Friday 13 June 2008 - Registration Day
Good evening readers, my name�s Nadine and I�m the 2008 RBS Caledonian
Challenge blogger. Over the next couple of days, I�m going to follow the
progress of the walkers as they tackle the awesome challenge of walking 54
miles along the West Highland Way in just 24 hours!
The journey begins for each team at the Nevis Centre in Fort
William. With 1,000 carb rich dinners and 500 litres of water on order,
each walker checked in to get their unique walker number and a special chip
to track their progress over the walk.
In the massive
Nevis Centre gym hall, the atmosphere was buzzing as people talked about
the journey ahead of them. Teams (walkers and supporters) made up of family
members, colleagues, friends and even some Vikings, listened intently to
the safety briefing, while enjoying lashings of pasta, bread and potatoes�
slow release energy foods which will give them a kick start for the walk
tomorrow.
I�m about to turn in for the night because
there�s a long day ahead tomorrow, before I go though, I�ll leave you with
some inspirational words from the different people I�ve met today.
Who I�ve met so far�
The Middlewich Marauders
All the way from
Manchester, this RBS team came dressed for the occasion as rampaging
Vikings. Everything from horned helmets to swords (novelty ones of course),
the Marauders put a smile on the faces of their fellow walkers�
faces.
The team will be walking in sensible clothes
for the majority of the walk, but they�re hoping to cross the finish line
in their Nordic get up.
Steve the Viking said: �We�re
really looking forward to taking part. There are five of us in the team,
three of us are walking and two guys are our support for the walk.
�The most important thing to us is to finish the walk, even
if we�re the slowest. We want to finish it together, and we definitely
don�t want to be a DNF [did not finish].�
Good luck
Vikings. Hope to interview you (horns and all) again at the finish
line.
Volunteers
To make the event
happen, the event relies on over 500 volunteers for it to run like
clockwork. Taking part for the second year is Billy Mitchell, chief
marshal.
He said: �This is the second year I�ve taken
part. It blew my mind last year being a volunteer, so I had to take part
again this year.
�It�s so inspiring to see so many
people pushing themselves to the limit to raise money for charity. It�s
actually pretty emotional watching people cross the finish line because you
can feel their sense of achievement for completing such an awesome
task.�
Watch Us Grow
The aim of the
Caledonian Challenge is to raise money for the Scottish Community
Foundation. Last year, an impressive £1M was raised by the event, and
of course we hope to top that this year.
The Scottish
Community Foundation is the fourth largest grantmaker in Scotland. Each
year, the Foundation awards approximately 700 awards to smaller charities
and community groups totalling around £3.5M.
One of the community groups to receive a grant from the
money raised by Caledonian Challenge walkers is Watch Us Grow. Watch Us
Grow enables people with learning difficulties and mental health issues to
develop and learn at their own pace, encouraging the routines expected in
employment. When they feel ready, students and volunteers are encouraged to
move into supported employment.
To thank the walkers
for all the support they�ve received, Watch Us Grow staff and clients made
their way north from Cumbernauld to help at resigistration.
Anne, one of the support workers at Watch Us Grow said:
�We�re so grateful for the support we�ve had from the Scottish Community
Foundation with money raised by the Challenge, we thought we would make the
giving go full circle by volunteering to help out at the event. We�re
leaving Cumbernauld at 3.30am on Sunday to help out on the final day. We�re
really happy to be giving something back.�
Posted by Nadine on 14/06/08 12:19
