We’d like to say a massive thank you to every single one of you who helped us get there!

It’s been an incredibly challenging journey so far, so thank you all so much for your donations, encouragement, enthusiasm and participation in our events.

Now we’re about to embark on the Kinabalu Challenge itself – a 6-day expedition in the Malaysian Borneo – running, mountain biking, kayaking, rafting and hiking our way, in hot and humid conditions, to the 4100m summit of Mt Kinabalu.

The money we’ve raised will give young people selected by the Prince’s Trust from disadvantaged backgrounds the life-changing opportunity to go on a 10 week Raleigh expedition, where they will work on valuable community and environmental projects around the world (for example, in Borneo, building Gravity Water Feeds for remote communities, or building new enclosures for Sun Bears at a Jungle Conservation Centre). Raleigh creates diverse teams of young people, encouraging them all to challenge their preconceptions and expand their ambitions.

Thanks to both Dan Maggs and Debra Hay from Raleigh for supporting our fundraising effort!

We’d also like to say a special thanks to our various managers at Capgemini who’ve given us the flexibility and support to fit fundraising around our day jobs.

A massive, massive thanks to John Gillard, Liz Benison and Julie Fisher for supporting us as the Capgemini Kinabalu Challenge team, believing we could do it and pushing us when we needed it.

And finally, thanks to Ali for being there for the first half of the journey.

Right, enough of that – time to go to Borneo!!

If there’s any mobile coverage at all, we’ll try and tweet from the Challenge whenever we can at www.twitter.com/borneoforthis

THANK YOU!!

- Amy, Andy, Dan and Oli
Team “Borneo for this”

And it’s certainly been quite an adventure…

We’ve ran half marathons; dressed up as pirates, monks, wizards, cows and brides; spent hours in the freezing cold with collecting buckets; ran through chest-deep mud; adapted to veganism for a month (ugh, mock duck!); injured ankles, recovered gracefully, and endured painful and humiliating all-over body waxing!

So – in the spirit of all that, we’re running a little competition that asks one simple question: What’s the craziest thing YOU have every done in the name of charity?

• Have you done something you and your friends never thought you would?
• Have you humiliated yourself on a grand scale?
• Have you overcome all odds to do something truly remarkable?

The one with the most voted upon story by Friday 15th January will receive a FREE YEAR’S MEMBERSHIP from our friends at TasteLondon, giving you 50% off at 1000s of excellent restaurants around London. Wow!

Head over to http://bit.ly/crazything right now to submit your crazy thing!

I’ve kicked it off with my craziest thing – but can you better it??

It’s been an incredible adventure so far, and the fundraising has been a much greater challenge than any of us could ever have imagined, but we’re now over £9000 towards out £10k target.

That makes us all incredibly proud, but there is still a way to go!

If anyone can help out by contributing even a small amount towards that final £850, please make your donation at http://www.justgiving.com/borneoforthis

The money we’re raising is giving young people who’ve had a bad life so far the opportunity to turn it around by proving to themselves that they can do some good in the world. That means they go and work on incredibly valuable community projects with Raleigh all around the world (for example, in Borneo – building Gravity Water Feeds to give remote communities much needed clean, fresh water, or building enclosures at the Sun Bear Conservation Centre or many more).

Really important, valuable stuff on its own – plus it’s helping young people from disadvantaged backgrounds realise their potential to grow into young leaders who can have a positive impact in the world. So it’s a double win!

Please help us reach that £10k.

If you’ve already contributed, can you think of a friend who might want to support this cause? Passing on the message is just as valuable as making a donation!

Thank you.

You’ll notice a few people in that video look just slightly tired and worn out. Well, this is why:

The Kinabalu Challenge – 9 stages over 6 days

1. (Mon 22 January 2010 – a.m.) 4km running race

After just two days of acclimatisation to the extreme heat and humidity of Borneo, the challenge kicks off with a 4k race into the jungle. I guess Lonely Planet’s advice “do not do anything too physically demanding and avoid strenuous activity when you arrive in a hot climate” is kind of out of the window then!

