Rope4Hope: Skipping Rope to Beat Cancer & Break Records (Ep. 23)

Dizzy Skips (00:52)
Mandy Shaw, it is so great to have you back on the Jump Rope Podcast.

Mandy (00:57)
It’s so cool to be here!

Dizzy Skips (00:59)
Yeah, yeah.

You’re doing something super exciting, which is the Rope4Hope.

Mandy (01:04)
It is, yes, yeah. Well, we had a little mini discussion about it when we were last together, which was amazing. But since then, yeah, things have moved on quite a lot. So in a nutshell, we have landed on a date. We are definitely going for Saturday, the 13th of September 2025. Haven’t quite decided the exact time yet.

Dizzy Skips (01:08)
Mm-hmm.

Mandy (01:27)
edging towards probably a morning 11 o’clock UK time, but that’s to be still to be confirmed. But the date is definitely set in stone Saturday, the 13th of September 2025.

Dizzy Skips (01:30)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And for people

who may not have heard our previous episode, would you describe what Rope4Hope is and what it’s all about?

Mandy (01:45)
Yeah, absolutely. So I started skipping in October 2023, and that was taking part in a Cancer Research UK 100 Skips a Day Challenge. So the idea was that participants signed up and got sponsorship. And basically, the challenge was to skip 100 skips.

every day for the month of October and I’ve never done anything like that before so I thought you know how difficult can it be? 100 skips that’s easy right? Well actually no it’s not it really isn’t so that first day I did about 20 or 30 skips and I had to go and sit down for five minutes I was so unfit and so out of breath so that’s kind of where my skipping journey started and then I took part in

Dizzy Skips (02:11)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Mandy (02:33)
the March of 24 and June of 24, the same challenges. So through those challenges and a couple of quizzes that I’ve done, I’ve probably raised maybe a thousand pounds or thereabouts for cancer research. So I’m like, this is really good. And then one day I was just sitting there, as you do, mulling the events of the day. And I thought, well, I wonder what the world record is for the most number of people skipping at one time.

Dizzy Skips (02:48)
Awesome.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mandy (03:02)
And so you go on Google, don’t you? Tappy, tappy, tappy and

up it pops. And yeah, as it happens, there are several world records to do with skipping all there waiting to be challenged and attempted and broken. So that’s where the idea came from. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (03:21)
That’s so cool. And so how, and I remember talking to you before about this, there are a few different potential records that you can break. And I think if I remember right, like the big one was roughly like 90,000 people skipping at once across the UK.

Mandy (03:23)
Yeah.

Yes, yeah. Well, the current world record is… glancing this way because this is where my notes are. Listen, I can’t remember it off the top of my head. So the current world record is held by California across 294 schools. And there were actually 88,455 participants.

Dizzy Skips (03:43)
Sure, I hear ya.

Mandy (04:01)
of which 70,880 actually completed the challenge and were counted in the world record, which is to skip for three minutes. So you can you can stop on purpose for less than 10 seconds and restart. But if you trip up or pause for more than 10 seconds, then you have to be discounted. So that’s where the difference is between.

Dizzy Skips (04:09)
Okay.

Unbroken.

Okay.

Okay.

Mandy (04:28)
the number of people that participated and the number of people that got counted. So in my head, I thought, well, if we can get 90,000 people involved and there’s a kind of 15 to 20 % drop off, we’re still in with a really good chance of taking the world record and bringing it to the UK, which would be a maze. So that’s the big one, as I say.

Dizzy Skips (04:41)
Mm-hmm.

Sure.

Mandy (04:53)
And to coin a pun, if we don’t reach the dizzy heights of the 90,000, then there are several other world records that we can have a go at once we know how many people have signed up and how many people are keen to be involved.

Dizzy Skips (05:08)
Sure. And how do those records differ? I think one of them we talked about before was like alternate foot skipping, right?

