Best Charity Challenge Event
Above & Beyond – Bristol to Paris Cycle Challenge
The Bristol to Paris Cycle Challenge is Above & Beyond’s flagship event.
Over the last five years, the annual Bristol to Paris Cycle Challenge has seen 336 intrepid cyclists take on the challenge, cycling a total of 146,000 kilometres and raising the incredible sum of more than £746,000 of vital funds for Bristol’s hospitals.
Alzheimer’s Society – Trek26
Launched in 2017, Trek26 is Alzheimer’s Society’s flagship trekking series. The series of six events are all 26 or 13 mile circular treks in beautiful and iconic locations around the UK. Driven by customer insight, innovative marketing and excellent supporter stewardship, Alzheimer’s Society have increased income by over 100% between 2018 and 2019 to £1.6million and are projecting to raise £2.3million from almost 6,000 participants in 2020.
Back Up – The Push
The Push challenges people to gather teams of ten to twenty people, including one member who uses a wheelchair, and work together to climb up either Mount Snowdon or Ben Nevis and back down again, covering miles of steep, mixed surfaced, wheelchair unfriendly terrain. The challenge is all about teamwork – making sure that all members of the team work together to reach the summit and come back down again.
Part of the ethos at Back Up is to challenge perspectives of what is possible after someone sustains a spinal cord injury, both for people coming to terms with an injury and the wider public. The Push seeks to do this in the most extreme way.
Born from someone deeming a mountain climb with a wheelchair user to be impossible, the Snowdon Push has become Back Up’s flagship fundraising challenge event and was joined this year by the first ever Ben Nevis Push. Between the two events, we were able to raise over £100,000 for our vital services to support people affected by spinal cord injury.
Children with Cancer UK – Virgin Money London Marathon
Children with Cancer UK raise and invest money for vital specialist research to save the lives of every child and young person with cancer and keep their family together The Virgin Money London Marathon is an important part of that allowing us to continue to do this What started out as a small project led to one of our largest fundraising events, raising over £3,000,000 in both 2018 and 2019 We received in excess of 32,000 enquiries to join our team and through hard work and dedication from our small team at Children with Cancer UK, we had just over 1,200 runners cross the start line and complete the 26 2miles London Marathon course in 2019 We support our team from the moment they join the team until the day they have completed their fundraising – and long after As soon as we have welcomed someone on to our team, they get to know us and the charity They are offered support from not only us, but also our fitness trainer and our physio Customer service is an integral part of the support we offer and we want our team, who are undertaking such a huge event for us, to
DofE – The DofE Adventure
The DofE Adventure is the chance for everyone aged 18+ to get a taste of an expedition, giving adults the opportunity to tackle the challenges associated with the DofE award programme. It’s an unforgettable weekend hiking, camping and fundraising for the DofE charity.
The two-day Adventure brings together the challenge of a trek combined with uniqueness of a festival. Participants must tackle a challenging 50km off road trek before being able to unwind at base camp and celebrate their achievements.
Mass participation agency massive have delivered the event since 2018 overseeing two DofE Adventures in the Cotswolds and most recently the South Downs.
Sense – The RidgeWalk
The RidgeWalk started in 2010 when hundreds of hardy trekkers laced up their hiking boots to take on 52 miles along the Ridgeway in Oxfordshire over 24 hours. In the ten years since, it has become Sense’s flagship owned event, raising over £1 million for our work.
Over the years, the RidgeWalk has changed and adapted to a changing market with alternative distances of 13 and 26 miles and a RidgeRun option being introduced. A key element for the RidgeWalk however, has always been the ultra-marathon distance. This has attracted a huge variety of walkers, allowing us to talk to a diverse range of new supporters to Sense. The experience that participants are given from their initial enquiry to the time that they leave the event site is crucial to the event and results in participants achieving on average 177% of their minimum fundraising target.
The RidgeWalk is an event that’s unique in the saturated events market. It may not have thousands of people lined up on the start line, but everyone that did take part felt like they were part of the Sense family, going on to support Sense in many other ways.
SSAFA the Armed Forces Charity – D-Day Landings Ride
The D-Day Cycle Ride commemorated the cycling soldiers and the part they played on 6 June 1944 and the following Battle of Normandy. The Ride included all the beaches used for the landings and headed inland to include the key locations that were the first to liberated, finishing at the iconic British cemetery at Bayeux.
75 riders were accompanied by ride leaders supplied by White Rock Events and a battlefield historian who set the scene at each battlefield and memorial.
This emotional event provided riders with a physical challenge, the chance to pay respects for those who fought for our freedoms, to make friends for life and raise significant funds to support the vital work of SSAFA the Armed Forces charity, who played a key part in supporting the families of those who fought and died during both world wars.
