Adventure. Challenge. Inspire. Motivate. Live. This words couldn’t describe one of our brilliant fundraisers any better. Last year Alan Lau set himself the challenge of rowing across the Atlantic solo within 90 days and used his challenge to fundraise for Children on the Edge.
Alan smashed his target and completed his row in only 55 days while also raising £2000 for Children on the Edge. We were able to interview Alan now back on dry land and fully rested. Here’s what he had to say. What inspired you to row across the atlantic? I first came across the idea whilst sitting at work one winter day, and on the news there was a small article about a woman who was about to reach the Caribbean. I said to myself at that moment what a great challenge that would be. From then on, the idea grew like a seed in my mind, and then I started living and breathing the project. That was back in 2008! Did you any have rowing experience before your trip? Before 2008 I had no rowing experience. In 2010, I briefly joined the Southampton Amateur Rowing Club, and gained a little experience. Do you have a favourite moment from your row? This is a very difficult one. But I think the one that really stands out for me are the moments spent star gazing. Seeing the stars out there was truly amazing. But at the same time, it is a little frustrating, it just makes me want to travel the stars. I saw a shooting star as well! How did you hear about Children on the Edge and what inspired you to fundraise for us? To be honest, at the beginning, I was looking to support an animal charity, but then through my own experiences and opportunities in life, I started seeing how many children often do not get a good start to life, let alone achieving personal dreams. That’s when I started looking to support a children’s charity. I came across COTE by chance on the JustGiving site, but when I looked into the site to understand a bit more about the charity, I noticed how small COTE is. I always prefer smaller charities, so naturally COTE appealed very much. I also popped down to the office in Chichester for a visit, and met up with the team, and also Monty. What did you do to fundraise? Since the project was self funded, I could not spend as much time as I wanted on fund raising activities. The fund raising channels were mainly just through word by mouth, people seeing the boat and the link, and articles in the local press. Do you have any other challenges you would like to do in the future? I am planning the Triple7Quest for 2018. It is quite a way away since I need to learn to love running first. Let alone 7 marathons in 7 days in 7 continents. But at the same time, I am also planning on another adventure. Not quite as grand as the Atlantic Row, but something that would be fun, and a LOT less costly financially! I have several ideas in mind, one is motorbiking around Asia, and the other is walking the Silk Road, which has been another of my childhood fantasies. Maybe I will end up doing both. We can’t thank Alan enough for his amazing support and wish him the best of luck for his next challenge! If you would like to sponsor Alan please visit https://www.justgiving.com/curryfishball-cote. If you have any ideas about your own fundraising, then don’t hesitate to get in touch. For the past 10 years we have been running a successful Easter event in Priory Park, this year we thought it would be good to try something different.
Working with Montezuma’s Chocolates we piloted a Family Easter Trail around the Chichester City Centre which ran through out the school holidays. The questions were based on a range of topics from historical facts about Chichester to spotting local attractions. The trail began in Eastgate Square and wound its way around the town centre with the end point at Montezuma’s Chocolate store where participants could claim their well deserved prizes! The lovely staff at Montezuma’s had the important job of handing out chocolate bunnies to some (very happy) children. Tash, a sales assistant at Montezuma’s, helped manage the trail in store and met some of the participating families. She described how “The trail has been very popular with both children and parents. It’s been great seeing all the excited families coming in to claim their chocolate. We have also had a lot of local people mentioning they enjoyed discovering some new facts about Chichester.” Many individuals doing the trail were not just from Chichester but had travelled down especially to take part. Tash explained “ we met a lot of customers who lived far away and came to Chichester to take part with their families. Some individuals came from London and we even had one family all the way from America complete the trail”. In the run up to the trail, hundreds of local school children also entered a competition to design their own Easter egg. The winner had their designs made into real chocolate eggs by Montezuma’s. We’d like to say a big congratulations to winners Isla and Effie, who both created beautiful designs. We are thrilled to have received so much support for our first ever Easter Treasure Trail. Altogether we sold 205 tickets raising over £800 which will contribute to all our international projects. We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who took part in the trail and all the amazing staff at Montezuma’s. Watch this space next year as we’ll be back with the next Great Chichester Family Easter Trail again, but it will be extra child friendly, even more fun and we’ll be integrating some ways of learning about our work with children all around the world. We’ll also be looking to get lots of favourite local shops to join in, so if you run a store in Chichester and would like to get involved, then get in touch. ![]() There are now so many different ways to fundraise, from the traditional bucket collection to text donations. Charles, a digital and social media marketing student, has created an innovative website which allows individuals to donate to Children on the Edge by simply doing a spot of online shopping. BrightSearch.org works when individuals visit the site and search for a retailer or the name of a product that they wish to buy. The website hosts over a hundred retailers including big names such as Ebay and Amazon. Once you are on the retailer’s website and purchasing your goods, a percentage of what you spend will donated to Children on the Edge. It really is as simple as that. When Charles noticed a lot of cashback sites popping up he had the idea of creating a charitable version. Working with two partners, BrightSearch was created in just over a year. The next big decision was picking the right charity to benefit from their first fundraiser. Charles specifically wanted to support a children’s charity, and after a little searching he found, and fortunately took a liking to us. “I wanted to find a children’s charity that didn’t have thousands of social followers” explained Charles, “Children on the Edge looked perfect as it was small and looked very dedicated to all the good they are doing”. The team at Children on the Edge would like to say a big thank you to Charles for all his wonderful support. To help Brightsearch develop and gain donations simply visit brightsearch.org when buying online. Happy shopping! Here at Children on the Edge we have the privilege of working with local community groups. This year we were fortunate enough to be supported by the Trefoil Guild (Chichester) as one of their chosen charities.The Trefoil Guild is an organisation of over 20,000 members with the aim of offering support to Guides and Scouts in the UK and becoming actively involved with their community.
