Firstly apologies for the fonts appearing in this editorial – I used Arial throughout but for some reason parts of the story have changed to Times when I pasted it into the page!? It also changes the spacing ... urggh!

The Macmillan 4x4 Challenge 2013

The 2013 Macmillan 4x4 Challenge will be the twelfth run of the Macmillan Challenge and the eleventh time I have competed.

Right now in mid-2012 everything looks to be in place for a successful Challenge. I have my ‘new’ Challenge truck – and all being well, considering how much it cost me at the start of 2012, it should still be running sweetly next March.

20k in 10 years

I have just sent out e-mails confirming that I did indeed reach my target of raising £20,000 in ten years – 10 Challenges – so I’ve set us a much more conservative target of £1300 in 2013 – and we already have £250.00 in the kitty.

The 2012 Challenge takes place over three days from Friday the 1 to Sunday the 3 March 2013. As many of you will know, last year I assumed that the 2012 Challenge would start, as it had for the previous few years, at the Britpart factory at Craven Arms, Shropshire – but it actually started in Scotland! I’ve no idea where it’ll be starting this year – but I am fairly confident it will end as usual at the Daresbury Park Hotel, Daresbury, Cheshire.

In the eleven years it's been run this event has raised £860,000.00 – well over three quarters of a million pounds for this very worthwhile charity.

Once again Mike Stapleton and his co-driver Rob Cable will be taking part in the Macmillan 4x4 Challenge. Last year we raised £1992.50 including Gift Aid and we drove 962 miles door to door and 456 miles on the event itself.

Of the 63 teams who started the event we came 37 with 192.5 points, which is middling and about where I like to be. The overall winners (Mark Avogadri and Pete Restell – Team 32) scored 289.5 points and the runners up (Simon Vogel and Mike Walker – Team 27 – yes, the guys who have won umpteen times and come second once before) scored 284 points. But, don’t forget that these guys were doing 5mph in the forests looking for code boards – we were often travelling a little faster than that (10 times?). The team in 63 place scored 121 points.

In 2012 we raised £450.00 plus £107.50 Gift Aid on the Justgiving site. The last donation there was from someone who’d read my report of the event in the Essex Land Rover Club magazine – and said that it was worth £10.00 just to read it!

Rob pulled off a stunning coup at the BAA i-volunteer awards by winning the individual fund raiser category (for our entry in the 2010 Driving Force event) and walked away with the £1000.00 top prize. He gave £500.00 to Help the Heroes and £500.00 to our Macmillan 4x4 Challenge fund.

Adding this amount to the cash and cheques already handed in brings this sum to £1260.00 plus £175.00 Gift Aid. This brings our overall grand total to £1992.50. According to the Justgiving site this is 101% of our stated target figure of £1866.31 (but then they don’t include the Gift Aid) and just £7.50 short of my real target of £2000.00! This was my ‘secret’ target as we’d raised over £2000 in the previous four years and have topped this figure six times in the past 10 years. Guess I could’ve bunged in another tenner – not to worry.

£20k in 10 years

The main thing is that we managed to reach (and exceed) our major target of raising ‘£20k in 10 years’ – in fact in ten years I have raised, with help from my trusty navigators: David, Paul, Alastair, Graham and Rob, in total £20,123.19!!!

So far the Macmillan Challenge 2012 has raised £82,000.00 for Macmillan cancer Support – making our overall raised in 11 years a pretty impressive £860,000.00.

£1300 in 2013

This is our rather modest target for next year …

Once again, thank you to everyone who has sponsored us and helped us in other ways over the years – you made it possible for me to raise £20k in 10 years!

The 63 teams who took part in 2012 raised £82,000.00 which I'm sure you'll agree is pretty impressive. That's an average of about £1300.00 per team so we continue to be a bit above average. This year we plan to raise the average amount but it would be nice to, again, be much better than average and raise more than that figure. SO, please do dig deep and sponsor us on-line for this very worthy cause.
You can also check out: www.mac4x4.co.uk to see just what is involved in the Macmillan 4x4 Challenge (sadly since a redesign you can no longer see, on the Home page, a shot of Muddy Blue Two – taken in Scotland in 2003 on the very first Challenge we entered).
Donating through this site is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to sponsor us: Macmillan Cancer Support will receive your money faster and, if you are a UK taxpayer, an extra 25% in tax will be added to your gift at no cost to you.
So please sponsor us now! Give somebody the help and support they need through Macmillan Cancer Support.
We will willingly display advertising on our Challenge vehicle for any Donor.
Many thanks for your continued support, as many of you have sponsored us for each of the ten years we've competed so far. Keep it coming!

Mike Stapleton – Driver Rob Cable – Co-driver and Navigator

All donations go DIRECTLY to Macmillan Cancer Support – All entry fees and running costs associated with the Challenge are paid by ourselves.