Maamturks Challenge

First ran in 1975, the Maamturks Challenge has been a focal point of hillwalking in Ireland for over 50 years. 250 Participants are required to complete a full transverse of the famous Maamturks mountain range, a notoriously barren and rock terrain. With ridges, cliffs and numerous valleys, participants of the walk are generally some of the most experienced hillwalkers Ireland has to offer.

The Challenge is unique in that it is organised by a student mountaineering club, as opposed to the same committee every year.

I have been on the Subcommittee for organising the challenge for 4 years, one of which I was the volunteer coordinator and two of which I was in charge of the subcommittee There are a lot of logistics in organising the challenge from

• Organising and purchasing the necessary equipment for each of the 8 checkpoints on the mountains along with the start, registration, control and 3 finishes
• Booking the hotel, pub, community centre and hostel needed for the finish, registration, control and volunteer accomodation
• Managing the online registration and the participant admin
• Organising T-shirts for participants and volunteers
• Recruiting 45 volunteers and coordinating where and when they need to be places, and how to get them there.
• Responding to any enquiries from participants
• Making risk assessments, event management plans, and working with the sports unit and university insurance to reduce liability
• Preparing a budget for the event and keeping track of the event's accounts

I think this has taught and really put to the test so many skills such as

• Project Management
• Managing a team of volunteers
• Event management
• Financial management
• Problem solving
• Critical decision making - I've had to make the difficult decision to cancel the event twice due to bad weather