It's official!

As you know last year I undertook a challenge which, thanks to you, led me to raise just under £5,000 for Dog's Trust funds and meant I lived up to the name 'verycoldclaire'. It was a huge adventure and pushed me to my limits, but that's what limits are for isn't it? So, with out further ado I'll explain the next challenge: further, faster, colder.

Now that I know what I'm doing in April 2011 I will be setting off with a hand picked team of like-minded fools to Northern Scandinavia where we will travel further north to start our journey. Each day we'll cover twice the distances, which will mean we need more dogs in each team and as we are further from civilisation there will be no strategically positioned cabins to use overnight. We'll be sleeping in tents or digging ice holes for the human and canine members of the team to shelter in. Our aim is to make it to the northernmost shelter of Per Nils, the Sami Herdsman who I had the pleasure of meeting on my last trip and who featured in this blog.

Whilst this may seem hard enough in itself, our real challenge is to raise £20,000 for EACH, the East Anglian Children's Hospices and to cover the costs in the Arctic (we will be paying all our own personal expenses). EACH supports families and cares for children and young people with life-threatening conditions across Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk. They provide care and support in families’ own homes, in hospital or at one of their hospices in Ipswich, Milton and Quidenham. They are a registered charity (no. 1069284) and this year need to raise £4 million in donations to deliver their services. This amounts to £11,000 a day, every day of the year.

As a group we hope you will support us by sponsoring us here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/eastanglianarcticchallenge Virgin Money Giving is a not for profit company, so all the money will go direct to EACH. (You can also search http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com for my name.) Please put a note so that I know who is donating - I'd like to thank you individually!

I'll be introducing the team here over the next couple of weeks and asking for input on how we can raise our target, as well as charting my progress on the fitness levels. As I have just had surgery, which has had me laid up for a few days, I'll be starting off gently, but the aim is to be as fit as my team mates by Christmas; so that we can pull a fire engine through the local high street... eek.