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Thanks for taking the time to visit our "Team ercol" JustGiving page. Thank you to all our sponsors for your generosity Mission Accomplished! One of our colleagues has recently been diagnosed with a serious illness. As a token of our support for him and his family, we organised a charity fundraising event. We asked him to nominate a charity of his choice to be the beneficiary, and for him to personally present the proceeds. He chose the Iain Renne Hospice at Home. On Saturday 17th September at 6 am "Team ercol", an intrepid bunch of 10 athletes left Princes Risborough and travelled to South Wales arriving at the Storey Arms visitors centre in the Brecon Beacons at 9.30 am The weather forecast was not particularly good: rain, strong winds, and possibly some thunder storms thrown in for good measure. We dressed and prepared for any eventuality and at 10 am set off for Pen y Fan, the highest mountain in the Brecon Beacons (886 metres), before tackling Corn Du (873 metres) and taking in the Tommy Jones obelisk and Y Gyrn (619 metres). The “off piste” route selected back to the minibus took us across a 2 mile stretch of boggy wilderness with no obvious path, which resulted in some team members sinking up to their ankles in foul water. Not a good start for those who were only wearing walking shoes, and who needed to wear them the next day. We then set off at 2pm for our hotel at Beddgelert in the Snowdonia National Park, arriving at 5.30pm.  This day was planned as a warm up for the next day, the main event of the weekend.   Sunday 18th September "Windsor to Wales Challenge" The Windsor chair has always been synonymous with ercol, with all of the team in some degree being involved with its manufacture. The challenge is for the team to carry all of the components up to the summit of Snowdon (1,085 metres) and to assemble a complete fully functional Windsor chair, hopefully gaining publicity for our fund raising efforts. The chair will later be carved with an inscription marking the event and presented to our colleague. We left the hotel at 8am in pouring rain and headed for Pen y Pass, the starting point for the main tracks leading up Snowdon. The plan was to ascend on the Pyg Track and descend on the Miners Track. Some of the team members who had not been to the mountains before, thought that Snowdon would be like Pen y Fan: they were in for a shock! After donning full wet weather gear, and some having to wear wet footware from the previous day we set off at 9.30am. Immediately the track becomes steep with irregular rocky steps some of which have to be climbed over: this is a proper mountain. It is a relentless slog, especially when carrying the extra weight of the chair parts. The summit is hidden by low cloud and hill mist and never seems to get any closer. We finally reach the top at 12 am and begin the assembly of the Windsor Chair, gathering many strange looks from other people on the mountain. After a quick photo shoot and celebratory glass of champagne, we move to the mountain railway café to shelter from the elements and have lunch. The inexperienced think that going down will be easy; wrong, the strain on the knees and leg muscles is worse, also there is the added danger of slipping on wet rock. The decent involves retracing the path down the Pyg Track for about half a mile and then scrambling down a steep slope some of which is loose scree to the Miners Track. Once on the Miners the going is relatively easy, and we make it back to Pen y Pass at 3.30pm. After changing into dry clothes we leave at 4pm and arrive back at Ercol at 8.40pm tired and exhausted, but happy that we have been able to support our friend and raise somewhere in the region of £6,500 for charity. 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 - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity. So please dig deep and donate now.

Team Ercol

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