With a budget of £40,000 or so, present day Hundreds represent a significant financial exposure for the organising Group. Most costs are fixed but income is almost entirely variable depending on the number of entries. What's more, nervous Treasurers are required to agree a budget with the NEC over a year before the event and well before entries open. We were confident that our route would be attractive and budgetted on receiving more than 500 entries. We held our breath when it became clear that entries for Cinque Ports were rather slow, but in the event we need not have worried and comfortably met the income budget.

The attractions of a remote area are many but villages and their associated halls are thin on the ground, which meant that we had to use whatever was available. The initial cost of hiring farm buildings is low, but providing lighting and toilet facilities made them relatively expensive. We only needed the hostel in Dufton for 14 hours but had to book it for the 72 hours of the long weekend. 

We initially planned to use two minibuses, but an excellent analysis by Mark Hawker showed that we were exposed if there were more than the average number of retirements at breakfast, so a third was hired, dedicated solely to shuttle runs on the 100 mile round trip to Dufton. Thank goodness! We made generous donations to North of Tyne Mountain Rescue and Raynet whose services were so invaluable.

One of the costs that has reduced over the years is printing and stationery, so much being done electronically. We also made an early decision not to produce a costly and time consuming results book which would not appear until several months after the event, instead to publish a report on the website whilst a memorable Hundred was still fresh in the mind.

Just one job to do now which is to distribute the surplus funds, one of the pleasanter tasks for a Treasurer.

Tony Willey