Late last year, I had the idea to start an official running club at my work. I started emailing people to find out who would be interested and then pitched the idea to HR. After some negotiating back and forth, we were able to launch the official Piper Racing Team.
I got permission from IT to set up a company internal website for the team where people can sign up for the team, view the team calendar, view training plans, etc. I also started sending out a weekly newsletter called the "Racing Report". The team was officially started in early January and we already have 30 people on the team! Considering Piper only has around 700 employees, that's pretty darn good!
The team is meant for anyone who likes to race - running, cycling, triathlons, obstacle courses, etc. People can put an event they are interested in on the calendar and then we see how many people want to do it and meet up to race together. Yesterday was our first official Piper sponsored event - the Corporate 5k. Since the race was being hosted by FIT Aviation (a big Piper customer) and benefited United Way (Piper's chosen philanthropy), I asked our Marketing Team if they would sponsor us, and they did! They gave $10 off the registration fee for every employee who signed up and we ended up with 22 employees and 7 family members registered for our team!
The Corporate 5k gives team awards for largest team, fastest team, etc. This was our first year at the race and thanks to a couple of guys who did really well, we won fastest team for our division!
The team is meant for anyone who likes to race - running, cycling, triathlons, obstacle courses, etc. People can put an event they are interested in on the calendar and then we see how many people want to do it and meet up to race together. Yesterday was our first official Piper sponsored event - the Corporate 5k. Since the race was being hosted by FIT Aviation (a big Piper customer) and benefited United Way (Piper's chosen philanthropy), I asked our Marketing Team if they would sponsor us, and they did! They gave $10 off the registration fee for every employee who signed up and we ended up with 22 employees and 7 family members registered for our team!
The Corporate 5k gives team awards for largest team, fastest team, etc. This was our first year at the race and thanks to a couple of guys who did really well, we won fastest team for our division!
It would have been a perfect evening except one team member (and friend) had a sudden and very unexpected heart attack at the beginning of the race (we didn't find out until after since we were all running) and had to be rushed to the hospital for emergency care. He is doing ok but I'm sure it will take a while to recover. Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family!