Mandy (05:15)
Yes, alternate foots, one hop from one the other. That one currently stands at 1095 and is held by a group of schools in China. And then the other one is most people online skipping. That was recently set in June last year. You only need 321 people.

Dizzy Skips (05:23)
Okay.

Okay.

Mandy (05:41)
to break that world record. currently stands at 320.

Dizzy Skips (05:45)
So if you were

to try to go for that, how does that work online?

Mandy (05:50)
Well, I don’t know the fine detail of that is a short answer, Dizzy, but I’m guessing from the video footage that I’ve seen on YouTube of that event, that basically it was a group of people and basically what they did was they just broadcast their attempt live online.

Dizzy Skips (05:52)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Mandy (06:10)
I mean, that could go international, an online attempt, if all you had to do was have some sort of way of streaming it at exactly the same, like a mass Zoom call or something. I don’t know. I don’t understand the tech, but that sort of thing could go, that could go international. You could be anywhere. The only challenge would be your time differences, wouldn’t it? Or your different time zones. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (06:10)
Got it.

Sure.

Right.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Sure. Yeah.

Well, that’s exciting.

Mandy (06:36)
So there are options is what I’m saying. There are options.

What we’re aiming for is the big one, as I keep saying. But if we don’t quite reach it this year, we can still break a world record, definitely.

Dizzy Skips (06:42)
Yeah.

Do we know how many skippers there are in the UK?

Mandy (06:51)
Not off the top of my head, but I can tell you from a quick population count just in my three main counties of England, so that would be Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridge, if you’ve got any viewers or connections in those three counties. Just in those three counties there is a population of two million three hundred and seventy five thousand people. Now, they aren’t all going to be skippers.

Dizzy Skips (06:53)
He

Okay, yeah.

Right.

Mandy (07:16)
And

let’s be quite honest, most of the population in Norfolk are 50 and above. So they may not be able to skip anyway, but I’m not going to count myself in that because I’m nearer 60 than 50 and I’m getting to be quite a good skipper. But if only one, if only 3 % of those people can take part, that’s a, that’s a number of 71,271 people.

Dizzy Skips (07:21)
Okay.

Yeah, you are.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mandy (07:43)
which blows the current world record out by about a thousand people. So if we take it UK wide, it could be massive. You know, it could be massive. Big!

Dizzy Skips (07:47)
Yeah.

Yeah.

That’s exciting. so

September and it is, so that’s September 13th. So that we’re talking roughly what six months away, April, May, June, July, August, September. Yeah, that’s not a lot of time. So you’ve got a lot of things to organize and I bet you need some help.

Mandy (08:03)
I know, scary isn’t it?

Yes, absolutely we do. So the first thing we need is lots of hands on ropes, as I’ve said in my press article. you know, unlike a concert, we don’t need bums on seats, we need hands on ropes. So the best thing people can do if they are excited to try and take part in this event is to visit our website. We have our website, Rope4Hope.com.

Dizzy Skips (08:22)
Mm-hmm.

Mandy (08:35)
with a number four in the middle, no gaps, and make sure, here it is, thank you, Dizzy, see, this is, he’s so clever with his tech, blow my mind. So this is the website that you will find, rope4hope.com, and if you wanna get involved, you click on the Get Involved button, and up will come a register your interest form. Now that is likely to change in the next two or three weeks or so to an actual sign up form.

Dizzy Skips (08:43)
Hahaha.

Mandy (09:04)
And the only main difference will be that it will be a £5 entry fee and all of those £5 entry fees will go straight to Cancer Research. That’s where that’s how we start to raise money for the charity. So, yeah, that is the page that a an individual, a group and a venue can register on that page. In fact, if you click on group. You’ll see that.

Dizzy Skips (09:15)
great.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mandy (09:31)
You can then enter the name of your group and how many people are in your group. If you click on Venue.

Dizzy Skips (09:35)
Mm-hmm.

