A big thank you

The NDCS Challenges Team would like to say a big Thank You to all of you who recently took part in one of our challenges: The London Marathon, North Pole Expedition and Trek Vietnam in April; Cycle Peru, Trek the Inca Trail and the London 10k in May; and the 24 Peaks and 3 Peaks Challenges in June.

London to Paris

These events have so far raised an amazing total of £294,843, and more money is coming in! This is a fantastic amount and will go a long way to make a difference to the lives of deaf children and their families all over the UK. Thank you to all of you for taking on the challenge, and to all your supporters who helped you reach your fundraising target!

“I’m proud and exhilarated at completing this fantastic challenge. Peru is such a beautiful country and even though there are the inevitable ups (Machu Picchu, Abra la Raya pass, Lake Titicaca) and downs (Ayaviri blockade and the challenge having to end), pushing your mind and body to the limit earns the sponsorship received from all the good folks who donated. As a parent of two deaf children I cannot underestimate the value of NDCS challenges. Thanks NDCS.”
Andrew Biddiscombe, Cycle Peru participant

Our Mission onto MySpace

As part of the Digital Avenger work we have been doing we decided to look at trying to attract people to one of our UK Challenge Events, Three Peaks .

We set up a page which can be seen at http://www.MySpace.com/deafchildren

The aim was to attract friends who had an interest in walking, hiking or outdoor events.

Ultimately we would then send them to a landing page where they can then enquire about the event.

As we have been using members of staff for the project I thought it better to have them tell it how it was from their perspective, with a few prompting questions from me. Thanks to Kathy for her Co-operation…

——

Ross: Have you used MySpace before?

Kathy: No, only Facebook and Bebo

Ross: How easy was it to set up?

Kathy: With help at the beginning it was pretty easy to set up. The basic page was a bit dull so it took a bit of time to add the extras like the video and images.

Ross: So you learnt some new skills then?

Kathy: To make the pages more interesting it was useful to have some basic html, which with Madhava and Kevin’s help and some digging online I was able to do.

Ross: How many Friends do you have?

Kathy: At last count 411

Ross: That’s good! Isn’t it?

Kathy: Oh no, its now 410 (as she looks at the MySpace page!)

Ross: Will have to look into that and see how good 411 oh 410 is. How did you get those friends?

Kathy: We used a program to collect friends. It is called Stealth Friend Bomber .

Ross: What did you do?

Kathy: We would search on Google and MySpace Groups to look for people interested in walking, hiking and outdoor pursuits. Then send them a request to check out our profile and sign on as a friend.

Ross: Were there any problems?

Kathy: Yes, I would manually have to go through my ‘Friends’ and find the UK profiles before sending out event invitations, as a number of them were American or European.

Ross: What would you like to do moving forward?

Kathy: It would be great to get a few of the people who did the event this year to either join the group or perhaps give us a quote that we can use. Also I would like to have more contact with the marketing team and get information to send out to our 410 people signed up.

Ross: Thanks

—–

Success/Learning

NDCS staff have learnt to create, manage and populate an MySpace organisational profile

In less than two weeks of promotion, over 300 MySpace users have accepted friend requests from NDCS, self selecting their interest in our Challenge events.

Some interesting questions that came out of this…

Is 410 good? Please let us know…

What should we be doing to a) keep these people interested and b) look at new avenues to collect more friends from MySpace?

A big thank you!

This weekend four teams took part in the Three Peaks Challenge , climbing the highest peaks in England, Scotland and Wales, raising money for NDCS .

We’d just like to thank them for their hard work and hope their are aching limbs are not too sore!

The teams taking part were:

Barclays Bank Plc
J Coffey Construction Ltd
Nokia
Structural Systems Uk Ltd

If you are interested in taking part in our Three Peaks Challenge, visit our website for more information.

A gig in aid of NDCS

Free this weekend and in London why not come along to the following gig and help support NDCS?

If you are unable to make it maybe you can give a small donation to her Justgiving page.

Niamh is taking part in one of our Challenges, for more information on the treks, cycle trips, marathons and team building activities you can go on visit www.ndcschallenges.org.uk

They made it to the Pole!!!

Pole position…

As our explorers reach the North Pole, see our live diary for more information, I’ve been thinking what it must be like out there on the ice. Other than chartering your own exploration out to the North Pole a possible way of gaining some understanding might be to following in the footsteps of polar explorers through books.

Fiona Thornewill, explorer and wife of our exploration leader Mike Thornewill, gives some suggestions:

Catherine Hartley – South Without a Beard
Mind Over Matter – Ranulph Fiennes
Captain Scott – Ranulph Fiennes
A Life of Aspley Cherry – Garrard
Shadows on the Wasteland – Mike Stroud

I’ve also searched amazon under the search Polar exploration…

Of course you might fancy more of an adventure and if so Mike and Fiona’s company Polar Challenge International are more than equipped to take you to both the North and South Pole.

