In a year that has been unprecedented for everybody with plans and events, being cancelled left, right and centre, the RAF Waddington RAFA team feared that they wouldn’t be able to carry out any fundraising activities for the charity in 2020, especially not a RAFA cycle challenge.
During a RAFA meeting Flt Lt Powell raised the idea of organising a virtual cycling event during RAFA Wings week, which the committee thought would be a good idea. Volunteers were asked for to manage the event and in stepped Cpl Jason O’Connor and Sgt Wayne Brown. The plan was quite simple, pick a total distance to cover, get a team together, cycle in your own time and record it on a fitness tracking app with all donations being made online.After several distances being discussed, it was settled on 8160km to be covered which represented the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, times by 102 years of the RAF. It was then decided that it would be carried out from 1st September – 18th September which coincided with the end of the RAFA Wings Appeal week.
Next was to recruit a team. Cpl O’Connor took charge of this in the means of putting posts on Station Announcements and creating a poster to be put around base. He managed to recruit 40 personnel to take part, including members of 51 Sqn who cycled whilst on detachment, whilst Sgt Brown created a Just Giving page and a Strava Team page for everybody to join and record their cycling distances.
1st September soon arrived, and the challenge began! By the end of the first day, 888.83km had already been completed. By the end of the first week, 4891.40km had been completed which was well over halfway. The decision was them made to up the total distance to 10,000km. By the end of day 13, we had already surpassed the new total by completing 10,029.49km. With 5 days left of the event, the distance was upped again! This time, we reverted to the original 8160km distance but changed it to miles. This meant, in km speak, we needed to complete 13,132.25km in total. We had 5 days left to complete just over 3000km to reach the new, heroic, total distance.18th September, the last day of the event, 322.75km was still left to complete. We did it! We completed the distance and some more! The total distance covered ended up being 13,284.86km (8254.82 miles).
The contribution, the dedication, the time and the effort put in by each person who helped complete this mammoth task was above and beyond. The event would never have been completed without each and every one of them! On behalf of RAFA, Thank you.
Whilst everybody was putting the miles in on their bikes, they were also requesting donations from friends and family. The RAF Waddington RAFA team said they would be happy if they managed to raise at least £500. What actually happened was almost triple that! In total, £1460.00 was raised for RAFA.Just a final thanks to everybody involved, whether it was organising the event, participating in the event or promoting the event. It would never have happened and been successful without each of you. Please keep your eyes and ears pinned for the next event which will be happening in the New Year to help burn those Christmas calories that were gained!
