One month from today we embark on an 80 mile walk from Cambridge to Kent, This is a mini challenge in the lead up to the epic adventure, this will be challenging for us and give us both an idea of where we are physically and mentally...
People are welcome to attempt the journey with getting sponsored as individuals, so far we have around 8 people confirmed to participate so thank you guys I'm sure you'll enjoy it and get a great sense of achievement on completion of your chosen distance.
You can do it in teams as a relay, or with a friend, partner, dog or hamster it's entirely up to you but if you do want to be involved please contact us and let us know as soon as possible so we can send you a kit list, contact sheet and sponsor form - you'll also get T-shirts for your trouble!...
As a training run you could be walking a few long distance weekend walk such as Cambridge to Ely along the river or perhaps to Fordham...it's down to you to train and down to you do something amazing so why not join us and burn of some of those festive pounds?!... this is a great opportunity for you to contribute directly to a charity and achieve a personal goal, go on give it a go.
Tuesday, 4 January 2011
Festivities over, a long break and now for the torture:
It's been a long festive season for the Oar Raisers what with travelling to various places visiting friends and family between training and fundraising etc but now the new year has begun and we intend to rise with new vigour, taking the world by storm with our fundraising schemes and hellish training challenges...
Firstly we hope everyone has had a great Christmas and New year - we've been luck enough not only to see our families but to spend real quality time with our friends - Men, Women, and Elvis the quadriped
Firstly we hope everyone has had a great Christmas and New year - we've been luck enough not only to see our families but to spend real quality time with our friends - Men, Women, and Elvis the quadriped
Sunday, 28 November 2010
The Oar Raisers black tie post report:
Success!... to some degree at least, the evening of the 27th November saw the Oar Raisers first large scale event. After two months of stress and an incredible amount leg work the night arrived with little to no hiccups - noticeable or not there were a few but in true Oar Raiser style we 'got it done'.
Ordering people around and directing the general operation (meticulously I might add) has become the new order of the day for Rower 2 and as such the proof came with the pudding as the night unfolded a creamy, silk smooth schedule bar the cock ups out of his hands. Even in the face of the last minute alterations, necessary changes and unpredictable scenarios R2 kept calm and carried on.
The attendees thronged into the lobby for their mulled wine and pleasantries to the subtle sounds of jazz piano and a roaring open fire, 136 guests took their places at the tables and were informed of the events about to take place. Seated, starters issued and some classical guitar drifted over the chit chat and clinky clinking of cutlery and wine receptacles - it was a decadent and charming affair with a great dynamic. The courses came and went fluidly with smiles and praise for the food. The top table looked on in anticipation of something going wrong but it never seemed to, a relief.
Food done, a spat of comedy leading into the auction which lasted far longer than predicted but raised far more than we originally thought it would. Auction lots came and went with varying degrees of interest and bids, There were some tremendously generous people and the kindness lasted the entire evening with over £500 being raised separately on raffle tickets!...
Truly the people around us are very supportive and we are privileged to have such wonderfully kind friends and family - if you had asked me a month a go if I thought this event would be a success - I would have said absolutely not, too little too late but to have seen everyone glammed up and prepared to spend their money on a charity auction the way did - I am proud, shocked but proud to call these people my friends. I thank you all and I am sure Parkinson's UK will be delighted with our result.
Total count for the night is a staggering £2821 plus some money to come from the Land Lady of The Alexander Arms Cambridge who kindly did shuttle runs in her car to the hotel for a donation, thank you to you Caroline - you wonderful woman.
A further addition to this months fundraising came in the form of a race night at the Frog and Toad pub Gillingham Kent - David, Glenda and Sophie managed to raise a brilliant £300 - a massive thank you family!...
The band (run for cover) played everyone out with great cover songs from the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and many more artists, a fantastic performance and one to be remembered not least for the dancing Black tie wearers, Rhod Davies put on a particularly good display of Welsh revelry.
All in all with donations from the table boxes and everything else we have reached over £3K which is to my mind a huge success, owed mainly to you guys that cam and supported us, so thank you all, I am utterly over awed (oared) by you...
The Auction over, we made a few speeches kicked of by Master Auctioneer Sir Colin of Johnny Bowles (I would like to convey my personal thanks to him for his hard work and terrific effort) Speeches of thanks from both R1 and R2 accompanied by a welcome message to bright shiny new baby James - Congrats Bill and Jayne!...(still wish you'd had the baby at the auction the publicity would have been great!) haha
And one last but by no means least thanks, to Abigail for her enormous patience, her dedication to our cause and her ability to keep me on track when all else seems to be falling apart - thank you my darling little toe.
Keep up to date with our progress and we will endeavour to put on some large events in the new year, but from now until Christmas I am training and concentrating only on much smaller fundraisers and sponsorship... If you want to get involved by running an event for us please just ask and we'll get something sorted, don't forget you can also hire us for a days labour at anytime in return for a donation....