The Trefoil Guild chose to help Children on the Edge as they were keen to support a local charity. Many members admired Anita Roddick’s desire to help vulnerable children and felt a personal connection with Anita having lived in West Sussex. Throughout the year the Guild dedicated themselves to fundraising for our work. Several members organised collections at weekly meetings and various events to raise as much as possible. Margaret Grigson, who lead all the fundraising, was so inspired by COTE’s work she signed up to become a regular donor. “I often think of underprivileged children in desperate need of help around the world and felt Children on the Edge was making a valuable difference.” We would like to say a big thank you to The Trefoil Guild, for not only fundraising for us but enthusiasm and passion for Children on the Edge through out the year. Your support is invaluable in supporting forgotten children across the world. If your community group is interested in fundraising for us we’d love to hear from you! Just e-mail Serena Chana or call her at the office on 01243 538530. ![]() For those of you who’ve not heard the original story, James Chinnock has taken on the challenge of ‘tabbing’ five events for Children on the Edge this year. TAB stands for ‘Tactical Advance to Battle’ and means that the runner has to complete the course in heavy boots, wearing army trousers and carrying a back pack weighing 35lb.The Hastings Half is the first of these events that James is taking on in this get up, with the last one being this year’s Chichester Half. So.. without further ado, here’s James’ Hastings post race report: With 1 of 5 events now done and dusted I can report that pretty much every part of me aches, inside and out. Event: Hastings half marathon Conditions: Chilly and cloudy but dry – perfect! Course: Hilly, very hilly! Injuries: 4 badly bruised toes Weight Carried: 35lbs T’was a cold and soggy morning on Sunday 22nd March… when I woke up to start thinking of elaborate yet acceptable excuses not to stumble 13 miles around Hastings with the weight of my 6 year old on my back (although including hair she is possibly twice that weight). However, having failed to come up with any reason not to do it (or at least none that anyone would believe), I donned my army surplus combat boots and trousers, and headed off into the crowds of spandex-clad athletic-looking types… dressed as a middle aged extra from an Andy McNab novel. I lined up at the start with Tom and Jerry, a Rhino and Spider Man (who all beat me but we won’t mention that – now I see why the Paras turned me down!), however, as the event unfolded I found myself running along most of the way with a group of girls dressed as Belly Dancers…..it’s not my fault! It’s just the random nature of sports! It just happened. The first half of the course itself was shockingly hilly. As far as my tired legs were concerned by the 5th mile of uphill trudging, I might have entered an ultra-marathon in the Andes. As such I was forced to walk (sorry…stride purposefully) up the steep bits, and jog till I thought I would ‘be ill’ on the flat and downhill bits. There is a road called Queensway… I guess its best described as a longer-yet-paved version of Chichester’s famed Trundle. I won’t drone on about every step, but essentially: I didn’t suffer any “chaffing related injuries” (to put it politely) I can however report 4 badly bruised toes (I think that was caused by running downhill in boots with the weight). All in all I am just very tired and hungry, I don’t think any long term damage….the ankle pain I started with seems to be in the same state as before so fingers crossed that was just from running with weight in trainers not boots. The crowds were amazing though, it’s a big event of approx. 5000 people with the whole centre of the town closed off so tons of people cheering you on. Should they spot this write up I would like to thank the girl from the Reme who was running for help For Heroes, oh…and the Belly Dancers. …and so home for a well-earned bottle of Hobgoblin….I mean erm….Lucozade obviously. If you'd like to sponsor James in this epic 2015 challenge just go to his Justgiving page or text TABB95 and the amount you would like to donate to 70070. If you’d like to sign up for the Chichester Half yourself.. (wearing normal running gear we assume) then sign up here. ![]() Brand new for this year, over the Easter holidays, families have the chance to explore Chichester City Centre and enjoy Montezuma’s Chocolate at the end! Following on from 10 successful years running an Easter Trail in Priory Park, this year Children on the Edge are introducing something with a difference. In partnership with Montezuma’s Chocolates they have arranged a special treasure trail around the centre of Chichester that families can go on anytime that suits throughout the school Easter break. The trail starts in Eastgate square and winds its way around Chichester town centre ending at Montezuma’s Chocolate shop where every participant will receive a bag of chocolate goodies! Families can use the clues to make their way around the route, tackling quiz questions and challenges along the way. The