Category Archives: Triathlon

Thank you so much!

June 12, 2018 by Peter · Leave a comment

The 2018 CBF Triathlon

Most of the sponsorship money has now come in and we have raised a staggering £95,000 including gift aid in the Christian Blandford Fund triathlon. You can track the latest number here, we are incredibly close to our £100,000 target.

 

Peter, Claudia and the rest of the trustees would like to thank all the incredible people who took part this year and made such an enormous effort in the fund raising. We would also, of course, like to thank everybody who supported this fantastic cause by sponsoring one of their friends in the event.

We appreciate that most of you must get asked to support various causes frequently, so we are particularly grateful to so many of you who chose to dig deep and support us this year. We are in discussions with St George’s and thanks to you wonderful participants and sponsors, the refurbishment of the children’s ward should be underway soon.

Amazon Smile

We have joined Amazon Smile. If you use this link before you shop at Amazon, they will make a donation of 1.5% of your expenditure for no extra cost to you!

Please click on this link to set The Christian Blandford Fund as your charity of choice. Thank you again!

Amazon Smile

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CBF 2018 Triathlon – a massive thank you from us!

May 21, 2018 by Peter · Leave a comment

The CBF Triathlon

 

 

 

 

 

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The CBF triathlon was everything we hoped for and much harder than most people expected. We started at 8.00am with a beautiful canoe around Peel Island or Wild Cat Island as it was called in the film Swallows and Amazons. It was tough on the shoulders but actually really good fun and took about an hour and a quarter.

We then cycled for a couple of hours including climbing the Honister pass which is one of the steepest climbs in the UK with gradients up to 1 in 4. The next challenge was to climb up Haystacks which took 3 hours, stunning but harder than we all expected, particularly the way down. The last leg was a 13 mile cycle ride which we were not to excited to learn included another exhausting, seemingly never ending, climb. 

We hit the finish line at around 5pm, exhausted but happy!

There are plenty of photos of the event here.

The prize of a week in the villa

All our supporters, including those who donated, took part,  gave their time for free, who like our Facebook page and are on our mailing list were entered into a draw to win a week in a villa in Spain. The prize was won by Anya Roberts who kindly sponsored Matt and Andrea Starbuck. Congratulations!

The Aim

We are very close now to the £100,000 we have been quoted to renovate the children's wards and St George's in Tooting and have pledged to raise all that amount. If you were planning to sponsor somebody partaking and haven't got around to it yet, please do so now and help us meet our target. If you have already sponsored somebody, thank you so much, we really do appreciate it and we guarantee that every penny raised will go to improving the lives of ill children staying in often very frightening and uncomfortable wards.

Click here to donate or track the amount raised, a list of all the people who participated, together with their fund raising page is at the bottom.

To all those who took part, thank you for making such an incredible effort with the fund raising and with the challenge itself. It was a genuine pleasure to spend the weekend with you. Please share or forward this email to your sponsors as a way of thanking them from us. 

Lots of love,

Peter and Claudia Blandford

Peter and Claudia

Posted in Fund Raising, Triathlon. Tagged with , , .

Thank you Leyla, Isabelle and the team at Otto’s

May 1, 2018 by Peter · Leave a comment
Leyla Gilbey and Isabelle McCann organised a fantastic evening at Otto's in Sevenoaks and raised over £2000. The photo's of the evening are here. Thank you to the team at Otto's, many of whom gave their time for free, the people who attended and of course Leyla and Isabelle for organising.

Leyla and Isabelle's Fund Raising Supper

  There is less than 3 weeks to go until the CBF triathlon and many of the participants are doing really well with fund raising already. Thank you to all those who have set up your Virgin Money Giving Pages and thank you to all of you who have already sponsored someone taking part.
Posted in Fund Raising, Triathlon. Tagged with .

