POOLE CONSTRUCTION WORKERS TO CYCLE TO PARIS TO RAISE £10,000 FOR CHARITY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo: Rob (front) and some of the intrepid team!

He hasn’t been on a bike for 30 years but that’s not going to stop 41-year-old Rob Whitham cycling 226 miles from his office in Poole to Paris.

Wimborne man Rob, business development manager at Poole-based construction company Morgan Ashurst, is preparing for the toughest physical challenge of his life, along with 26 colleagues, to raise £10,000 for LV= Streetwise and the Wessex Cancer Care Trust.

And, with just four months to go until the team sets off on the gruelling challenge they are getting measured up for their bikes by Bournemouth bike specialists Primera Sport.

Morgan Ashurst has never been a company to shy away from going that extra mile for local charities and when father-of-two Rob suggested a charity bike ride to raise some cash for good causes his colleagues envisaged a nice summer’s afternoon out the office. But, what they didn’t know was that Rob was planning an epic challenge designed to test them to their limits – in the hope that people would dig deep to help them raise £10,000.

“Times have been hard, we all know that, but I think it’s still important to help local charities,” says Rob. “I haven’t been on a bike since I was a teenager and spend most of my days in the office rushing from meeting to meeting just grabbing a pasty or chocolate for lunch. So everyone was a bit surprised when I suggested the challenge.”

The team which includes everybody from area director Paul Gale to mechanical and electrical subcontractors Working Environments will set off on 22 July from the Poole office at Albany Park and will aim to be in the centre of Paris three days later – just in time to see the professionals at work as the Tour de France finishes at the Champs-Élysées.

“Most of us have taken up cycling specifically for the challenge,” says Rob. “There’s no getting away form it that it’s going to be hard work – physically and mentally, but knowing that we’re going to give two such worthwhile charities a boost when they really need it will help us power through the three days.”

The team has already started training in earnest and has so far managed to clock up a regular 17 mile circuit, cycling after work from the office, through Poole Quay to Sandbanks, then through Compton Acres and on to Parkstone before retuning to Albany Park.

If you would like to support Streetwise through their epic adventure? Just donate through their Just Giving page - it's quick and easy and you can leave a personal message of support for everyone to see!


Morgan Ashurst and Working Environments have already collaborated to help LV= Streetwise - at the end of last year Working Environments donated a 50" plasma TV to kick off the safety centre's conference facility upgrade during 2010. Click here for more on this.

LV= Streetwise is a life sized, indoor safety ‘village’ of scenarios which are traditionally built ‘bricks and mortar’ scenes from everyday life to help make children aware of potential dangers in the everyday world around them.

Alison Shelton, LV= Streetwise manager says: “This is a fantastic thing they are doing and I know they will have an amazing time. At LV= Streetwise we are heavily reliant on our dedicated volunteer safety guides so I am delighted to have some funds which can support them in their training and with our day to day running costs. Aside from that I am particularly proud to say that the team will be great role models - promoting safe cycling by wearing their cycle helmets!”

The Wessex Cancer Trust is an independent charity which has raised approximately £17 million since it began in 1981 to help support and improve cancer services in Dorset, Hampshire, Wiltshire and the Isle of Wight. The charity has funded major projects including mobile mammography vehicles which have screened well over a million women for breast cancer, mini-busses to transport patients to hospital, specialist nurse training and many more. Tim Titheridge, chair of the Trustees for the Wessex Cancer Care Trust says: “

Morgan Ashurst is a leading full-service construction business with more than 1,800 employees in the UK. Supported by a national network of local offices, the company works for private and public sector clients on projects from £50,000 to over £300 million. Morgan Ashurst’s construction activities range from small works, repair and maintenance services to large-scale complex projects across the commercial, defence, education, healthcare, industrial, leisure, retail and transport sectors. It is part of top UK construction and regeneration group Morgan Sindall plc which operates through five divisions of fit out, construction, infrastructure services, affordable housing and urban regeneration, which are supported by two specialist units of investments and professional services.

Morgan Ashurst Media Contact: Liz Coyle-Camp/Lyndsay George, 01747 871752 or lyndsay@emc2publicrelations.com