then become a brand new Rat Race event - the Rat Race 100 - the “100 miler for people who don’t do 100 milers.”
6
NEW PROPRIETARY ENTRY SYSTEM
Introduce a brand new proprietary entry system for use by our customers, automating transfer processes, integrating retail and dramatically improving the online customer journey.
7
CELEBRATE OUR 20th IN STYLE
Launch a range of special edition 20th year merch via Rat Race Store.
8
INTERNATIONAL AND SMALL GROUP ADVENTURES
Introduction of a customer ‘international and small group adventures’ portal on Facebook, to replace the existing single event Facebook group pages. The new group will be a place to learn more about specific events; and for trip Alumni to give advice to new Rat Racers: A real online community group.
9
IMPROVED DESTINATION INFORMATION
Improve and increase our wider ‘destination’ info on our websites and encourage people to learn more about our host destinations and perhaps stay longer in those places. We will use tools such as in-country recommendations and top-10 must see/ do lists, for example.
10
IMPROVED PARTICIPANT TRAINING
Improve our commitment to getting folks to the start line with better participant training materials.
11
RAISE £2.5M FOR OUR CHARITY PARTNER
Work towards the goal of raising a total lifetime sum of £2.5 million with our charity partner, Children With Cancer (We’re well over £2 million already).
12
TELL OUR PARTICIPANTS STORIES
Feature a “Rat Racer of the month,” plus increase participant testimonials and guest blog posts from participants about what draws them to our events and trips.
13
JIM OUR MD IS GOING TO RE-START HIS PART TIME PhD!
Jim our MD is going to re-start his part-time PhD!
14
SUSTAINABLE STORE PACKAGING
Carry out a project to overhaul our store packaging and ensure that environmentally speaking, it is as good as it can be.
15
GUATEMALA WATER SUPPLY PROJECT
Working with our partners on our incredible Guatemala Sea to Summit project, we will build a water supply system in a mountain village on the flanks of the volcano Tajamulco. This initiative will both benefit the event and a small rural community long-term, in delivering fresh water higher up the mountain.
16
RAT RACE BLOG
We are inviting contributions from all those who work full-time in the company; these will be about anything and everything and will record tales of life at Rat Race. The more leftfield the stories, the better!
17
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT SURVEY
Carry out a new environmental impact survey of our UK events and work for tangible gains - for example - we will eliminate all single-use plastics in 2024.
18
TRANSPARENCY ON FINANCES
We will publish a “where does your money go” pie chart and add it to websites, so our customers can see exactly how we are investing their money in staging our extraordinary adventures for everyday people.
19
ULTIMATE RAT RACE FLATLAYS
Engaging and informative kit explanation videos to aid folks in their pre-event prep game.
20
FOREST FACILITY
We will work to identify a group who could really benefit from adventure and who may not have had the chance to experience much of that up until now. We will then provide them with an open-access day at our incredible Forest Facility adventure centre as our guests, to experience the outdoors in this way and to learn what we already know - the st adventure is food for the soul.