Bridges Of The Tyne 2014 – Feedback Results

Following another successful running of The Bridges Of The Tyne 5 Mile Road Race in July, we contacted all participating athletes to give them the opportunity to answer a few questions, to get their feedback & let us know how we could improve future events.

Here are the results of that Feedback Survey.

Thanks to everybody who responded to the online survey following this year’s Bridges of the Tyne Race. We have received 106 responses to the survey and have compiled some basic stats in order to help us review the success of the race and hopefully improve things in future years. In general we don’t seem to be doing too badly so thank you all for that. The findings of the survey are shown below for your information.

The survey asked for your views on a range of issues impacting upon the race. A number of common themes emerged from the responses.
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Registration – There was some issues with delays in registration and issue of numbers.
Response – For the 2015 race we will increase the number of registration desks from 2 to 3. In this year’s race and for some unexplained reason the majority of early registrations were in the A-K grouping, the later registrations were in the L-Y group. Hopefully by increasing the numbers of registration tables this will help alleviate the delays.
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Race Entry Limit and Course – Can we increase the entry limit and take the tight bends out?
Response – We had an entry limit of 300 in 2013 and 2014. For the 2015 event and following discussions with Newcastle City Council we are proposing to increase the entry limit to 350. We are restricted on numbers due to the nature of the course. In order to achieve the 5 mile distance it is necessary to include the turns along the westerly part of the route.
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Presentation and Team Awards – Can we speed up the awards presentation and review the inclusion of Masters in the senior teams.
Response – We try to start the presentation as quickly as possible. The 2014 event was slightly delayed due to the inclusion of the North East Masters championships as part of the race. There was also some delay in calculating the team results. We will look at the potential of including masters in senior teams in the future.

For the presentation of awards we were governed by the North east Counties AA who advised us that we were required to award prizes individually to the specific events i.e. the North East Championship Race was the primary award followed by the Bridges of the Tyne Prizes and finally the Masters Championships.
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Race Mementos and T-Shirts – Can we give vests rather than T-Shirts or an alternative memento. Can we have some Extra Small T-Shirts.
Response – It was a proposal to award a running vest rather than a T-Shirt in 2014. We put this to a vote of the TBH race committee and the T-Shirt took a very narrow win. We will look to the potential of a vest in 2015. We will also explore the potential of offering an Extra Small option through our suppliers.
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Winners of Free Places into next years Race
We opted to pick TWO names at random from those people who submitted responses to the feedback questions. The lucky winners are;

Kirstin Farquhar & Richard Cutter

We will contact you both when next years entries open to arrange your free entry.
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Thank you once again to everyone who submitted feedback. It was really helpful. We hope to see you all back on the Quayside next July.

If you have any further comments, they are welcomed below.