Unknown

The magical trinity: running, wizardry, and charity

I came across the Charity Miles app a couple of years back, but I uninstalled it after a while, because I found it very cumbersome, that it can not export the tracks, or sync the data to the HealthGraph or any other database. However, after my Harry Potter Marathon I was surfing on facebook, and I ended up at the page of the Hogwarts Running Club.







First I didn't get the idea, what this is all about, as the Headmasters of HRC organize a lot events and stuff for the more then 20000 wizards and witches (!!!).

Virtual races




There are a lot of nice virtual races with pretty medals, and awesome names like: Voldemort V-miler, Platform 9 3/4k, Patronus 5k. And You can even become a Perfect Prefect by completing all of them. Enough said.

House Cup Competition


Everyone can join to one of the four houses or the faculty staff to collect miles and earn glory for their team. Though I have a Ravenclaw soul, due to my everyday job I've joined to the Faculty staff.

Awesome webshop


Who woulnd't want T-shirts like these?



All the fun


I don't know about the community rooms of the pupils, but the faculty lounge is really a fun place to be, just like the main HRC page. Posts like this come on daily basis:







At this point, You may ask: This is nice and fun, but what the heck has that to do with charity?!


HRC is one of the biggest supporters of the Charity Miles app. The app is simple: each tracked mile is rewarded by a sponsor for a charity of Your selection. In order to participate in the House Cup, one has to join to the respective CM team, and use the app when walking, running, cycling, etc. Each mile earns 25 cents in case of walking or running, and 10 cents in case of biking. According to the latest Miles Monday report of the Headmasters, the 5 teams have collected over 120.000 miles this year. Do the math. Although I'm a pretty new member of the Faculty group, I'm utmost proud to be among them. A lot of amazing people eager to help this way. Our numbers are few, but the enthusiasm compensates it.



The app itself is simple, and does what it is supposed to do. I'm still disappointed, that a simple gpx export is not implemented, so now I run CM in parallel with the app I really use for tracking. It is a still a bit cumbersome, but it is for a good cause. There are of course plenty other teams out there, I joined of course to the rather extinct #hungary group, and I couldn't resist for the #helptheworldandgetsexy group either.



If this article convinced You to download and use the charity miles app, I would be honored if You also joined the RunnerMate team to see, whether this post made any impact.

EDIT: However, CM and the House Cup is not the only way, how HRC contributes to good causes, as our Headmistress pointed out in the comments:

I would also like to add that all of the proceeds for each event and our merchandise, go to our charity partners as well. Our partner for our current race, the Patronus 5K, is the Noah's Light foundation, helping kids with brain cancer and their families. - Dawn Biggs



And as always, thanks for reading, comments, +1s, tweets, whatever are always appreciated. You can follow the blog on Google+ and Twitter.


Unknown

About Unknown

Amateur fun runner, geek, hiker.