A team of eight runners from leading event agencies and M&IT magazine took part in the Royal Parks Half (marathon) at the weekend and raised more than £9,000 for event industry charity Meeting Needs.

The team was assembled by Kate Conway, a member of the Meeting Needs executive committee whose employer Hyundai is a major sponsor of the event and included Lucy Russell and Harriet Bullen from First, Matt Evans and Matt Hayward from drp, Sandrine Gonnet and Aoife McVeigh from Banks Sadler, Mat Clapham from MCI and Martin Lewis from M&IT, another member of the Meeting Needs committee.

Fastest finisher was Matt Evans with a time of 1:52.04 while the fastest woman was Sandrine Gonnet, only a minute behind Matt with a time of 1:53.48, while four of the eight completed the route starting and finishing in Hyde Park in under two hours. More than 16,000 runners representing 400-plus charities participated in the event in glorious sunshine.

Meeting Needs chair Jennifer Jenkins was there to greet team members on Sunday morning and said: “We are so grateful to all the runners for putting themselves through this and raising the cash for Meeting Needs.”

If you would like to participate in the 2017 Royal Parks Half, please email Kate Conway at katharineconway@yahoo.co.uk to reserve your team place.