One lucky supporter will win a week in an incredible Spanish villa with its own pool

April 8, 2018 by Peter · Leave a comment
As a thank you to the wonderful people who have supported the Christian Blandford Fund, the Blandford family are donating a week in a villa in Begur, Spain to one lucky winner. Everyone who has sponsored somebody, donated to our charity or is joining us for the event will be entered. The lucky winner will be drawn on the Saturday night after the triathlon and that person will be able to choose any week outside of July and August in the next two years to take friends and family on an amazing holiday. You will have a choice of either Villa Begur or Villa Sa Riera subject to availability, both have 6 bedrooms, their own pools and sleep up to 12 people. You can compare the two villas and get more details on www.begurvillas.com. Anybody who is taking part in the triathlon please feel free to use this offer when raising sponsorship.  Anybody who sponsors you will automatically be entered. As another thank you, participants in the triathlon will be eligible for 20% discount for any booking in the next three years. For a chance to win a week in one of these incredible villas you can of course sponsor Claudia and Peter, our fund raising page is here . Thank you very much!

Villa Begur

Villa Sa Riera

  The winner of the free week in the villa will be chosen randomly.  The Christian Blandford Fund is not paying anything for the prize. The winner and their chosen companions will have to make their own way to Begur in the Costa Brava. The entry into the draw is not contingent on a donation, if you wish to be entered into the draw please send us an email with your details. Good luck!
Posted in Blog, Fund Raising, Triathlon.

We need a few more people to join us on the CBF Tri!

March 25, 2018 by Peter · Leave a comment
The sign ups for the CBF Triathlon are going really well and we are very excited that there will be nearly 50 of us taking part.  On the 18th May we are going up to the Lake District and having a fantastic weekend while hopefully raising £100,000 to completely refurbish the children's ward at St George's Hospital. We would love it if another few people joined us. If you are partaking, can we please ask you to forward this to others who may be interested in going with you? It would be fantastic if we could get the number up to 60 participants. If you need to pull the heartstrings, feel free to use this video! If you want to appeal to the wallet strings point out that The Christian Blandford Fund does not pay any trustees or staff and 100% of the money raised will go to our aim of improving the lives of seriously ill children, particularly those affected by cancer. Thank you, Peter and Claudia Blandford  
Posted in Blog, Fund Raising, Triathlon. Tagged with .

Some great news and important info for triathlon participants

February 8, 2018 by Peter · Leave a comment
We have been given the green light to go ahead with the refurbishment of the children’s wards at St George’s Hospital in Tooting. The work will start in March with Nicholls ward and The Pinckney Ward, where Christian spent a lot of time, will come next. We are very proud to say that the Christian Blandford Fund will be funding the majority of this work and have pledged £100,000 for the project. We have spent over 10 years trying to push for these improvements so are delighted with the news. Thank you Darren Bowler, one of the CBF trustees for your perseverance in pushing this forward. This brings us nicely to the next hurdle, the £100,000! If you can not join us for the triathlon but would like to help please consider sponsoring me and Claudia here. The sign ups for the Christian Blandford Fund Triathlon are going really well, but we are still short of the target 70 people we would like to have partaking. Please forward this to somebody who may be interested in joining us for a great weekend while fund raising for this very important and targeted project. If you are thinking about signing up and haven’t done so yet, please do so now here. Those of you who have decided to join us, thank you! This next bit is for you:
  1. If you have any friends or family who you think would like to join you please encourage them to join, we could do with just a few more signing up.
  2. We hope all participants will donate £99 each before the event to help cover event costs, the Blandfords have made a donation to cover the rest. If you have not done so please do so here
  3. Please makes sure you have registered with skyline
  4. Please set up a just giving fund raising page and share it with friends, family and co workers. Search for "CBF" in organised event and select no to "Have any of your selected charities contributed to the cost of your event?"
  5. If your company has some kind of a matching or charity donation scheme please look into it for us. Claudia or I are very happy to pitch to any companies if that is required.
  6. We are staying at the Lodore Falls Hotel and and Skyline have negotiated a preferential rate of £120 per person per night for dinner bed and breakfast. They have held a mixture of twins and doubles and should have contacted you about it. If you would like to stay somewhere else that is absolutely fine, you can search for hotels here
  7. Claudia and I are getting the 1430 train from London, Euston to Penrith (North Lakes) on the Friday 18th May.  Let us know if you book the train too so that we can organise for a mini bus or taxi to pick us all up.  We return on the 1207 train on the Sunday 20th May, arriving at Euston at 1518.
  8. Any more questions? look at the FAQ and feel free to contact us
  9. Finally and most importantly, thank you for being part of our team, we are delighted you are with us!
Posted in Blog, Fund Raising, Triathlon. Tagged with , , .