Mandy (09:37)
then you can put the name of your venue and the capacity of your skippers.

Dizzy Skips (09:39)
Perfect.

Great.

That’s fantastic.

Mandy (09:42)
and then

you hit submit and that form goes straight to our contact at Cancer Research UK and then every Friday she gives me a list of all of the people that have registered via that form and then I will reach out personally to everybody who would like to get involved.

Dizzy Skips (10:02)
Great. And so then, so for the people who now sign up and register their interest, once the form has changed to an actual signup form, then presumably you’ll send them a notification to say, go, go give us your £5

Mandy (10:14)
Yes I will,

exactly, they’ll get another letter like this, excuse the writing, that was where I was editing it, so you’ll know it’s official, Cancer Research logo at the top, Rope4Hope logo underneath, and you’ll get a welcome letter and then once this turns into an actual sign-up form you’ll get another letter saying now sign up, register your participation with a £5 fee.

Dizzy Skips (10:24)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

great.

Mandy (10:43)
And then you also, the Clever Tech at the Cancer Research end will set you up with a Just Giving page so that then your family members can sponsor you, so that you’ll be encouraged to practice between now and September and really raise an extra few pounds. All of that goes straight to Cancer Research UK.

Dizzy Skips (10:58)
That’s amazing.

So does each skipper get their own personalized page to send out to their?

Mandy (11:07)
I think it’s going to come through on a Rope4Hope event giving page. So there’ll be there’ll be a header page, Rope4Hope, and then everybody that joins up will come under that page and count towards the total.

Dizzy Skips (11:12)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Okay,

great. Well, that’s neat. And so you mentioned getting ropes in hands is the big goal. speaking of ropes, I think when we talked last time, you had some connections, right? I think like Jump Rope Coach Chris.

Mandy (11:36)
Yes, yes, yeah.

I haven’t been able to officially reach out to Chris yet. I’ve sent him a message, so get back to me, Chris. But we are also hoping to make links with Lauren Jumps. I’ve recently had a conversation with a lovely guy called the Skipping Ninja. He’s based in the UK. And…

Dizzy Skips (11:41)
Okay.

Hahaha

Mm-hmm.

Mandy (11:59)
Yeah, anybody who has links with the skipping community, please connect because it is a numbers game. And if we’re going for the big one, we need as many people registering and taking part as we possibly can. But also just important, just as important, we need people to help us connect with potential venues, because although we’re reaching out to schools, not everybody is going to be connected with a school, you know. So if you

Dizzy Skips (12:19)
Mm.

Right.

Mandy (12:26)
You can invite your gym to be involved, a leisure centre, your place of work if they have a place big enough to skip. You only need 25 people in your group to be counted towards the world record attempt.

Dizzy Skips (12:33)
sure.

okay. Well, that’s quite manageable. Yeah.

Mandy (12:42)
Yeah, yeah.

So if we had if we had a thousand or, you know, 1500 venues and they all only had 25 people in each, they would still all be counted towards the world record. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (12:55)
That’s terrific. So Mandy,

what kind of help do you need in organizing this? I mean, I’m sure there’s people in the jump rope community that could lend a hand or like, it seems like an enormous amount of things for you to organize between now and September. Not to put on the stress, but.

Mandy (13:04)
Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, so

the main thing really is sharing the website link, sharing the website link, signposting people to that sign up form. The more people we get involved, the more the merrier, literally. We also have a Rope4Hope Facebook page so people can go on there, like it, follow it, you know, really make it active. We’re going to start putting out

Dizzy Skips (13:32)
Spread the word.

Mandy (13:34)
regular posts on there. But also again if you happen to live in the UK and particularly in those three counties, we need people to help us organise some of these local events. So if you think you can be a regional leader or a committee member and join myself and a mad crew of another half a dozen people, then I would dearly love to hear from you. Again you can go in through our website

Dizzy Skips (13:36)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mandy (14:02)
There’s another button on there. Can you bring that screen up again, Dizzy? I’ll just direct you to where volunteer regional leaders and committee members can go. So if you just go back. So if you go where it says committee volunteer.

