Over the past few months, the YMCA Colchester has been organising a charity trek up Snowdon, Yr Wyddfa, in Wales. The idea of this event was to give our young people an experience that they have never had before and also a chance for them to learn new things and meet new people.
The organising of the Snowdon event was a tricky process as a charity YMCA Colchester needed to make sure they could do this on the smallest budget possible. The group that went contained three residents, two members of staff and trustee.
After arranging the accommodation, travel and insurance they then had to make sure all residents had the right kit to take with them for every eventuality, the weather can change very quickly on the mountain, so they needed to make sure that they all had waterproof clothing, adequate footwear and appropriate bags to hold all their kit in.
After many calls and emails, YMCA Colchester managed to get some sponsorship from insole company Superfeet, whose UK and North European Office is based in Colchester. Their generous donation gave YMCA Colchester all purpose made insoles, specifically for hiking, for their boots. These insoles were a must as they gave so much more support than normal insoles.
YMCA Colchester also managed to get in contact with MCPT College, which is run by the Army, and they donated day sacks for each resident.
Along with these donations YMCA Colchester was in consent contact with the CEO of Outdoor Insight, a company that advises major Highstreet brands on how to use the equipment they sell properly and what equipment is best. Outdoor Insight has helped to plan the trip and advised them all the way through the event. Outdoor Insight also kindly donated a large amount of money to towards the trip.
Without the help of Outdoor Insight and all the other companies involved this trip and experience for the residents would not have been possible.
The trip was very challenging, on the day of the ascent the weather was not on their side with heavy rain forecast. They set off at 8:15am and reached the summit at around 11am. Unfortunately, they couldn’t see more than two metres in front of them at the summit due to intense fog that came. The descent was a lot trickier with rain and poor visibility. They reached the base of Snowdon in an hour and a half, so a total time of 4 and half hours.
YMCA Colchester expressed their thanks to everyone that donated to the event, they not only raised enough money to cover all the expenses for the trip, but also managed to make a profit. All the residents that took part in the trip absolutely loved it and enjoyed themselves so much that they are going to be organising another hiking trip for next year. They have all suggested an attempt on the Three Peak Challenge, which involves hiking Ben Nevis, in Scotland, Scafell Pike, in England, and Snowdon, in Wales, all within 24 hours. This would be an amazing achievement if they managed to be able to organise that for the YMCA next year. All money raised on top of their spend this year will go towards next year’s charity event.
