Thanks for the help Fundraising

With just 6 days to go before I fly out to Tanzania I wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone who has helped with the fund-raising, if you have been keeping an eye on the Just Giving site you will have noticed that it is now at 130% as we have raised £2,620.72 for the 2 charities. 

 

Charity Fundraising has included: 

Cakes sales, an Easter quiz, pancake sales, weight loss clubs with forfeits, guess the baby competition, raffles, a magic night, a dress down day, a charity auction of photos, sponsored children's mini Kilimanjaro climb (at my daughters nursery), personal sponsorship and donation.  

The generosity of the everybody, who has helped with and has taken part in the events, has blown me away. 

Just to remind you all the money goes to an excellent cause, 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.

Many thanks Aaron

Successful Magic Night & Band of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers

On Friday night, 26th March, Stephen Taylor, Neils Vinter and I hosted the magic night at Seaham hall and I am please to report it was a really good night. John Archer was very good with comic songs including a classical piece on the ukulele and psychological magic as well as some very clever maths with magic squares, which had everyone guessing. 

The cake went down a storm with everyone getting a piece, I also took the little people off the top of the cake for safe keeping and plan to take them to the top of Kilimanjaro. There was some concern that there were only 17 people on the top of the cake; however the other 3 were just round the corner less than one hour from the top. It was an excellent night, a big thank you to all who came along to support as.

The summit of the cake 

On Sunday night, 28th March, Neil and Jessica two of the other climbers, arranged for The Band of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers to play a charity concert in Sunderland Minster as a fund-raising event. The band were joined by guest singers John Rowland and Julie Pendleton and Neil plays the Clarinet in the band.

It was an excellent evening with the band playing rousing military marching tunes and tunes from the movies and shows including Oliver, Phantom of the Opera and the Sound of Music and when they played “Climb Every Mountain” I did smile. I’m not sure the song will make it on to my ipod but it is a funny song for the trip. The evening finished with “Rule Britannia” just like being at last night of the proms.   

 The Band of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers

Magic Cake Arrives

Just a very quick post to show you all the magic show cake,  it was created by Janice who works in the Stop Smoking Team in NHS SoTW

 The cake in all its glory, almost seems a shame to cut it up  

 

Cake Maker Jancie in the middle and the smoking team who all contributed

The cake will be at the magic show tonight where it will be cut up and sold to those who are coming along.

If you fancy a piece the only way to get some is to come along.

Tickets available on the door £25 per person with drink and food and magic and of course cake included.

Meet Some of the team - Taken at Scafell

Some pictures of the team while on our Scafell Trek
Gillian, Aaron, John, Emily, Chris, Jessica, Karen and Stephen

A Big Big Thank you - Cake Competition

I wanted to say a big thank you everyone who took part in the cake competition,  and guess the baby  competition that took place in Rapier House. Sadly I was on annual leave so was not able to taste the wonderful cakes, however Hannah stepped in the breech and helped out as a cake judge.

The cake rush  

 The baby competition

 There we so many cakes that i can't show them all on the blog, but thought I should show you the first and second place cakes, well done to Jane and Judith.

The event raised over £113 thanks very much it is very much appreciated.

Training weekend 5: Camping and Scarfell 20th - 21st March

On 20th March, with less than 4 weeks to go, we had our final group training weekend we were staying at Wasdale Head campsite in the western lakes, on Saturday night for camping before walking on the Sunday. The campsite nestles under the Scafell mountain range at the head of beautiful Wastwater, the deepest lake in England.

Map of the Lakes  

We arrived in Wasdale head on Sunday afternoon and put tents then headed down to the local pub, the Wasdale Head Inn. Sadly the pub had no TV signal so we couldn’t watch England getting beaten, we had a good meal and a good discussion about the remaining things we needed to do for our preparations for Kilimanjaro. 

Then it was back to the tent, to try out my new sleeping bag and roll mat, which I had bought earlier in the week in Keswick. After much searching I went with a down bag and I am pleased to report it was lovely and warm, so I am very happy to take it to Kilimanjaro with me.  

  Our tents in the morning lightly frosted

Breakfast was provided by the duo that is John Anderson and Scott Elwell who we refer to as our version of the Hairy Bikers, although they don’t have bikes or big beards. They supplied us with tea & coffee and cracking bacon butties with beans. Top quality mountain climbing food. Jonathan was to be the maitre'd but sadly had to miss the trip after he bruised his foot kick boxing and was told to rest.

After breakfast we set off on our expedition up Scafell, the day was really pleasant as we set off with reasonable temperatures and even some sunshine, you would think it was spring.

 

 Setting Off 

Scafell hidden by cloud

It was scary at various times getting to the summit, including a precarious route which we called the wall of doom on the journey back to Sunderland. The trip back down was challenging too, with the rain and the mud on the stone steps, provided by the National Trust, I managed to slip at least 3 times and put a slight bend in my walking pole.  

The scramble

 The view at the top

 

Ski Sunday on the way back down

So in the space of one weekend we have camped beside the deepest lake in England and climbed the highest mountain in England, this is all good training, but Kilimanjaro is 6 times as big as Scafell, oh well at least we have 6 days to climb it.

Training weekend 4: Walking in the Cheviots 20th February 2010

On 20th February we had our next training weekend. We had planned to try and camp in the Cheviots but we found the campsites were not open so we scrapped this idea and instead went with a walk, which we started early on the Sunday morning.

We met at the Rose & Thistle, Alwinton, NE65 7BQ in Northumberland, which is near the areas that were totally cut off by snow in December 2009 and January 2010.

Our walk was planned to take us up to Windy Gyle, it was described as a gentle training walk, and it turned out it was more than 16 miles.

Map of where we were heading

The group were assembled by about 8.30am and we set off into the hills. We were led by Richard our guide for the day. The start of the walk was crisp and frosty but with no snow, however, after about half an hour we were into deep snow.

Start of the walk

So deep that a Land Rover had been abandoned after slipping in to a deep gully. Apparently it had been there for a few days!

The deep snow

The Northumberland country side is really beautiful, and when covered in snow it could have been Austria, Switzerland or Sweden.

We stopped for lunch after about 4 hours walking and we were all very grateful for the break. Trudging through snow is very tough and it did feel like one of the most challenging walks we had done.

Lunch stop

Lunch stop

After lunch we headed for the summit of Windy Gyle. We got to the top and posed for team photo.

The Team Photo

Left to right: John, Richard, Emily, John, Dave, Ralph, John, Mick, Chris, Claire, Karen, Neils and Me (Aaron) in the red        

We then headed back down to the car park and home. It was a really good walk and great to have so many people there, as 12 out of our group of 19 climbers made it. There were lows and highs in the walk and we had a great time discussing what music we would and wouldn’t listen to on the mountain. The favourite seemed to be YAZZ’s The Only Way Is Up and QUEEN’s Don’t Stop Me Now.

Is this Narnia?

The journey back home was interesting with blizzard conditions on the way back to the A1 and all the way back to Newcastle. All I could think was thank goodness it had held off while we were walking.

There are now only 5 weeks to go until we head off to Tanzania for the climb. In this time we will be having some charity events, including the Evening of Magic on the 26 March 2010, an Easter quiz and a Talent Show 9 April 2010, so the question is “Do you have the K Factor?”