[Kerry]

Words Fail Me......

A charity worker who "crawled" the London marathon dressed as a snail has been sacked because the marathon ended up costing him more than the donations he received.

Lloyd Scott, who has collected more than £5 million in charity since recovering from leukaemia 20 years ago, is famed for his wacky stunts for charity, but his plan to compete in the marathon dressed as Brian the Snail from the Magic Roundabout backfired due to a lack of donations.

Scott, 49, took a month to compete the marathon for disabled children's charity Action For Kids, as he pulled himself and his heavy costume along on a trolley at a rate of a mile a day.

However, while he did manage to raise £19,500 for the charity, the suit cost him £16,000 and he spent thousands more on a PR campaign.

He had hoped to raise £200,000 for the charity, but after coming up well short, bosses at Action For Kids relieved him from his position as their director of fundraising.

"I had worked for them for 10 months or so and wanted to stay until the end of my contract to get in as much money as I could, but they gave me four weeks' notice instead," Scott is quoted as saying in the Sunday Mirror.

"I wasn't happy with the way they went about it. When I worked for them they had their best-ever Christmas appeal and we were opening up new sources of donations all the time."

Scott's more successful stunts included: walking from Land's End to John O'Groats in a T-Rex costume; raising £310,000 for children's cancer charity CLIC by cycling 2,000 miles across Australia on a penny farthing; and completing an underwater marathon in Loch Ness while wearing a lead-booted diving suit.

However, he admits that his style of fundraising may have lost its appeal with the public.

"My kind of fundraising is coming to a natural conclusion. The team around me were incredible but the money just wasn't there," he said.

The charity's founder Sally Bishop said: "Due to limited resources, like all charities, Action For Kids must make sure that we make the best possible use of our limited funds. Our priority is always to our donors, and the children and families we support. So it is with regret we had to take this decision."

Some of Lloyd Scott's other charity campaigns -

Cycling a penny farthing 12 hours a day for 50 days to cover the approximately 4,500 km (2,800 miles) from Perth to Sydney.

[Omah]

Source ?

[Kerry]

Source

[Pyramid*]

In complete fairness to the Charity -Action For Kids - he was employed as Director of Fundraising - and worked for them for less than a year - given the absurd amount of money the costume cost, the £1000s spent on the PR campaign - with clearly little back up from him as to where his anticipated £200k was coming from in donations - I think he should have been sacked.

Take into account whatever salary he was receiving during his 10months - (and I'll hazard a guess that he was paid during his 'month long marathon' - I'd say the man was clearly a drain on the Charity's finances and they took the correct action.

However, while he did manage to raise £19,500 for the charity, the suit cost him £16,000 and he spent thousands more on a PR campaign.

He had hoped to raise £200,000 for the charity, but after coming up well short, bosses at Action For Kids relieved him from his position as their director of fundraising.

"I had worked for them for 10 months or so and wanted to stay until the end of my contract to get in as much money as I could, but they gave me four weeks' notice instead," Scott is quoted as saying in the Sunday Mirror.

[Suze]

Originally Posted by Pyramid*

In complete fairness to the Charity -Action For Kids - he was employed as Director of Fundraising - and worked for them for less than a year - given the absurd amount of money the costume cost, the £1000s spent on the PR campaign - with clearly little back up from him as to where his anticipated £200k was coming from in donations - I think he should have been sacked.

Take into account whatever salary he was receiving during his 10months - (and I'll hazard a guess that he was paid during his 'month long marathon' - I'd say the man was clearly a drain on the Charity's finances and they took the correct action.

I saw this news item on the TV news when I was channel hopping.

I absolutely agree with your post, those were pretty much my thoughts on the news item also. The charity were right to sack him for all the right reasons. A charities aims are to be making money for help in research, etc; not having it thrown away on silly schemes.

There are ways to raise money with very little cost re: costumes, with the right inititive, by say canvassing for help with costumes and such from willing sponsers. Surely a costume hire shop would have lent a costume for nothing or next to nothing in help for raising awareness and money for a deserving charity.

At the end of the day as much as he might have been seen wanting to help, I can't help feeling there was some attention seeking going on there also, and a total bad management from him as to the charities needs in the raising of money. His heart may have been in the right place but that won't raise funds for the charity if he lacks skills in that area.

