Club news

We thought we would give you an update on club kit as several things have been coming up and we had a question at the AGM, plus and with the launch of the new ‘Brighter’ green kit a good chance to let you know what has been going on.

 

We launched the new brighter green club kit on the 2 May, the Redway Runners committee decided that we would contribute to the purchase of each club green tee or vest and pay £2 of the cost, for May 2023 to help our members and put back some funds to you. So the prices on line reflected this.

Sales during May went well and over 100 items of kit were purchased, so something like £200 was contributed by the club on behalf of members, well done to all those that took advantage of this offer, these offers do take work to put in place for members, if every member had taken advantage of the offer and bought just one item then £5,000 could have been saved.

 

What is happening on Performance Green club Kit

We have been investigating options for Performance kit in the club new colours and several options have been explored but have not proved to work, so we need to give it more thought our issue with New Balance is the lead times to produce the kit which can be 8 weeks and that is after having an order window that can be another 8 weeks plus the requirement for minimum orders of each type of item, means when an order window opens then an order can take up to 16 weeks!!

 

Performance non Green club Kit

We continue to offer the New Balance Performance non green kit, which is mainly the black items, New Balance have recently added a password to the site to access this range, you will find the password needed on the club store page on the Redway Runners website.

Items in this range take about 10 working days to be delivered to you

 

Standard kit

We also took the opportunity to talk to Theresa and Kris who own and manage the clothing store that we use, T-Shirts2U  for the club kit which is the Standard club kit range.

The company are a small, local family business, which is great for the club to support, that we have worked with since the start of the club, the real advantage for the club is that they are able to produce the small quantities and individual items for members as each one is ordered, plus these are at very reasonable prices, remembering that the price you see includes all the hidden costs that would need to be taken into account to compare like for like.

Plus, with a small business we have developed a great working relationship, they help us behind the scenes with designs, help with raffle prizes for our Christmas charity raffle and items for goody bags at some events

Why does it take 15 working days from order to delivery?

Club items are not held in stock, just waiting for a name to be added like many people assume.

Once an order is placed then a couple of times a week, once enough orders have been received then an order is placed with the suppliers, we would avoid ordering individually as a delivery charge from the warehouse has to be included, once the orders arrive the items are checked and printed in batches to have the club logo added, before that, the logos first have to be printed that have to be carefully removed from the sheets, before applying to the garment.

Once the garment has the logo added then the stencil for the name (names) must be produced and then added to the front and back of the garment.

Finally, once this is all finished then the item can then be packaged up and a batch will go off to the post office for delivery, again allowing time for them to be received by the member.

 

Can the timescales be reduced?

GOOD NEWS – the store, as a result of their recent review, identified a number of ways the process can be improved, and these are being implemented, so in most cases the items should now arrive earlier than the 15 working days.

We must remember, of course, the store is not just producing items for Redway Runners they have lots of other customers, so our items must be included in the schedules.

The store is reliant on stock availability, and with many items coming from China this has been a challenge for the last couple of years and we have no control over that.

 

What about Embroidered items?

The store have used the same embroiderer for items like the green hoodies, hats and jackets and they fit in jobs of less than 6 items for the store as quickly as they can – their minimum order is generally 12 garments, but this is usually waived specially for the store and Redway Runners now. The embroiderer’s work is excellent and of high quality as we would expect.

To help the store do hold a stock of the black / green caps and the beanies as these come in one size.

Could the store hold a stock of common items?

They have considered buying a selection of sizes in all the cool fit tops, but it is so difficult as there really is no way of guessing male, female, child sizes and styles as an average per month, with the large range of items that we provide access to, the only way to manage this would be to reduce the range that the club do not want to do.

 

Beginners Graduation

We have our next Beginners graduation on Saturday 15 July at the Milton Keynes 5K parkrun, before the event we always take a big green group photo, if you want kit for this graduation then this needs to be ordered by 18 June.

 

How can we help?

The club tries to make things easier so when we know that we are going to get high levels of orders then we make people aware of earlier order dates so that we can make sure people are not disappointed by late delivery, we do this with Graduation of beginners parkruns, plus for delivery for Christmas when postal delivery times can be extended.

For your part if you can please make sure if you know you want an item for a specific date then please order as quickly as possible, we often have people asking days before an event that they want an item!!

 

 

To order anything from the club store go to:

https://www.redwayrunners.com/club-store/

 

Information about Brightening up Redway Runners at:

https://www.redwayrunners.com/brightening-up-redway-runners/