idea is that treasure seekers can take it at a leisurely pace or challenge themselves to a whistle-stop tour. The route is approximately a mile long and children may well discover some delights of Chichester that they’ve never seen before. All profits go to the work of Children on the Edge, helping some of the most vulnerable children around the world. Entry is £4 per child and on sign up all entrants will receive an email containing the Trail Information sheet and one code per entrant. The trail can be completed anytime between Saturday 28 March and Sunday 12 April. On completing your trail, treasure seekers simply present their codes to staff in the Montezuma's store, East Street, to receive their chocolate! Montezuma’s will also be running their usual ‘Design an egg’ competition, where the winning design will be made into a real chocolate egg. Entry forms have gone out to local schools and are also available at the Montezuma’s Store, at Children on the Edge office and from the Children on the Edge website. If you have any questions, please contact us on 01243 538530 or e-mail [email protected]. “When I was a boy, I read a lot of fantasy books, and it was all about adventures and quests, it just seemed so exciting. I guess that never grew out of me and I wanted my own adventure”.
This is the opening statement for Alan’s description of why he would even consider rowing solo across the Atlantic. Now after 55 days at sea, Alan has made it across, smashing his target time of 90 days and rowing 3000 miles. Furthermore he is using his adventure to raise money for Children on the Edge. Alan described his daily routine as “Wake up, breakfast, prepare hydration and food for the day, row/eat, hygiene, relax, sleep, repeat.” He regularly wrote about the trip from the middle of the ocean, describing the challenges he experienced. These ranged from overnight drifting, powerful waves, swells and winds, sea sickness, cravings, equipment failure, calloused hands, sleepless nights, sores and burnt lips. Overcoming all of these obstacles is described day by day in his blog, and we’d recommend it as an interesting read! It wasn’t all bad, Alan also writes about his observations at sea. He was able so see many and various birds, fish of different shapes and colours including sharks, whales and flying fish. He describes how “Watching them [flying fish] fly into a wave was a little amusing. Magic, they just disappeared, like the train platform in Harry Potter. He also enjoyed clear skies to view the stars and continually talked about ‘next time I do this I will…’ which indicates an unbroken spirit! We’re hugely grateful to Alan for choosing to support us through this superhuman challenge and looking forward to catching up with him when he’s fully rested. Watch this space for an interview with the man himself. Donate on Alan’s Just Giving page Read about the adventure on his blog We often go on about our brilliant local fundraisers and there are always lots of brilliant people out there putting their heads together and raising lots of money for us.
Every so often someone comes along who knows about Children on the Edge and what we do and they want to go that extra mile to do what they can to help. We have had people walk, run and cycle long distances and we have seen people complete seriously strenuous mental and physical challenges, all to help the vulnerable children around the world that we work with. The very lovely James Chinnock has chosen 2015 to be an entire year of challenges which all began when he ran the Children on the Edge Chichester Half Marathon back in October. It was then he thought that 'just running a half marathon' wasn’t quite hard enough!! After taking part in the Paras P Company 10 miler, James decided to spice things up by deciding to tab* five separate events throughout 2015, including two half marathons, two paras selection events and one special forces battle fitness test route, finishing up with the October 11th Chichester Half. *For those of us not in the know, we have been reliably informed that ‘tabbing’ is the army term for running a long way wearing boots, combat trousers and a big green rucksack weighing 35lbs, plus water! Yes, we think he’s barmy. After being ‘advised not to’ join the Para Reserves (4 Para) due to his age (just a spring chicken at 40!), James has set about proving everyone wrong. After signing up and then completing the Paras 10 event in Colchester, followed by two more and not completely passing out, he started to think about setting himself a huge personal challenge to raise money for Children on the Edge. The events he will be taking part in are - Hastings Half Marathon - 22nd March Special Forces 10 Miler - 3rd May Paras 10 - 4th July Paras 10 - 6th September Chichester Half Marathon - 11th October If you would like to support James to reach his target and to give him some inspiration on those long winter training runs, please donate via his Just Giving page or text TABB95 and the amount you would like to donate to 70070. A little more than a month to go before Alan Lau sets off to row solo without support across the Atlantic Ocean to raise money for Children on the Edge!
