Well we did it!  Our "magnificent  seven" team completed the gruelling Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge within the 12 hour deadline.

As our Justgiving page remains open for the next three months you can still make a donation if you haven't done so already - every penny counts towards helping raise funds for our chosen charity, Arthritis Research UK.

This 26 mile "walk" (gruelling marathon more like!) took place on Saturday 30th April and started and finished at Penyghent Cafe in Horton In Ribblesdale. The challenge was to complete all three peaks Phenyghent, Whernside and Ingleborough in under 12 hours.

Arthritis Research UK (formerly Arthritis Research Campaign), founded in 1936, raises funds to promote medical research into the cause, treatment and cure of arthritic conditions; to educate medical students, doctors and allied healthcare professionals about arthritis; and provide information to the general public. Arthritis Research UK is the fourth largest medical research charity in the UK and the only charity in the UK solely dedicated to investigating arthritis in all its forms.  The UK Arthritis Facts At A Glance provides an insight into why this research is so vital.

WHERE YOUR DONATIONS WILL GO:

£50 - Pays for an Xray of arthritis joints for research and an expert’s opinion/reading of the Xray.

£75 - Helps fund the blood testing needed to check the safety of new drugs – whilst a patient is on a clinical trial their blood has to be checked for toxicity every 2wks/month, so £75 covers one patient throughout a clinical trial.

£100 - Helps to fund the preparation of DNA from several blood samples to look for genes – there is an extra process involved in extracting DNA from blood samples.

£150 - Pays for a whole body ‘DEXA’  scan for assessing bone and muscle – we can get images of this if we want them.

£250 - Pays the salary costs for a research nurse for recruiting and following a patient in a clinical trial of a new drug.

£500 - Pays for the testing of physical properties of new materials (wear and tear testing) that may be used to make new hip and knee joints

£1,000- Will help safely prepare, during the early stages of drug development, humans for clinical trial testing. The donation will ensure adherence to strict quality standards and the use of the latest materials.

£5,000 - Helps fund computer equipment to test forces in both arthritic and normal joints to  help plan better surgery and  rehabilitation programmes (sophisticated computer  programmes are used to build models for predicting movement, working out optimum angles for new joints etc.)

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - we raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep and donate now.