We do hope you all had a great time and thank you all once again!
R2.
Ordering people around and directing the general operation (meticulously I might add) has become the new order of the day for Rower 2 and as such the proof came with the pudding as the night unfolded a creamy, silk smooth schedule bar the cock ups out of his hands. Even in the face of the last minute alterations, necessary changes and unpredictable scenarios R2 kept calm and carried on.
The attendees thronged into the lobby for their mulled wine and pleasantries to the subtle sounds of jazz piano and a roaring open fire, 136 guests took their places at the tables and were informed of the events about to take place. Seated, starters issued and some classical guitar drifted over the chit chat and clinky clinking of cutlery and wine receptacles - it was a decadent and charming affair with a great dynamic. The courses came and went fluidly with smiles and praise for the food. The top table looked on in anticipation of something going wrong but it never seemed to, a relief.
Food done, a spat of comedy leading into the auction which lasted far longer than predicted but raised far more than we originally thought it would. Auction lots came and went with varying degrees of interest and bids, There were some tremendously generous people and the kindness lasted the entire evening with over £500 being raised separately on raffle tickets!...
Truly the people around us are very supportive and we are privileged to have such wonderfully kind friends and family - if you had asked me a month a go if I thought this event would be a success - I would have said absolutely not, too little too late but to have seen everyone glammed up and prepared to spend their money on a charity auction the way did - I am proud, shocked but proud to call these people my friends. I thank you all and I am sure Parkinson's UK will be delighted with our result.
Total count for the night is a staggering £2821 plus some money to come from the Land Lady of The Alexander Arms Cambridge who kindly did shuttle runs in her car to the hotel for a donation, thank you to you Caroline - you wonderful woman.
A further addition to this months fundraising came in the form of a race night at the Frog and Toad pub Gillingham Kent - David, Glenda and Sophie managed to raise a brilliant £300 - a massive thank you family!...
The band (run for cover) played everyone out with great cover songs from the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and many more artists, a fantastic performance and one to be remembered not least for the dancing Black tie wearers, Rhod Davies put on a particularly good display of Welsh revelry.
All in all with donations from the table boxes and everything else we have reached over £3K which is to my mind a huge success, owed mainly to you guys that cam and supported us, so thank you all, I am utterly over awed (oared) by you...
The Auction over, we made a few speeches kicked of by Master Auctioneer Sir Colin of Johnny Bowles (I would like to convey my personal thanks to him for his hard work and terrific effort) Speeches of thanks from both R1 and R2 accompanied by a welcome message to bright shiny new baby James - Congrats Bill and Jayne!...(still wish you'd had the baby at the auction the publicity would have been great!) haha
And one last but by no means least thanks, to Abigail for her enormous patience, her dedication to our cause and her ability to keep me on track when all else seems to be falling apart - thank you my darling little toe.
Keep up to date with our progress and we will endeavour to put on some large events in the new year, but from now until Christmas I am training and concentrating only on much smaller fundraisers and sponsorship... If you want to get involved by running an event for us please just ask and we'll get something sorted, don't forget you can also hire us for a days labour at anytime in return for a donation....
We do hope you all had a great time and thank you all once again!
R2.
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
Testing times and custom Converse!...
The last two weeks have had us at highs and lows much like an Atlantic tide Ebbs and flows....................................
So Rower 1 has been doing his trailer license training in Norfolk, provided free by a very kind gentleman from www.suttondriving.co.uk
This has been a necessary part of our progression as without the trailer license we cannot move the boat ourselves and although the training ordinarily might incur a large cost we have managed to do a great deal on getting the training free - we will have to cover the cost of the test fee but that is a much smaller sum. R1 claims to have enjoyed the training a great deal and was pleased to have been doing it with an instructor that put him at ease, So from both the Oar Raisers thank you to Sutton driving.
The next trip for R1 saw him going back school, giving talks and lessons to year 8, 9 and 10 of a school in South Bucks... To his amazement the response was brilliant and the children were really engaged by everything he had to say. The school have agreed to do some fundraising for us which is very positive indeed.
Publicity this week includes a feature in Deritend Industries in house magazine and County wide the County Council employee information paper (article entitled 5 minutes with Chris Howard) Lastly as I'm sure you've all seen on our face book page, Sandira Reddy an artist form Canvas Warriors has customised our very own Oar Raiser Converse trainers and kindly donated them to us, she is also going to donate a voucher for one pair of custom trainers painted trainers that will be a lot in our up and coming auction event on the 27th November. The Black tie dinner and auction is well under way and there are now very few tickets left so get in quick if you have a friend or another person interested in coming. Tickets can now also be purchased from The Alexander Arms Cambridge (The Landlord and Landlady have been very supportive -thank you Charlie and Caroline...