Dizzy Skips (14:02)
Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Yeah, let me go back to here.

Mandy (14:18)
And again, that takes you cancer research page, tells you all of the duties that a regional leader or committee member would be ideally be able to engage with. With that one, you will get linked directly to our contact at Cancer Research UK, a lovely lady called Polly Leach, and she will guide you through the process of becoming a regional leader.

Dizzy Skips (14:28)
Mm-hmm. Contact info.

That’s terrific.

Mandy (14:42)
And the idea of a regional leader is that you will kind of be a point of contact for local venues in your area. So if you’re fairly well versed in your area and you know there’s a school and you know there’s a leisure center and you know there’s a gym or a village hall, you’ve potentially got four venues there that you could approach and say, hey, do you want to be involved in this event? And simply direct them to the website, simply direct them to the website because all of the information is on there.

Dizzy Skips (14:48)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mandy (15:11)
So, committee members, volunteers on that button. The get involved button is for skippers, groups and venues as initial inquiry. then on the far left hand side, sorry. Yes, we need cash too. So hence skip across to the last button. And that will take you to a very easy form that corporates and businesses can.

Dizzy Skips (15:15)
Mm-hmm.

But you need cash too. You need cash too.

Mandy (15:38)
fill in and sign and send off and again those forms will come directly to me at least in the first instance and here we need we need a couple of millionaires really Dizzy if you know anybody you know who’s got a couple of two or three thousand pounds that they can pass our way and the the initial three thousand pounds actually is quite a significant figure because that would give us an official link

Dizzy Skips (15:45)
Okay.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mandy (16:08)
and a consultant directly with Guinness World Records. So that initial £3,000 gives us a consultant with Guinness World Records directly. And then there’ll be another £10,000 £12,000 after that to cover the costs of the adjudication and the official kind of tallying up and agreeing of the world record having been achieved. yeah.

Dizzy Skips (16:20)
Okay.

Yeah.

Mandy (16:36)
That page is for corporates and businesses, but the sponsorship packages start from as little as £100 actually.

Dizzy Skips (16:43)
I was going to ask, what are you… Okay, that’s terrific.

Mandy (16:45)
Yep, so the

sponsorship packages start from as little as £100. We’re going to call that a Purple Sponsorship and anybody that donates £100 will go onto our Roll of Honor as a Purple Sponsor and they will feature on our website and it goes up through the ranks right up to a Platinum Plus Sponsor which is £25,000. So that

Dizzy Skips (16:53)
Okay.

Nice.

Okay.

Mandy (17:14)
That’s not published on the website yet, but it will be within the next few days. Hopefully by next week, we’ll have that all. T’s crossed and I’s dotted. So the idea of starting with that purple sponsorship is that most small businesses would be able to afford a donation like 100 pounds. And we are promoting that as bringing the event really down to the grassroots level and affordability of businesses across the

Dizzy Skips (17:16)
Mm-hmm.

Nice. Nice.

Sure. Right.

Absolutely.

Mandy (17:43)
across the level so everybody can get involved at whatever level they want to get involved at. It really is a case of this event trying to bring as many of the community together as possible.

Dizzy Skips (17:45)
Yeah.

Yeah. What I love about

this event is that it’s just a win, win, win, win, right? Like, I mean, the person who’s jumping wins because jumping is mental health and it’s happiness. It’s, I just love it. It’s so good for you. Jumping is going to benefit Cancer Research UK, right? It’s going to benefit these businesses and people that sponsor, you know, what a great way to take part in, in a really, really honorable, you know,

Mandy (18:03)
Absolutely.

