Blackhorse Cycles
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| 2nd January I made the call, just as I did for a charity event I organised last year, to Nigel. Kevin "I have an
idea" What initially started off as a something to aim for to fight off the festive flab has now become an annual event and if it raised money for charity then that was an added bonus. Taking time out to actually cycle the distance from Lands End to john O’Groates was going to take at least a week out of our diaries. What would have a greater participation and greater impact for fund raising from a wider audience was to try and engage people across the business in an activity that would not impact too much on everyone's time. Nigel. "How"? And so it had begun. First the idea and now the sell which was actually much easier than first thought. Once the 4 team captains were canvassed the responsibility for building the team was then shared, 16 people signed up in a matter of hours. The focus then moved to raising money for the British heart Foundation. Each team agreed to sing up to cycling 230km in 12 hours and each raise £400 (£1600 in total) for the charity. We have Gym in our office in Cardiff and we have the equipment (Keiser M3 Spinning bikes), the concept sold, the date organised now all that was left was the training and raising sponsorship. In the months that followed news of our challenge gained momentum. More and more people wanted to be involved to the extent that we decided to add another team, increase the distance and up the target for charity donations. It was also apparent that with all the training, the distance was going to be covered in a much less time so we entered into the frame a further degree of difficulty, each team member had to cycle at a predetermined gear resistance. In the current economic climate and every charity vying for contributions from a shrinking wallet it was important that we supported our fund raising in other ways. We held raffles for goods that were donated to us from staff and businesses around Cardiff and we utilised our network of suppliers for luxury items that we were able to auction. We also held a cake sale (for cakes donated by a bakery). Raising money this way was far more effective than just cash donations. Everything, or so we thought, was now in place for the 27th March and everyone was engaged in the challenge ahead. But another twist. Kevin. "It's
too easy. We'll get the distance completed in well under
our target time. We'll add another team and make the target
1340km (the actual shortest driving distance) and we'll
do that in 8 hours"! The day came and what a fantastic event. We started off at 8.25am with the aim of finishing at 16.25pm. In that way we hoped to gain the maximum exposure to staff arriving and leaving our offices. We had chosen a location at the front of our office such that everyone either entering or leaving the building could see us in full flow. The event was a huge success and everyone engaged in the activity although finding it a very tough challenge actually had a great time. Everyone had trained very hard over the previous months and everyone raised their game on the day, spurred on mostly by the inter-team banter about which team would make their contributed distance in the shortest time. The result was amazing, we raised £3400 for the British hear Foundation and with our target distance smashed in 7hrs and 1 minute (had we known it we would have probably all tried to break 7 hrs), so we kept going to reach 1500km (a massive 963 miles) in 7hrs 50 mins. Nigel. "So
what's next"? The gauntlet has been laid down. We are planning on completing the same challenge again next year to see if we can improve on our achievement. Any other businesses up for it? |
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