2. (Mon – p.m.) Setting up camp

A nice hotel maybe? OK, a camp site? Tents even? Nope, this is proper Bear Grylls extreme survival stuff – building our own hammocks, shelter, fire – right out there in the jungle amidst all the mud, insects, cobras, scorpions and tropical rainfall.

3. (Tue – a.m.) Mountain bike / relay run – 6k – very hilly

After a trek out into the heart of the jungle, this stage involves taking it in turns biking and running on 6k of muddy off-road terrain, Camelbak’s most definitely required!

4. (still Tue – p.m.) White Water Rafting

Then, in the afternoon, white water rafting back to camp. Time to get those upper body muscles engaged.

5. (Wed – a.m.) Bamboo Rafting

Yesterday too easy? OK, this time we have to build our own rafts and race back up-river, remember all this time we’re competing against 7 other teams.

6. (Wed – still a.m.) 8.5k bike/run

Flatter terrain this time, so longer distance, not like we’ll be getting slightly knackered by this point or anything!

7. (Wed – p.m.) Kayak relay race

2-man kayaks now. Probably in torrential rain. This is a very tough day.

8. (Fri) Up the mountain!

Mt Kinabalu. The biggest one in South-East Asia. Described as the “Stair Master from HELL”, we will be ascending from 2000m to 3400m on this day – which should take us about 5-7 hours and really work those calf muscles.

9. (Sat) 2am start, to the 4100m peak

As if this isn’t hard enough already, let’s get up at 2am for the final stretch to the 4100m peak of Mt Kinabalu. This time we’re raising against the sun-rise. Steep, rocky, freezing cold and in the pitch dark.

But that is the challenge we’re embarking upon in 26 days time. That’s the crazy thing we’re doing for charity. That’s what we’re doing to persuade and inspire people to donate to Raleigh’s youth development programme: to help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds get out there, and to help Raleigh make an impact on community projects around the world. That’s what our £10,000 target is for.

We’ve got 26 days.

We’ve got £862.86 left to raise.

As we are about to embark on the toughest, craziest challenge of our lives, please help us out with £5, £10 or whatever you can manage – http://www.justgiving.com/borneoforthis

Thank you.

Hell Runner – I did it!

Originally uploaded by Spanner Dan

Wow, never before have I seen / ran through / slipped all over / waded up to my chest through quite so much mud!

It was VERY tough, but I completed the 10-mile Hell Runner cross-country race quite a bit faster than my 2 hour target – in 1 hour and 31 minutes

The first muddy puddle that you had no choice but running through was the moment I realised, right, let’s just go for this. Yes, I’m going to get ridiculously muddy, and yes, my feet will be absolutely squelchingly soaked. But 2000 other people are doing this with me, and at least it isn’t raining!

From the firecrackers and smoke grenades that marked the start to the 3-piece band marked the half-way point, it wasn’t actually too bad.

Then came the “bog of doom”- chest-deep gloopy, cold and energy-sapping thick mud, followed of course by a massive muddy scramble. After that they just kept it coming – ridiculously long, steep hills, lots of scrambling and sliding up and down – it was certainly hard to keep going at times.

Then atop another tough hill, suddenly there was another steeply-embanked 20-30m river crossing, just as deep as the first. Then more hills, more mud, and more wading. You get the idea.

But then all of a sudden it was the finish line. And I sprinted for it! I had completed Hell Runner. I felt ready for anything!! Ready for Borneo certainly, bring it on!

This is the first big event in my training in the run up to Borneo.

It’s going to be nature at its toughest. It’s 11 miles (longer than I’ve ever run before). That’s almost a half marathon, but I think it’s going to be much tougher with rough terrain, steep hills and muddy pools to navigate.

So I’ve got to train hard over the next couple weeks. On Saturday I did my first really long practice run – from Clapham Junction, 1.5 times around Clapham Common, back to Brixton, then twice around Brockwell Park. Mapping it out when I got home, I was pleasantly surprised that it was a total of 9.3 miles – so not far off my target.