Yep. Yep.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it brings a world record to the UK. And that’s very good news. It’s like the news at the end of the news, news. Like, I don’t know if you have that on American news channels, but on English news channels, they’ll have all the bad news, know, politics, war, bad things going on in the world. And then they always finish it off with a kind of good hearted

Dizzy Skips (18:27)
record setting. Like what a cool thing to do. so yeah, so.

Yes.

All right.

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Mandy (18:56)
positive, kind of make people go to bed happy news story. And I want to be the news at the end of the news. That’s what I want it to be. Yeah, that would be amazing. That would be amazing.

Dizzy Skips (18:56)
human interest, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, let’s make that happen. Yeah, yeah. So

for all of our listeners, whether you are in the UK or not, I think you can take part in the UK if you’re willing to take a little travel over there, which I would love to do if I could make it in September. But definitely if y’all are connected to some people with some moolah,

Mandy (19:16)
Yes, absolutely.

Dizzy Skips (19:25)
hook them up with Mandy because this is a really great, great event and I really want to see it succeed.

Mandy (19:29)
Yeah,

thank you, yeah it’s amazing you know it’s I feel like we’ve been a long time getting to this point but now all the little strands are starting to come together really nicely and I think big things are going to happen in the next six to eight weeks with this I really do.

Dizzy Skips (19:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, this is so cool. I love that so many of the people that I’ve talked to in the jump rope community have learned about or fallen in love with jump rope as a result of fundraisers like this Cancer Research UK event. Just what an amazing, what an amazing way to get introduced to jump rope and something that, you know, you can change your life. You can change other people’s lives by contributing and participating in a cool event like this.

Mandy (19:57)
Yes.

Yeah, absolutely. fact, on the media article that we’ve got, where is it? That one I was showing you with the… I’ll never find it when I want it. The one with me with my skipping rope picture. Anyway, if I can’t find it, it says in there, Polly makes an observation, the cancer research regional and national manager who’s working with us that,

Dizzy Skips (20:29)
Mm-hmm.

Mandy (20:32)
It’s not just about the fundraising. It’s about the long term impact that skipping has on somebody’s life. You know, like me, for instance, you know. 18 months ago, 31st of October, 2023, I couldn’t skip, you know, hardly at all. And now I can easily bash out 100, 200 skips, basic bounce. I’m getting better at my crossovers and wraps and, you know.

Dizzy Skips (20:39)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mandy (21:00)
what you call it? The 360 turny thing and then you jump over it again. you know, I’m, if you’d have told me I was going to do that 18 months ago, I’d have gone, don’t be silly. I can’t even jump 30 skips, you’re off, aren’t you? And it’s just like, and it’s so accessible, you know, you can get a decent skipping rope for like 10 quid here in the UK. And once you get going and you want to, you know, get a nice beaded rope like that gorgeous one around your neck.

Dizzy Skips (21:02)
Yeah.

Yeah?

I know, I know, right?

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mandy (21:26)
can splash out and you know get yourself another one or two or three or five or ten and you know how many skipping ropes have you got then Dizzy?

Dizzy Skips (21:30)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Or 70. Yeah.

my gosh, I honestly would have to count them. I’ve probably got a good 35 or so. I would guess. I don’t know. I haven’t counted them.

Mandy (21:42)
wow.

and just

different styles, different weights, or some are beaded, some of…

Dizzy Skips (21:48)
Yeah, so I’ve made a

lot of them like I made this one but I I’m a little compulsive and When I when I know I know right? Yeah But when I find a rope I like, you know, I I’ve been jumping outside a lot and when I start to beat ’em up I’ll buy a replacement for that rope. So I’ve got an extra one because I get hooked on the ones that I like so Yeah anyway

Mandy (21:52)
Nice.

No, I would never guess.

Yeah.

Yeah, well I’ve started

to name mine. I’ve got Ropey, which is just a plain white PVC one and I’ve got Beady because it has beads on. And then the other one is, what did I call it? One of my child minding families that I work for bought me a rope with a counting thing in the handle. I forgot what it was called.