[MTVN]

He spent £16,000 on a snail outfit

[joeysteele]

Originally Posted by MTVN

He spent £16,000 on a snail outfit

I have to admit, that seems ridiculous. Okay you want to stand out in a crowd raising funds for Charity but not to that extent.

This would be possibly a good task for The Apprentice series,I shudder to think what Alan Sugar would say to someone paying all that for an outfit.

[joeysteele]

On the article above, it seems he has been successful on other ventures he took on and it says they had their best Christmas appeal under him too.

It seems like a lot of scenarios in life, you can do near all right before but make one mistake or fail once and then that is what you are judged on,not all the right you did before.

I do have to agree that the cost of the outfit seemed ridiculous though,Charities need to raise as much as possible for the smallest outlay on all activities they do, so I could understand some disciplinary warning as to costings in the future,maybe sacking though was rather extreme this time,based on what's in the article above.

Having said that, sadly, Charities ae now starting to adopt big business attitudes where people count less and it's all about money.
A student mate of mine, saw in a charity shop a small toolkit he had wanted, they had it priced at £18,however he had actually got it for £12 at a Store the previous day,the Charity shop was asking for £6 more for something they got for nothing and that had been used too.
This is where maybe these shops and the Charities they serve will be losing out in the future.

[Omah]

I guess it's a case of cutting your losses and not sending good money after bad .....

[GypsyGoth]

Spending that on a costume is silly. He seems incompetent, good job they got rid of him.

[Zippy]

Originally Posted by GypsyGoth

Spending that on a costume is silly. He seems incompetent, good job they got rid of him.

you're a cruel heartless bitch

and so am I

Agreed

[GypsyGoth]

Originally Posted by Zippy

you're a cruel heartless bitch

and so am I

Agreed

[Jords]

He could have given that £16k to charity.

[MTVN]

In fairness to him it must have been pretty horrible what he was doing: "He suffered nosebleeds and vomiting as he crawled the course at the pace of a mile a day"

[hannah.]

Originally Posted by MTVN

In fairness to him it must have been pretty horrible what he was doing: "He suffered nosebleeds and vomiting as he crawled the course at the pace of a mile a day"

probably from all the coke he bought with the remaining £15,900 he 'spent on the snail costume'

[GypsyGoth]

Originally Posted by hannah.

probably from all the coke he bought with the remaining £15,900 he 'spent on the snail costume'

[Benjamin]

Originally Posted by hannah.

probably from all the coke he bought with the remaining £15,900 he 'spent on the snail costume'

I have to agree that he deserved to fired. Surely he would have known that the cost of outgoings was more than the donations he had been offered. The charity are right to look at things in a business perspective considering the times we live in.

[MTVN]

Originally Posted by hannah.

probably from all the coke he bought with the remaining £15,900 he 'spent on the snail costume'

[joeysteele]

Again the views on here have made me re-think my original view, I first thought it may have been fairer to have warned him as to costing for the future rather than sacking him but as ukturtle has pointed out surely he knew these costings and also surely he knew what was pledged to him for the event.
To outlay so much relying on incoming donations during the event was rather incompetent so I guess sacking him was likely the only option really.

['Conor]

-is too tired and lazy to read it all-

[Zippy]

Originally Posted by 'Conor

-is too tired and lazy to read it all-

I cba either and just read the other posts

[hannah.]

what a great, intelligent, entirely necessary addition to the discussion, conor

['Conor]

Originally Posted by hannah.

what a great, intelligent, entirely necessary addition to the discussion, conor

[King Gizzard]

He could of just made a costume out of paper mache. idiot.

[Livia]

I see the good members of this forum aren't shy about being harsh.

Did some of you miss the fact that this man has raised over £5,000,000 for charity. FIVE MILLION! Some of you who have posted an opinion couldn't even be bothered to read the article so I guess that snippet of information may have passed some of you by.

He made a mistake in thinking this stunt would work in the same way his other stunts did. This time, for whatever reason, he failed. But honestly, given his track record I think the charity could have been a little more accommodating. I hope he chooses his charity more carefully next time.

Incredible...