AddThis SmartLayers

Staff run half-marathon in former editor’s memory

More than 30 staff from a regional daily took on the challenge of a half-marathon in memory of its former editor who died at the age of 51.

Journalists and other staff members from the Nottingham Post took part in the Robin Hood half marathon at the weekend in memory of former editor Mel Cook who died in April after a six-month battle with cancer.

Nineteen staff including ten from the newsroom ran the half-marathon, while a further 12 joined the corporate relay, which was sponsored by the Post.

Those taking part included current editor Mike Sassi and it follows further fundraising efforts for Maggie’s cancer centre in Nottingham in memory of Mel, which have already seen thousands of pounds raised.

Some of the staff from the Nottingham Post who took part in the half-marathon.

The paper also put together 24-pages of coverage of the half-marathon and reported live from the event with a CoveritLive blog.

In a story about the event, Mike, who completed the race with a time of 2:04:19, said: “The Robin Hood marathon and half marathon races have a fantastic history, so almost everyone at The Post wanted to get involved.

“The problem for us was making sure we had enough staff who weren’t running to cover the event.

“We had a CoveritLive blog, which we all contributed to through a #RobinHood Twitter hashtag – then we put together 24 pages for the following day’s newspaper.

“In the end half a dozen staff who ran the race ended up going back to the office to help put together the paper. It really was a tremendous company-wide effort.”

The first Post employee to finish the run was sub-editor Steve Willey, who registered a time of 1:44:07, followed by deputy news editor Jon Robinson, with a time of 1:49:11.

Circulation director Susan Wheatcroft, who also ran the half marathon, said: “To have 31 people taking part in such a strenuous event, says everything about the spirit here.

“There were circulation staff, news reporters and designers, feature writers, advertising sales reps and page-planners. We even had staff who used to work at The Post coming back to join our team.”