The Origins : At the beginning of
October 2006 the Newbold ladies came up
with a peach of an idea for raising funds
in support of a couple of their favourite
charity events on tv.
Here in the UK we have
two massively popular annual telethon
charity events on national television. One
is called Children in Need
and the other Comic Relief. The
first is all about providing aid to
underpriveleged or abused children here in
the UK and the second is about providing
aid to underpriveleged people of all
descriptions in Africa and other very poor
parts of the world. Both causes raise
millions of pounds each year by inspiring
ordinary folk like us to either make a
donation or run some kind of sponsored
event that raises donations.
The Events :The inaugural Newbold
Challenge sought to make a tiny
contribution to both causes by sponsoring
sculptors, figure painters and wargamers to
join in a variety of competitions and by
giving that community the opportunity to
increase our sponsorship by making
contributions of their own.
Both the tv events have
instantly recognisable mascots or logos
(Pudsey Bear & The Red Nose) and we
decided to have a couple of our own for the
inaugural Newbold Challenge. We adopted a
super character called The Child Witch
Mabel as the mascot for our fund raising
activities on behalf of Children in Need
and a very dodgy character called Anonymous
Bodge as the mascot for our Comic Relief
activities. You can read a little of their
stories here and here.
In essence there was a sculpting
competition, three figure painting
competitions, a series of charity auctions
and a whole load of other ways that caring
folk from all around the world came up with
to enable them to contribute.
The competition entries
were posted anonymously and only the
entrants were allowed to vote. The winners
in each category won a strictly limited
edition commemorative mini and £50
GBP. All the entrants had the satisfaction
of knowing they were being sponsored to
help a couple of very worthy causes.
The Bottom Line : As this was our first attempt
at anything like this we set ourselves a
very modest target of raising £2,500
GBP for our good causes. As it turned out
lots of folk supported the Challenge in
lots of ways and much to our amazement the
total ended up at £3,995 GBP (almost $8,000 USD or 6,000
euros). Everything we raised up to Xmas Day
2006 (£1,805 GBP) was donated to
Children In Need and everything raised
between then and 1 April 2007 (£2,190
GBP) was donated to Comic Relief. And four
of the entries in the 2006 Challenge are
being carried forward to provide the first
series of charity auctions for the 2007
Challenge.
So the 2007 Newbold
Challenge will have a target or raising at
least £4,000 GBP and we’ll be
looking for your help once again!