Change the world 9 to 5

I’m sure there are plenty of people who, like me are thinking what can I do to get more out of the job I do and get to know the people I work with?

Always keen to look at ways of making the time we have at work more interesting suggestions here at Planet NDCS include:

Share your lunch with someone you don’t usually work with
Finding out about other team’s jobs
Praise your colleagues when they do something extra
Raise money for charity
Going to the pub
Have a dress down Friday or EVEN a dress up Friday, have themed days…

A good website to visit www.wearewhatwedo.org

Of course we’re not the only ones with ideas anyone who has any more send them through!!

If you are part of a team in the office you might want to join in one of our corporate events, with NDCS Challenges . There are some really exciting challenges that we have on offer and you will be helping deaf children at the same time.

Events include, Three Peak Challenges , 24 Peak challenges and even skydiving.

For our team events , you will need between five and seven walkers at the start of each mountain, plus two drivers per vehicle. You’ll get to see the most beautiful scenery in the UK, and have the experience of a life time.

NDCS Challenges are run responsibly and carefully, in accordance with the Code of Practise for Outdoor Fundraising in the UK.

North Pole diary

This exclusive Arctic expedition aims to make a surface crossing of the Arctic Ocean between latitude 89N and the Geographic North Pole at 90N. Known as “The Last Degree”. Our team will be undertaking a foot journey of 60 nautical miles (approximately 70 statute miles). Among those taking part is the first deaf person to make it to the North Pole.

Our intrepid explorers are Mike Thornewill, Carl Morris, Ian Berry and Oliver Westbury. For more information why not meet the team.

The sole sponsors for this trip are Transam

Organisers of the event are:

Polar Challenge International – www.polarchallenge.org/
Bull Precision Expeditions – www.bullexpeditions.com

Thank you to all our runners

A big thank you to all of our runners who took part in the London Marathon this year. You've raised over £50,000 to help deaf children.

If you were inspired by this year's run and would like to run next year, please sign up here. I’ve added the names of all of those who took part, it would be great if they could give their times and a couple of lines about how they felt the day went, by commenting below.

Katy Adams Sophie Addison Kasia Al Thani Laura Ashworth Derek Boyd Jason Bridges Sarah Chapman Robert Chevin Thomas Coggan Christopher Collins Beth Cooke Mark Crossan Sarah Davies Ross Deacon Mike Durham Kate Firkins James Foley Paul Gaffney Joanne Gallagher Gianpiero Garzelli Jason Geraghty Faye Glover Gary Glover Linda Grover Jon Haddrell Grace Imina Walter Kent Andrew Kilbey David Kilbey Rick Lucas Madeleine Maishman

Jamie Martin Nathan Martin Sean Martin Clifford Middleton Natasha Mills Marco Moruzzi Julie Mowbray Lindsay Nicol Ian Noon Peter O'Kane Marc O'Malley Patrick O'Neill Andrew Parkinson Alec Phillips Steven Preston Simon Pugh Jennifer Rogers Barbara Roope Glenn Sedgwick Karen Sheerin Andrew Smith Martin Spilsted Robert Stiles James Sumpster Sam Surrey Sandra Titley Kate Whitton Peter Whitton Karl Williamson Scott Withers Steven Wynne

Not so sure about running the marathon? We have a number of shorter runs that you might want to start with. In London we have the London 10K and the Royal Parks Half Marathon. 

Other running events include the Adidas Women's 5K Challenge in Liverpool, Birmingham and London. Those looking further afield we have places in the Berlin Marathon and the New York Marathon.

Taxi anyone?

Transport for London has made arrangements for free travel on the Tube and DLR for all runners and officials on race day from early morning until 17:00 (just show your race number or your officials’ course pass or tabard).

Even if you aren’t running, you can still follow the action by:

* Tube at the 11/12, 13 and 22, 14-21 and 22-24 mile points. Improvement works means you can’t change lines between Bank and Monument, except between the DLR and the Northern line
* DLR – with trains running as frequent as every 2½ minutes
* Bus and River bus

Alternatively, why not try walking or cycling to the marathon? These convenient and low-cost ways to get around London let you fit exercise into your daily routine.

Visit the TFL website for more information

Of course if you are not running the marathon this week but might be interested we have a number of shorter runs that you could try including the London 10K and the Royal Parks Half Marathon . Of course for those outside London we have the Great North Run and Adidas Women’s Challenge . For runners wanting to run further afield we also have places for the Berlin marathon and New York too.