Challenger raise over £14,000 at Bridge 75 Challenger Abseil

On Saturday, 19th March 2011 70 Challengers took part in the Challenger Abseil at Bridge 75 in Millersdale near Buxton and raised just over £14,000.

It was a fantastic day and the Cotswold Outdoor store in Bakewell were at the event giving expedition kit advice.

More photos will be on our Facebook page soon but in the meantime here are a few:

The Challengers have their safety briefing...

The view from the top...

Challengers collect their t-shirts after completing the abseil...

Challengers raise £20,000 at our fourth Challenger Abseil

The Water Tower at Mannings Heath, Poole marked the second of the new venues for 2011.  This fully functional water tower at a height of 110ft is a somewhat daunting venue with Challengers saying the worst part was the steep climb up the ladders to get to the top.  All 75 Challengers completed the abseil and raised over £20,000 towards their expedition.

Her is some feedback from our Challengers on the day:

“Really want to do it again please!! It was amazing” Katie Waite, Bushey Meads School
“Absolutely brilliant.  You raise loads of money and would happily do it again now just for fun” George McDonald, Fulston Manor School

More photos will be posted on our Facebook page soon.

Atlas the Aped Crusader takes a trip to the Bristol Challenger Abseil

Bristol was the third stop for the Challenger Abseils.  74 Challengers took part and raised over £16,000 towards their expedition.  One Challenger chose to celebrate his 18th birthday by abseiling of the gorge bringing his whole family along to support him and Atlas the Aped Crusader was greeting Challengers and waiting for them at the bottom.

Cotswold Outdoors were also at the event offering expedition kit advice to Challengers.  Please see below for more photos from the day and look out on our facebook page for more photos coming soon.

Challenger Abseil at Clydebank

The Titan Crane at Clydebank is our highest Challenger Abseil event.  We had 90 Challengers take part in this fundraising event raising over £22,000 towards their expedition. 

At 150ft tall this is one of our scariest abseil events but every Challenger abseiled.  See below for a view from the top!

With more and more Scottish schools taking part in World Challenge expeditions, we are excited to have our first Challenger Run taking place on Sunday, 10th April to give Challengers the opportunity to take part in an abseil and a run during their two year programme.  For more information contact challengerevents@world-challenge.co.uk.

The Event season kicks off with our first Challenger Abseil!

Every year World Challenge organises a variety of Challenger Abseils which are open to all our Challengers going on expedition.

The Manchester Challenger Abseil at the velodrome marked the start of the season and is a brand new venue for 2011.  Challengers were taken along a walkway in the roof of the building and then abseiled the 40m down into the centre of the arena.

To add to the atmosphere cyclists were training on the circuit which was pretty impressive to watch!

We had 72 Challengers take part with everyone abseiling and they raised a fantastic combined total of £18,000 towards their expedition.  All our Challengers and School Leaders who took part said it was a great way to raise sponsorship and at a cost of only £20 all they had to do was arrange their travel to and from the venue.

All Challengers receive a t-shirt and certificate to mark their acheivement of taking part and it also acts as proof to all the people who have sponsored them that they did it!

Congratulations to everyone who took part and check our Facebook page for more photos from the event coming soon!

Bag2School continued...

Many of you ask what happens to the clothing collections that Bags2School organise so we decided to follow some of our Challenger teams' collection to see where it all ends up.  We followed the collection organised by Durham School and Hermitage School going to India in 2011.  There are three mascots who are off on their own trip as part of the export journey for the items donated. Bertie Badger (Durham School) and Hermie the Ram (Hermitage School) along with Recce Ted (World Challenge) are soft toys that will now be followed along their journey with the rest of the clothes donated. Bag2TheFuture has 16 export markets for donated items of textiles and the three mascots will be tracked on their journey abroad.  Look out for future instalments to see what happened to the collection.

Clear out and clean up!!

We always recommend groups to use a company called Bag2School to raise money for their expedition.  Bag2School is the leading textile company working with schools throughout the UK – over 20,000 schools have now organised textile collections and the company has now paid out over £10 million to schools who have used the money for school funds or to support charities. Bag2Thefuture is currently paying schools £500 per tonne for items donated.

A collection is easy to arrange.  All you need to do is call one of Bag2school coordinators on 01609 780222 to arrange a collection.  Bags2Schools provides the bags for you and all you need to do is fill them up.

They will arrange a mutually agreed time to collect the bags from your school. The collection is then weighed and they will send you a cheque within 4-6 weeks. Attached to your cheque is a Certificate of Achievement highlighting your involvement and efforts, this also shows the weight collected and the amount of money raised.

There is lots of information on the website about how to promote your collection and you can even arrange for someone to come and do an assembly at your school

Over the last couple of months in the office we have had a bit of a competition to see who could collect the most bags and raise the most money for The Challenger Trust.  Competition was fierce and the bags of donated items soon started building up.

World Challenge managed to raise £170 in the collection and this money will be donated to the Challenger Trust.

Lauren Smith from our Independent’s programme recently did the same and here’s what she said,

“I had confirmation yesterday that BagSchool are sending me a cheque in 6 weeks for £480. Altogether I collected 960kgs of unwanted clothes/shoes etc. I collected it over 3 months and stored the bags in the garage - wanted to start collecting again but dad said NO - he wants his garage back!! Easy way to raise funds though - Definitely recommend it to other challengers especially if they can store bags.”

Great work Lauren. 

Why not see if you and your team can beat Lauren’s impressive £480? If you get the whole school involved you could have the potential to raise a whole heap more!