Training Weekend 1: Training walk

Well now you know a bit about the trip and the charities I thought I should tell you about the training we have been doing so far and what we have planned.

The group met up for the first time back on 4th October to do some training. The first walk we did together was Langdale Pike, near Ambleside in the Lake District. It was a pleasant route with the opportunity to try out some of our walking equipment.

Langdale Pike walk description taken from the Fell & Rock Climbing Club Of The English Lake District Limited.  (www.frcc.co.uk/)

Langdale Pike: Length 10 Kilometres, Highest point 736 metres

 

As it was our first walk we took it nice and easy. We did joke with Niels, the group member who organised the walk, that is was technically a pub crawl as we started at a pub and walked in a circle to the same pub at the end.

Posing for a photo halfway round on our sunny walk

It was nice to meet everyone properly and share ideas for fundraising and concerns about the trip. At the end of the walk I decided that I needed new boots. My old ones had turned out to be a bit too big, which was a surprise, the action of walking up and down the hills had allowed my feet to slip inside the boots and had given me impressive bruises on my big toes, and that was with thick walking socks too.

The Charities:

The charitable side of the climb was set out from the very beginning and was one of the reasons I wanted to climb the mountain. The climbers are not required to raise money to pay for the trip therefore anything raised goes directly to the charity. As a partnership, we have committed to raise £30,000 pounds for charity, so this breaks down to approximately a £1,500 per climber. This fundraising is going to be organisational and personal. There will be a big event later in the year and in the meantime we will be putting together a fundraising group to help organise some smaller events, so get your thinking caps on!

There are 2 charities that we are raising funds for, a NHS SOTW charity and the Sunderland partnership charity.

The NHS SOTW charity is the Kilimatinde Trust, a charity that supports a hospital with four community clinics and a nurse training school in one of the poorest provinces of Tanzania.

Outpatient Clinic, Kilimatinde Hospital.

Operating Theatre, Kilimatinde Hospital.

The partnership charity is The African Blackwood Conservation Project (ABCP). The aim of this project is to help replenish this valuable tree in Tanzania. Most people will not have knowingly seen blackwood but almost everyone will have heard it, for it is the premier wood of choice for fine concert-quality woodwind instruments such as clarinets, oboes and flutes, as well as being used in the manufacture of bagpipes

Weeding the area to allow the planting of trees.

Children planting Blackwood seedlings.

There are links to the charities on the links section of blog if you want to see more, plus a link to my just giving page, if you want to make a donation. Aaron's Just Giving Page

So I’m going to Kilimanjaro…

My name is Aaron Tucker and I work in the OD and Workforce team in NHS South of Tyne and Wear. You may have seen the email back in October that I was “up for the Challenge.” Yes, I’m the person that has been chosen to represent the organisation on the charity climb up Mount Kilimanjaro in April 2010. This blog is to help update people on my training and fundraising activities over the months leading up to the climb.


When I applied, I really wanted to climb the mountain but I didn’t think I would actually get selected. A few weeks later, after a fairly hectic week at work, I received a call at home asking me if I still wanted to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. I joked at the time that it was “a bit cold and a bit far away”. All joking aside, I was delighted and agreed that I would still like to take on the challenge.

NHS South of Tyne and Wear are part of the Sunderland Partnership, which brings together the local public, private, community and voluntary sectors. I will be climbing as part of a group of twenty, with my teammates representing various agencies from the Partnership, including City Hospitals Sunderland, City of Sunderland College, Tyne and Wear Fire & Rescue, Northumbria Police, Sunderland City Council and others.


Kilimanjaro, located in north-eastern Tanzania, is Africa’s highest mountain at just under 20,000 ft. There are several routes by which to climb it and the team and I will be taking the Machame route, which is by far the most scenic but steeper route up the mountain.

I am raising funds for the Kilimatinde Trust and the African Blackwood Conservation Project, and shall include more details about the charities in my next post. Please visit my Just Giving page if you wish to make a donation: Aaron's Just Giving Page

If you want to know more about the mountain or the partnership why not check out these links:


Kilimanjaro on Wikipedia
Kilimanjaro climbing routes on Wikipedia
The Sunderland Partnership
The Sunderland Echo Article