You can also catch a short time lapse film of our trainers being painted on you tube - just type in Canvas warriors painting a shoe!... it's actually amazing!
That's all for now folks so please keep reading as we have news breaking daily like eggs rolling off a table top.
So Rower 1 has been doing his trailer license training in Norfolk, provided free by a very kind gentleman from www.suttondriving.co.uk
This has been a necessary part of our progression as without the trailer license we cannot move the boat ourselves and although the training ordinarily might incur a large cost we have managed to do a great deal on getting the training free - we will have to cover the cost of the test fee but that is a much smaller sum. R1 claims to have enjoyed the training a great deal and was pleased to have been doing it with an instructor that put him at ease, So from both the Oar Raisers thank you to Sutton driving.
The next trip for R1 saw him going back school, giving talks and lessons to year 8, 9 and 10 of a school in South Bucks... To his amazement the response was brilliant and the children were really engaged by everything he had to say. The school have agreed to do some fundraising for us which is very positive indeed.
Publicity this week includes a feature in Deritend Industries in house magazine and County wide the County Council employee information paper (article entitled 5 minutes with Chris Howard) Lastly as I'm sure you've all seen on our face book page, Sandira Reddy an artist form Canvas Warriors has customised our very own Oar Raiser Converse trainers and kindly donated them to us, she is also going to donate a voucher for one pair of custom trainers painted trainers that will be a lot in our up and coming auction event on the 27th November. The Black tie dinner and auction is well under way and there are now very few tickets left so get in quick if you have a friend or another person interested in coming. Tickets can now also be purchased from The Alexander Arms Cambridge (The Landlord and Landlady have been very supportive -thank you Charlie and Caroline...
You can also catch a short time lapse film of our trainers being painted on you tube - just type in Canvas warriors painting a shoe!... it's actually amazing!
That's all for now folks so please keep reading as we have news breaking daily like eggs rolling off a table top.
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Stress, Fundraising and Negotiating:
Before anything else please let me just say a big welcome to Olivia Grace May Tann, she entered the world at 00:40 Monday morning she is another God child for me to add to my collection. She is, however, the first girl 6lb 4 and brilliant!!!... welcome, welcome, welcome...
Since our last blog update we have had a rather chaotic time attempting to organise a Black Tie Dinner and Auction evening...
For those of you with tickets, many thanks - your official tickets will be with you shortly and all the necessary info will be sent to you along with your opportunity to tell us of any special dietary requirements.
We still have seats to fill and would like to really push the numbers up on this event in order not just to produce more funds but in order that everybody really has a good time... So if you have a friend that would be interested or family member you'd like to bring please let us know as soon as you can. Auction prizes now include works from a local artist as well as hot air balloon ride and horse riding session. Get a table of 10 and we will consider giving one ticket for free!
We ran a Crazy Hat Party at Nusha bar Cambridge on the 23rd of October, it was a lot of fun, and many people were impressed with the impromptu Brazillian girls booty shaking contest! including both the oar raisers (photo's available on Facebook.
Thank you to everyone that attended we raised a fair amount of money given the lack of hats, a good time was had by all as the music pumped into the late hours and the fancy costumed Salon Rouge goers passed in and out to have their photo's taken with us - an interesting way to raise funds...
This week has also seen the County Council social reporting team make a short video about the Oar Raisers to post on YouTube and Facebook - as soon as we have the link we will post it for people to see.
please keep reading and following our progress, we will be Halloween quizing in the Alexander Arms Cambridge this Sunday.
Since our last blog update we have had a rather chaotic time attempting to organise a Black Tie Dinner and Auction evening...
For those of you with tickets, many thanks - your official tickets will be with you shortly and all the necessary info will be sent to you along with your opportunity to tell us of any special dietary requirements.
We still have seats to fill and would like to really push the numbers up on this event in order not just to produce more funds but in order that everybody really has a good time... So if you have a friend that would be interested or family member you'd like to bring please let us know as soon as you can. Auction prizes now include works from a local artist as well as hot air balloon ride and horse riding session. Get a table of 10 and we will consider giving one ticket for free!
We ran a Crazy Hat Party at Nusha bar Cambridge on the 23rd of October, it was a lot of fun, and many people were impressed with the impromptu Brazillian girls booty shaking contest! including both the oar raisers (photo's available on Facebook.
Thank you to everyone that attended we raised a fair amount of money given the lack of hats, a good time was had by all as the music pumped into the late hours and the fancy costumed Salon Rouge goers passed in and out to have their photo's taken with us - an interesting way to raise funds...
This week has also seen the County Council social reporting team make a short video about the Oar Raisers to post on YouTube and Facebook - as soon as we have the link we will post it for people to see.
please keep reading and following our progress, we will be Halloween quizing in the Alexander Arms Cambridge this Sunday.
