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Mongolian Charity Rally
Many thanks for taking the time to read this letter.
We will try to keep this brief, but we are extremely enthusiastic about
the subject and could prattle on for hours. I work for a B&C Express as part of the telephone
sales team and my friend Steve is an Assistant Headteacher at a Lincolnshire
secondary school. To give you a brief explanation of what we are doing. We are taking part in an organised charity event run by a charitable trust called Go Help (www.gohelp.org.uk). The event is called the Mongolian Charity Rally (www.mongoliarally.com). The Mongolia Charity Rally is a pan-continental drive across five mountain ranges, two deserts and more barren and inhospitable lands than you care to shake a gear-stick at. Starting in London, the final destination is the capital of Mongolia, beyond the Gobi desert, Ulan Bataar. This could be very entertaining on a pair of 350cc Royal Enfield Bikes that we hope to use for the event. The charities which we will be raising money for are, CAMDA (www.camda.org.uk), a Cambridge based charity working to improve the lives of nomadic rural families in Mongolia. The second charity we have chosen is, When you wish upon a star (www.whenyouwishuponastar.org.uk), a UK children’s charity who’s aim is to grant the 'Wishes' of children suffering from a life threatening illness, from the age of 2 to 16. We have set up online donation pages with Just Giving for both CAMDA and also When You Wish Upon A Star. Click on the charity names to take you to the donation pages. The aim of the event is to raise at least £1000 per team for the charities, however our team remit is to raise £1.00 per mile (8500 miles ish). The Mongolian Charity Rally starts in London during July and finishes in Ulaan Bataar, the capital of Mongolia, approximately four to six weeks and 8500 miles later, having travelled through Germany, The Czech Republic, The Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia again and then finally Mongolia. This event is not unique, but it is seen as being one of the most arduous charity rallies around. Once you leave London there is no support. You have to organise everything for yourself and carry all the spares, tools, fuel and water you are going to need. If you break down in the Kazakhstan desert it’s up to you to sort it out. Also once in the ex soviet block it is virtually impossible to simply abandon a dead vehicle without facing prison or a very hefty fine for illegal importation, but deals have been struck and people have flown out. Unlike the Dakar there is no sweeper truck because there is no specified route, just a start point and a finish point. In fact, apart from waving you off in London the only thing the organisers do for the teams is sort out the vehicle importation paperwork in Mongolia. Once the teams arrive in Ulaan Bataar the transport
that has carried them across a third of the world and any surplus equipment
is given over to the event organisers to be auctioned off to provide
money for a Mongolian charity, CDPF
(Children’s Development Protection Fund). This
is probably the most important part of the trip, because if we don’t
get to Ulaan Bataar the CDPF get nothing. We are unable to raise funds
for them outside of the country. The team members then making their
own way back to the UK. GH
Tayberry and Co. (Horncastle, Lincs.) We would be very grateful of anything you can do to help us with this rather daunting challenge. We are planning to hold a couple of pub fund raising nights before we leave the UK and so are also looking for items that we can use as raffle or auction prizes at these events. All monies raised will be donated immediately to CAMDA and When You Wish Upon A Star via our online donation pages.
Yours hopefully Chaz and Steve
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