Renegade Conservatory Guy

Cycle India 2008

It’s going to be a different start to 2008 for me.

Normally, I’m chomping at the bit to get back to work after a slow period of trading in the double glazing business, followed by the festivities of Christmas and the New Year.

However, when everyone else is going back to work, I’ll be joining 29 others on a flight to Hyderabad to take part in Cycle India. For those of you who know me, you’ll be aware that being the organiser of the event, and as the Head of Fundraising at Heal, the planning of this has been a major part of my life for the last 12 months.

The image above shows a recent meeting between myself, Dr Prasad (the founder of Heal) and Barry Dunlop one of three sponsors of the event. The picture shows us launching the Cycle India T-Shirts which has made me realise how close we are now to finally flying out.

To summarise our plans:

I have managed to convince 21 people from the UK to get fit, raise some serious cash and fly out to India to take part in a 200 mile charity bike ride through the countryside of Andhra Pradesh. We are being joined by 8 non cyclists (including my wife) and 2 guys from the US who are joining the ride. To make it truly international we have 10 local Indian cyclists taking part.

We fly to Hyderabad on January 2nd and then there is a gruelling schedule which includes covering much of the state of Andhra Pradesh, a relaxing boat trip on the Godavari River, followed by 4 days cycling along the coastal area of Andhra Pradesh from Rajahmundry to Guntur. The highlight of the event will be the finale at the Heal Children’s Village where we will spend nearly 2 days with the children. And then we fly back to the UK on January 11th.

Heal is a UK registered charity which raises money for helping orphaned and underprivileged children escape from poverty in this region of India. I am passionate about Heal as virtually all the money we raise goes directly to helping these kids, as we have virtually no administration costs and we all divert our time on a voluntary basis.

So far, Cycle India has already raised over £75,000 and we hope the final total will be over £100,000! With this revenue, which is a massive amount for our small charity, we intend to invest in a new project, such as a new school or further Children’s Village.

For more information about Heal, please visit the Heal website.

There are 4 members of Conservatory Outlet taking part in Cycle India, including myself, my wife Ali, Andrew Bean and James Clarkson. I’ll be giving a full account of our experiences of Cycle India when I get back. We’ve got a camera crew taking part and capturing the full event, so I’ll be including a full video diary in future blog posts. We will also be carrying a lot of content on our Conservatory TV website.

I would like to thank Barry Dunlop for his continued support for Heal and for his generous offer to sponsor the shirts - cheers Baz!

If any of you fancy doing a future Cycle India, please get in touch with me. If not, you can still sponsor me on my Just Giving page. Damn, I may have just given away my identity Sam!

Finally, I would like to wish everyone a very happy new year, and I’ll be back online from January 12th, 2008.