I think the longest I ran before was Bay to Breakers in San Francisco in 2005. That was 7.5 miles, which I did in 1:06. My target is to match that pace at Hell Runner.

Please wish me luck! Or even better, make a donation to show your support – we’re over 2/3 of the way towards our target and it is certainly feeling like very hard work now!

Time to get out the devil’s horns…

Captain Hook’s Misfits

Originally uploaded by Spanner Dan

Last Saturday, the most courageous of pirates, wizards and bunnies braved London’s Southbank for another excellent Treasure Hunt. Tourists and locals alike were stunned with ad-hoc street spell-casting, unexpected proposals in pubs and some crazy-looking people galavanting around in animal masks.

Thanks to everyone who took part!

And thanks once again to our sponsors for the event – the excellent hostel and party venue Belushi’s London Bridge and the frighteningly fun London Bridge Experience who provided some excellent prizes to our winning team.

We made £320 from the event, and €30 (the joys of working for an international company), which I believe is actually the most we’ve made from an individual event so far, so well done to us and thanks to everyone else for making it such a success!!

Many people purchased horses before the event and on the night, in order to win some fabulous prizes; thanks to our sponsors Nando’s, Delta Force Paintball, the Big Apple Bowling Ally, Sheer Beauty Hair Salon, the Globe Theater and Taste London.  The prizes were much sort after and the blind auction for Taste London membership generated nearly £100 all on its own.

The horse racing itself was also a lot of fun, and lots of small money changed hands throughout the evening (fortunately with the Charity always ending up better off!!) The races were all met by lots of cheering, particularly the comically long race we had half way through and everyone really did throw themselves into the mix and into the fun atmosphere of the night!

If you missed out on this race night and you want to attend the next one we should be having another one in the Wardour St. Office in London, and a third in Telford.  So do let us know if you are interested; there should be more great prizes up for grabs, and lots more fun to be had! (Capgemini Employees and family only).

Thanks Guys,
Amy

I think we were all very tempted, but for one of us, it was perfect timing to grasp this opportunity of a lifetime.

So Ali is off to Borneo next week, not for a 9-day team challenge, but to spend 8 months living there, organising community projects and expeditions for young people. We’re all a little bit jealous, and wish him all the best on his amazing adventure!

Then we hit a big milestone in September – over £5,000 raised – over half-way to our target!!

This really is testament to the hard work that we’ve all put in together as a team, as well as our individual fundraising efforts, and of course all the generous people who’ve made donations.

Thanks everyone – we’re changing lives here!

One-legged pirate dancing was just one of the many activities our brave adventurers took on last Saturday in our 2nd London Treasure Hunt – aka “The Quest for the Golden Chicken”.

The scene was set by Amy and I, scientists who’s been tracking the mysterious and powerful Golden Chicken ever since it arrived in London, and our six teams set out upon their daring mission to discover it’s true power.

One team did this rather unexpectedly quickly – with some quick word work revealing the final location to them actually only minutes from the start. Well done to “Treasure C**t” for tracking it down!

But of course, there was plenty more to keep them, and the other 5 teams occupied all afternoon. The day saw a couple of moving romantic Shakespeare renditions, some very obscene vegetables and an awfully confused security guard called Marvin!

It all culminated in the wonderful Belushi’s, who kindly provided an absolutely cracking party location for the “after party” as well as prizes for runners up, “Threesome”, and the overall winners, “The Mummy Slayers” – who also received a generously donated ticket each to The London Bridge Experience.

A huge thanks to everyone who came and made the event so much fun – and especially to Laura aka “Wizzie the Wizard”, James the pirate, all the scary people at The London Bridge Experience, the Colombian coffee shop, Burnt Sugar in Borough market for the free fudge and Vicky and all the staff at Belushi’s for giving us such a great venue and such unbelievable drinks offers.

They certainly did the trick – and we raised over £325 towards our cause.

Check out all the fantastic photos and videos from the weekend here.