Time is running out to register!

January 19, 2018 by Peter · Leave a comment
Click here to apply for the CBF Triathlon You are running out of time to register for the Christian Blandford Fund Triathlon! Lots of people have now signed up but we also have lots of friends who said they are going to sign up who have not yet done so. You know who you are! Please do so as soon as possible by clicking here and following the instructions. All participants are expected to make a donation of a minimum of £99 to cover their costs but if you would rather do this later just sign up with Skyline and let us know that the payment is coming later. On a separate note we received a lovely thank you note from St George's Hospital which we would like to share with you: Thank you from St. George’s    
Posted in Blog, Fund Raising, Triathlon. Tagged with , .

Artwork installed in York Hospital’s Children’s Ward

November 13, 2017 by Peter · Leave a comment
Most of the work we do has been for St George's Hospital in Tooting but we help in other places too. We just received this thank you from York Teaching Hospital...   Thanks to the Christian Blandford Fund the Arts Team at York Teaching Hospital has worked with staff on York Hospital’s Children’s ward to coordinate new art work for the bedrooms.  The Trust’s Estates Team freshened up the walls with a lick of paint and a bright new colour scheme, ready for the addition of child-friendly illustrations. We commissioned local illustrator Tanya McClelland to produce the artwork, working with patients, visitors and staff to choose the final designs.  We felt her playful illustrations were perfect for the project, with designs taking inspiration from parks and outdoor spaces across the city of York and the beaches of Yorkshires East Coast. We would like to thank the Christian Blandford Fund for making this project a reality and helping to transform the ward. Once again many thanks from all our staff this change to the ward environment will make a huge difference. If you have not yet entered for the CBF Lake District Triathlon and plan to do so, please do so now as numbers are limited and places are filling up fast. Click here to apply for the CBF Triathlon
Posted in Blog, Fund Raising, Things We've Done, Triathlon.

The CBF 2018 Triathlon – update

October 18, 2017 by Peter · Leave a comment
The CBF Triathlon

Click here for more details

  We are very happy to say that the take up for the CBF triathlon in May next year has been fantastic but we still have a long way to go. In order to join us for what promises to be a fantastic event please follow the following steps Step  1 – Please click here to donate to the Christian Blandford Fund Step 2 – Click here to sign up with Skyline who are organising the event Step 3 – click here to set up a Virgin Money Giving page to start your fund raising select organised event and search for “CBF” Thank you to those who have donated more than the recommended £99 per person to join us. The extra amount you have given goes straight into the fund, and will help us meet our ambitious target of raising £100,000. We welcome people signing up in teams and couples but  remind you that the recommended donation of £99 is per person taking part. The cost of entry for the charity is £320 per entry but the Blandford family are happy to be donating the majority of this fee and we ask everybody, in return, to make the minimum donation of £99 each. Gift Aid - please tick the gift aid box if you are a UK tax payer. If you pay  more than 25% tax, we recommend you making a note of this donation for your own tax return.  If you are an additional tax rate payer, for example, you can claim back another 20% of your donation on your 2017/18 tax return. Many people forget to do this. You can see the progress of the Campaign on the Virgin Money Giving page If you use Facebook and Twitter please follow us and share our posts. Social media really helps! The last  big event we organised was a 10km run in 2014. Life was tougher in those days but this was a certainly high point in a dark time...
Posted in Blog, Fund Raising, Triathlon.