Monday, 4 October 2010
All at once...
Well now, what a brilliant last weeks the Oar Raisers have had...
Firstly a thank you to Cambridgeshire County Council Pensions, HR and
Legal departments for their efforts at a fundraising raffle on behalf of
Parkinson's UK - you've all been incredibly supportive thus far and it
is greatly appreciated.
On Sunday 26th of October both the Oar Raisers went down to Richmond to
attend the Woodvale seminar, arriving some four hours later than
intended (traffic was appalling) we were hacked off, tired, hungry and
somewhat disheartened. However, finding that the other competitors had
left and the remaining faces were all the event organisers from Woodvale
we took the opportunity to go over every concern we had. It actually
ended up working in our favour as we had valuable time with people we're
going to be dealing with over the next 14 months. They proved to be a
fantastic source of information and were very friendly and welcoming,
they even showed us a Hungarian designed ocean rowing boat that they
were moving to a harbour. It is difficult to convey any understanding of
just how exciting it is to see a boat similar to one which you are going
to live on for up to three months but she was a beautiful and aggressive
looking boat as though built to spear through steal - I ran my had along
the surface, tentative and electric.
On Monday 27th of October Rower 2 closed the HeaterMeals deal and
secured food supplies from the company with the potential for some
financial support later. A big thank you to Mr Jeffry Fox at HeaterMeals
we both look forward to working closely with him on our campaign.
The Saturday 2nd of October arrived and at 8 am we began our second
twelve hour row at Dw Fitness, I was not looking forward to this session
as I felt under prepared physically but setting up and watching Tom
glide through his first shift put me at ease a little. By the end of the
day we were both coaching each other through and motivating one another.
Tom sustained major glute spasms and a few heal blisters - the pain was
obvious from the discolouration in his face let alone the look of a man
about to break... But he pushed through and completed and that is what
this challenge is really about, it's a battle against yourself as much
as anything else, the metal aspect begins to grind you and convince you
that you have no more to give, that everything you had wasn't good
enough and that you just have to stop... but if you're an Oar Raiser you
will not be beaten, and he wasn't. Pushing yourself beyond your physical
capability is essential training and conquering your own will to give up
is vital in surviving. Rower 1 I applaud you!...
Please also note that the deadline for tickets to our Black tie dinner event
is this Friday (08/10/10) we are still looking to fill a fair number of places
so if you have friends family or colleagues that would be interested then
please invite them and confirm with us...
Also visit www.oarraisers.co.uk
Firstly a thank you to Cambridgeshire County Council Pensions, HR and
Legal departments for their efforts at a fundraising raffle on behalf of
Parkinson's UK - you've all been incredibly supportive thus far and it
is greatly appreciated.
On Sunday 26th of October both the Oar Raisers went down to Richmond to
attend the Woodvale seminar, arriving some four hours later than
intended (traffic was appalling) we were hacked off, tired, hungry and
somewhat disheartened. However, finding that the other competitors had
left and the remaining faces were all the event organisers from Woodvale
we took the opportunity to go over every concern we had. It actually
ended up working in our favour as we had valuable time with people we're
going to be dealing with over the next 14 months. They proved to be a
fantastic source of information and were very friendly and welcoming,
they even showed us a Hungarian designed ocean rowing boat that they
were moving to a harbour. It is difficult to convey any understanding of
just how exciting it is to see a boat similar to one which you are going
to live on for up to three months but she was a beautiful and aggressive
looking boat as though built to spear through steal - I ran my had along
the surface, tentative and electric.
On Monday 27th of October Rower 2 closed the HeaterMeals deal and
secured food supplies from the company with the potential for some
financial support later. A big thank you to Mr Jeffry Fox at HeaterMeals
we both look forward to working closely with him on our campaign.
The Saturday 2nd of October arrived and at 8 am we began our second
twelve hour row at Dw Fitness, I was not looking forward to this session
as I felt under prepared physically but setting up and watching Tom
glide through his first shift put me at ease a little. By the end of the
day we were both coaching each other through and motivating one another.
Tom sustained major glute spasms and a few heal blisters - the pain was
obvious from the discolouration in his face let alone the look of a man
about to break... But he pushed through and completed and that is what
this challenge is really about, it's a battle against yourself as much
as anything else, the metal aspect begins to grind you and convince you
that you have no more to give, that everything you had wasn't good
enough and that you just have to stop... but if you're an Oar Raiser you
will not be beaten, and he wasn't. Pushing yourself beyond your physical
capability is essential training and conquering your own will to give up
is vital in surviving. Rower 1 I applaud you!...
Please also note that the deadline for tickets to our Black tie dinner event
is this Friday (08/10/10) we are still looking to fill a fair number of places
so if you have friends family or colleagues that would be interested then
please invite them and confirm with us...
Also visit www.oarraisers.co.uk
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