Charity Packs

I’m not going to lie; it took a little negotiating to get our charity packs delivered. After a month or so of patiently waiting, Bryony and I contacted Practical Action to discover that they were intended to be handed out during Welcome Meetings at our universities. I don’t attend university, so I probably would’ve been waiting a while, and Bryony hadn’t heard anything about her Welcome Meeting. Very kindly, the charity offered to send our packages directly to us. This morning, they came.

So we might have lost out on about five weeks of harassing strangers with money boxes and the like, but what we’ve been sent is sure to help us out enormously.

Our packages include:

Two money boxes

Letters brimming with information and  help

A collection bucket

A Practical Action T-shirt

It was a very basic practice for Christmas, peeling the tape from the box so I could discover what the charity had sent us. I wasn’t disappointed. It all looks very professional, but I don’t know why that surprises me. People will hardly part with their change this close to Christmas if it looks anything but legitimate.

So, that’s what we’ve got. Hopefully the money boxes and collection bucket should be filled with pennies in no time. We just need to get our thoughts together and think of some events and where it would be best to collect.

Now we can start collecting! 

(:

Emma

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Boot Camp

So, even if all is to go well with raising the money, then that’s only half of the challenge completed. We’ll still both be climbing the 5,895m to the top! We’ll be spending the majority of the days walking. Not to mention all our heavy gear we’ll be bringing with us. It’ll be back-breaking, sweaty, treacherous, never-ending work.

Now, for someone who avoids running as much as possible and never has the will-power to stick with any fitness regiment at all, it’s going to be quite a shock to the system. I’ve climbed the odd mountain… The first that springs to mind is mount Snowdon, which has a height of 1,085 metres. That’s only a difference of 4810 metres… D: But at least I’ve walked further than up the road to the bus stop!

So, coming to the point of all this rambling about fitness… I’ve joined a boot camp class. Forty minutes of non-stop sweating, strenuous muscle work-outs and staggering around with a luminous red face should get me able to conquer Kilimanjaro in time!

I’ve joined this class which has a session once a week with my best friend, the lovely Miss M! After a brief difficulty actually finding the room which the boot camp session was meant to take place in, we were welcomed by our muscle-bound instructor. As friendly as she was, it was obvious what we’d let ourselves in for then.

Despite the number of twenty-something well-built footballers roaming about outside, we were the youngest there. We knew we had to keep up and for some reason prove ourselves to the granddads who passed us on the warm-up run. So fuelling us for the next forty minutes was nothing but determination, our energy had already gone in pretty much the first fifteen minutes.

However, it all must have worked because the next day I could barely move! My arms would not lift above my head. We’d done the gruelling press-ups and bend-so-you-look-like-you’re-sitting-in-a-chair-that-isn’t-really-there-not-matter-how-much-you’d-like-it-to-be exercises, plus the obstacle course which was the majority of the session. There was a punch bag (great fun), huge yoga-like balls, stepping-stools, small weights and various other things. In between the courses we’d be stopped to randomly do some exercises (press-ups, body crunches, etc).

Hopefully this should help improve our fitness! If not, then I have no idea what will!

Emma

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It All Started With A Text...

“By the way, how do you fancy climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro with me?” interjected my best friend, Bryony, in a texting conversation. You can guess my answer. Since you’re reading this, it’s pretty obvious.

100% Y.E.S.

It was for charity, she added, and there was to be a meeting about it at her university tomorrow. She sent me a link to the website (http://www.studentadventures.co.uk/) and loads of long emails detailing the meeting and information about the trip. The only difficulty? We’d both separately have to raise £2,500 to be able to go, excluding the signing-up fee.

However, the more we talked about the challenge, the more we fell in love with the idea. It was a once in a life-time opportunity. We’d be trekking through five different eco-systems. We’d encounter the wildlife, such as the monkeys and giraffes, on the way. We’d reach the summit of the tallest free-standing mountain in time to watch the sun break free from the horizon and rise over the African landscape.

When the official registration day dawned, we were sending texts to each other counting down the minutes until the site enabling us to sign-up opened. Half an hour to go! Twenty-five minutes! Ten minutes! Five! One minute—and it’s the slowest minute I’ve ever endured! OH MY GOD, IT’S NINE O’CLOCK!

Minutes later, it was confirmed. Our applications had been accepted. Our registration fees paid. Our chosen charity (Practical Action http://practicalaction.org/ ) had sent us emails of welcome and support.

This was four days ago. Before we’d even applied, we’d both trawled through the internet looking for ideas for raising the money. Lists of A-Z of fundraising provided some odd ideas in order to fill each and every letter category. When telling friends of the planned event, it was suggested jokingly that we could gather the money by doing bikini car washes. In fact, a fair amount of different people have suggested this idea. Hmm. :/

Bryony returns from university at some point during this week. We’ll be doing the majority of our event planning, fundraising ideas and raising publicity then. In the meantime, if anyone is actually reading this, any ideas would be very much appreciated! Any small thought or taking-over-the-world kind of plan is very welcome.

Thank you for reading.

Wish both of us luck!

Emma,

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What We're All About

We are two people--Emma and Bryony--and this page has been created as we are both about to set off an adventure. We hope to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa for charity! This blog has been set up to document two things: the amazing adventure and the eventful journey we’ll both embark on raising the money to set out on this trek. We hope to scrape together £2,500 each, of which the majority will most likely be in pennies. So, enjoy the various degrees of humiliation we’ll be undertaking to raise the money and join us in crossing our fingers that we both make it to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro! (:

Emma

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