He has been planning and training for this expedition since 2010, and after a couple of delayed schedules, it is now about to become reality. He will be rowing between Gran Canaria and Barbados and has a goal of completing the row within 85 days. The expedition is completely self funded by Alan and every penny raised will be going to our work with vulnerable children across the world. As well as the row, last week Alan was joined by the local Christchurch Girl Guides to spend a day painting his boat. They did an excellent job, and really enjoyed the rare opportunity. Some of the girls were really intrigued, asking lots of questions and even had a taste of expedition food. Alan said “A couple of the girls were asking a fair amount of questions on the expedition. They wanted to know what I would be eating, so I got some food out and they chose a Sweet And Sour Chicken to try. It was quite funny watching their reactions. Some of them thought it tasted good, but majority of them thought it was not that enjoyable. At least, that’s what their expressions said”. Alan will also be doing a few assembly presentations at schools before the row to motivate and inspire children about going for their own challenges and making a difference. You can help support his cause by going to his Justgiving page and follow the adventure by reading his blog which will actually track the boats progress across the ocean. You can follow the challenge and all the preparation on Facebook and watch this interview with Alan on Youtube! We’re hugely grateful to Alan for choosing to support us through this incredible personal challenge and wish him every success in his adventure. Watch this space for updates as and when they come through. ![]() With the backing of local sponsors, volunteers and residents, this year’s race was not only thoroughly enjoyed by hundreds of runners, but raised a fantastic sum of money for the our work, including our current response to the Syrian refugee crisis. Just by paying an entry fee, runners have contributed to this work, but many went the extra mile, not just on the Trundle, but in getting sponsored so they could raise as much money as they could for our projects. South Today’s Sally Taylor opened the race with a stirring speech to those on the start line, praising the work of Children on the Edge and encouraging runners that when they hit the wall, they can keep going by remembering what they are running for. We are currently supporting a project in Lebanon which is providing education for Syrian refugee children who have fled the violence in their country. The project also ensures regular medical clinics, warm blankets and focusses on training Syrian teachers so the project can be owned by the refugee community. Many of the runners’ athletic triumphs (including the James Baker ‘hat trick’!) were detailed in last Thursday’s Observer. Whether trying a half marathon for the first time, or going for a personal best, runners were enthusiastic about the challenge, even the infamous Trundle. James Chinnock, a former student at Chichester said “Brilliant, brilliant event and very well organised from beginning to end. My first half marathon and thoroughly enjoyed every moment, even the Trundle – or Grumble in some cases! Will be back next year for sure – have been inspired by the gentleman with the army Bergen (amazing effort sir!), I will do that for Children on the Edge next year! Highly recommended as a first half marathon as the course is interesting and varied and really good atmosphere”. Councillor Eileen Lintill, Cabinet Member for Leisure, Wellbeing, and Community Services at Chichester District Council, says: “We are very pleased a wide spectrum of the community have taken part, not just elite runners but people taking part in their first half marathon too. Events like the half marathon are most important to our Sport and Wellbeing Teams at the District Council because it is a major strand of our strategy to work with organisations across the community to help as many people of all ages to be healthy and active.” Also representing the community for 2014 were nine local ‘Works Trophy’ teams who pit themselves against other to achieve the fastest group times. The winning team was ‘Wiggle’, with Thesis coming second and race sponsor Montezuma’s taking third place. Other contenders were Covers (who also sponsored the goody bags and raised over £600 as a team), Store Property (also main sponsors), Chichester District Council (co-organisers of the race), The Park Tavern, The Body Shop (who also donated some products for the goody bags) and EDF. Said Henry Green, Covers Managing Director, “Well, what a tough and gruelling run but definitely worth the few aches and pains for the money and support we have given Children on the Edge, who focus on forgotten and fragmented communities not reached by larger aid agencies – something many people don’t think about. The team and I are incredibly proud to have taken on the challenge and help to raise much-needed funds for this fantastic charity.” As well as the runners, the main sponsors (Montezuma’s and Store Property) and Children on the Edge, the event was made possible by the a huge amount of man hours from Chichester District Council and an dedicated group of local volunteers including Chichester Rotary Club, gathering together behind the scenes. Children on the Edge and Chichester District Council would like to say a huge thank you to all the runners, sponsors and volunteers mentioned above and also to any motorists or households who may have been inconvenienced by road closures. They would also like to thank the wider community who turned out to cheer on the runners, especially those who put banners outside their homes. It’s been a fantastic encouragement to everyone. Next year’s date is already set for Sunday October 11th 2015 and the team are looking to expand the event further. Whether you are an individual or a local company, if you are interested in volunteering, sponsoring or supporting the event then we would love to hear from you. Just e-mail [email protected] or call 01243 538530. For any of our runners that have got the fundraising bug, we have places to run for us in the Brighton Marathon. Just e-mail Sarah to find out more. Thanks to Liz Thornwill for the lovely photo of our medal and goody bag volunteers |
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