Member Article

£9K CHARITY JACKPOT FOR HADRIAN’S HIKE

Russell Roof Tiles has smashed its original target of raising £5000 for charity, by bring in a whopping £9000 following a brutal 40-mile challenge, by 40 staff across Hadrian’s Wall.

Staff from Russells Lochmaben and its Burton on Trent factories, took part in a battle – starting at different sides to the country - to see who would be the first to get to a central point – with the final result being a draw!

The Lockerbie Legion (starting at Bowness to the West) and Burtoneers (starting at Wallsend to the East) raced across the wall’s length – with the finish line being the central point, The Twice Brewed Inn. The gruelling challenge took a total the whole teams 20 hours and resulted in lots of blisters, minor injuries and lost toe-nails.

The significant triumph for the event was in almost doubling the target of £5000 for the two Blood Bikes charities nominated: Dumfries & Galloway Blood Bikes (D&GBB) and Shropshire Staffordshire Cheshire Blood Bikes (SSBB).

Both SSBB and D&GBB are volunteer-led charities who rely solely on donations to continue their good work of supplying lifesaving medical supplies across NHS foundations. What this involves primarily, is the transportation to hospitals of vital blood products, organs for transplant and other life-critical supplies for the younger generation, such as premature babies. Their mission is to support the NHS with patient care by saving them time and money and promote a more positive image of the motorcycling community.

Andrew Hayward, Managing Director at Russell Roof Tiles commented: “I want to congratulate everyone for the fantastic achievement for themselves, the charities and the business.”

He continued: “No one at Russells’ has walked Hadrian’s Wall before so this was a huge and foreign challenge. But the staff are dedicated to fundraising; they soldiered through pulled muscles, tweaked knees and ankles and multiple blisters. What made it all worth it though was to see the huge smile on the Blood Bikers faces at the finish line. I want to thank them for making that journey to support us.”

Over the past year and a half RusseIls’ fundraising efforts have included a charity golf day, football matches, a sponsored weight loss, a charity dancing competition, and their own version of the BBC sports competition programme “Superstars”. The hike proved to be the longest activity yet in terms of its duration and perhaps the most physically demanding.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Rebecca .