Dizzy Skips (22:15)
Good for you.

yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it called Countie?

Mandy (22:32)
No, like Rez

or something like that Rezzy because that was the make of it. Something like that. Yeah. So, yeah, I’m slowly being converted to the skipping rope madness. Absolutely.

Dizzy Skips (22:36)
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I got a couple of those too.

It’s the best madness to have. You know,

I don’t know if you saw the episode where I talked to Kathy Jumps the last week, but one of the things that she pointed out, which I thought was just fabulous is that she said this in a reel on her site, but we talked about it too, is that as an adult, there aren’t, there aren’t that many things that you do that you’re so proud of. And jump rope is one of those things that I have.

You know, I make little gains and like I went out jumping last night and I did two things I’d never done before. And I was like, my God, you know, I’m not a young guy, but I’m proud of myself. You know, I skipped a rope.

Mandy (23:15)
Cool. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, and the thing is age is not a barrier, is it? I mean, I’m like I say, I’m nearer 60 than 50 now, but there are people on the social media who are 10 years older than me and they’re still skipping and they’re doing it better than I am. And I’m like, is amazing. And Lauren pointed out in, she did an interview on a

Dizzy Skips (23:24)
No.

Right.

yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Mandy (23:47)
breakfast show in the UK called This Morning about a week or so ago. And she said it can help bone density and actually prevent people getting osteoporosis, I think she said. It can actually help prevent diseases like cancer because it boosts your immune system and helps you to be able to fight infections and illnesses and builds those. I don’t know, I can’t remember their fancy name, but

Dizzy Skips (23:49)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mandy (24:14)
It builds the immune system, you know, and you can do it for 10 minutes a day and it’s the equivalent of running for half an hour. And that’s just amazing. There’s not many other sports or activities you can do that will give those kind of benefits to you.

Dizzy Skips (24:14)
Right, sure.

Yeah.

Right? Yeah, I know. And I know I’m biased here, but it’s way more fun than running. Way more fun.

Mandy (24:37)
But do you know what? Because I’m getting better at skipping and it’s built up my cardio and built up my stamina, I can now run better than what I used to. Like I can run and race my kids up to school and not be out of breath. And the first time I did that, I’m like, I’m not even out of breath. This is amazing.

Dizzy Skips (24:45)
Yeah.

Yeah.

I know. Yeah, it’s.

Mandy (24:57)
And that’s all

since I’ve started skipping.

Dizzy Skips (24:59)
It’s the gift that keeps on giving, right? Yeah. Well, I really appreciate your going to all the effort to put this on. I think this is such a cool, cool undertaking and I’m really happy to be able to kind of help publicize it for you. I will put links in the show.

Mandy (25:01)
Yeah, it really is. Absolutely it is. Yeah. Yeah

Thank you. Shall we mention

the email address or are going to just put that in the notes?

Dizzy Skips (25:20)
Yeah,

we can certainly do that. I was just gonna say I’ll put the link in the show notes for the Rope4Hope website, also for your Facebook page. And then I think the email address is contact@rope4hope.com. Yeah, and it’s number four. So rope number four hope.com. So I will stick that in the show notes as well. Perfect. All right, peeps, well.

Mandy (25:33)
Yes, yeah, contact@rope4hope.com.

number four. Yeah, yeah, yeah and that all comes straight to me as well.

Dizzy Skips (25:48)
Go find your millionaire friends and connect them with Mandy and let’s make this a successful world record.

Mandy (25:50)
Yes. Amazing.

yeah, I would dearly love that and with your help and others, that would be amazing. Yeah, fantastic.

Dizzy Skips (26:04)
Terrific. Well, thank you so much again for doing this and for coming on to talk to me about it. And I’m just delighted to see it progress.

Mandy (26:12)
Thank you, Dizzy, and thank you for inviting me back on. I much appreciate it.

Dizzy Skips (26:15)
My pleasure.