Tag → donation

Twenty tandems

13 July, 17:25, by Open Country Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
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Monday saw a flotilla of 20 tandems take to the road to mark Open Country’s 20th anniversary: a ‘wheel spectacle’ for any pedestrian or motorist in the North Yorkshire area.

Barrie on a tandem bicycle pulling a funny face

Caption competition: entries on our Facebook fan page please...

We started out at Wetherby for a 20 mile cycle trip with a tactical pub stop at Tockwith. The outing was unique as it included all of our volunteers and service users from our Wetherby, Harrogate and Ripon tandem clubs. Even more unique, it saw Sam, Paul and David, the three pillars of Open Country all out of the office at once, rather than taking it in turns to drink tea at their desks.

The evening was a real team effort and brought our diverse community together to celebrate twenty years of our unique charity and its ongoing mission to help people with disabilities to access the countryside.

Special thanks to Betty’s Cafe & Tea Rooms for donating this delicious commemorative cake.

You can see a full set of photographs from the event in our Facebook photo album including a particularly flattering photo of Open Country volunteer Barrie.

Virgin Money Giving

23 June, 10:00, by Open Country Tags: , , , ,
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Virgin Money Giving logoWe’ve just switched over our online donations from Just Giving to Virgin Money Giving.

We think that Virgin give a fairer deal to charities, especially small ones like us: their one-off charge is better than a monthly subscription fee and they take a smaller percentage per donation.

That means more of your donation will go to helping people with disabilities to access the countryside. That’ll help us keep our minibuses on the road for access events and keep our tandems maintained for the Ripon and Harrogate tandem clubs. Take a look at our Virgin Money Giving donation page.

Sam (Open Country) and Jackie Heptinstall will be one of our first campaigns to use Virgin Money Giving when they do the Great North Swim in September at Windermere. You can pledge a donation towards our mission helping people with disabilities to access the countryside, as well as encouraging both of them not to sink.

A big thank you to Church Avenue house!

14 June, 16:22, by Open Country Tags: , , , , , , ,
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We’re enormously grateful to our friends at Church Avenue house in Harrogate for raising over £600 to support Open Country’s mission to help people with disabilities to access the countryside. Church Avenue is a care home that offers supported living, helping people with disabilities live as independently as possible.

The Church Avenue team braved the full fifteen miles of the annual Nidderdale walk, hiking for over seven hours as a team of nine, which included: Alasdair, Mark, Paul, Dan Vincent, Ian, Emma and Sue. Their donation was made up of contributions from individuals, friends, families, companies and supporters like the Harrow Pub on Knaresborough Road.

Five members of the Church Avenue House

The Church Avenue House Nidderdale walk team

Roughly seven miles into the walk, the team was doing well but some members had begun to lag a little, suffering from aching feet and the prospect of over half the full distance still to go. Sue had a trick up her sleeve though to squeeze a few more miles out:

“We just pretended there wasn’t long left, telling ourselves ‘we’re nearly there’ even though we knew we weren’t.”

And some extremely high stiles didn’t help things, especially for members of Church Avenue house who are visually impaired: one member had to overcome a mountain of a stile, almost falling off had Ian not been on hand to help catch him.

Why did Church Avenue house choose to donate to Open Country?

“Our boys love going out on the tandem rides Open Country run and we knew how hard it was to maintain the bikes … punctures and things.”

Said Sue at Church Avenue:

“Giving money to a bigger charity means the help would go elsewhere, it wouldn’t stay locally where it’s needed. You tend to work harder if you know where it’s going, you know … you see it.”

Are you raising money for charity?

If you’re taking sponsorship for a fund-raising event this year: whether it’s an extraordinary feat, a fun run, a race like the Great North Run, a 10K or a marathon think of Open Country. Your money won’t go into a black hole to be spent in a different part of the country.

We’re a small local charity so you can see your donations working directly in the local community of North Yorkshire: helping people with disabilities to access the countryside. We’ll even take you out with us so you can see how your fund raising has helped, by coming along as a volunteer.

We need your help to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities. You should contact us or leave a comment below.