Trusted places by Yell

Race for Your Wife

Today we’d like to highlight an impressive side project of one our own. Colin O’Brien, a Yell Customer Services Executive in Manchester, has created an all male 10k sponsored run in Heaton Park to raise money for breast cancer.

Colin came up with the idea for ‘Race for Your Wife’ after he discovered the official ‘Race for Life’ was a women-only event.

I believe that men should have the opportunity to raise money to support this worthy cause as breast cancer not only affects those women that contract the condition but also those that are close to them. So I welcome all husbands, fathers, sons, brothers and other close relatives to take part in the first ever Race for Your Wife.

Over 140 men have already signed up for the race but Colin hopes up to 500 people will take part - raising up to £30,000 for Cancer Research UK from sponsorship and entrance fees. But he’s not stopping there:

As time goes on there is more and more that I am adding to the event, the event will now be accepting donations of any unwanted clothing, Brick a brac, furniture, or anything that can be resold in the local Cancer Research shop.

I have also committed to Cancer Research UK that Race for Your Wife will return in 2012 in Manchester, Birmingham and Newcastle. In 2013 I will be looking at making the event a success in 7 parks across the country.

Race for Your Wife will be held on the 29th October from 11am and will follow the same route as the 10k female equivalent.

We’d like to wish good luck to Colin and to everyone taking part!

To sign up or donate visit www.raceforyourwife.org

Yell staffers deliver Yellow Pages for charity

As part of our ongoing support of Red Balloon, the charity dedicated to the children who are victims of serious bullying, six members of Yell staff recently joined our delivery partners, Deya, to deliver the new Basingstoke, Fleet and Alton Yellow Pages directory in Hampshire.

The day started with a briefing at Basingstoke football ground, including the viewing of a special delivery training video and details of the routes.  Then our brave volunteers collected their bundles of directories, along with plenty of water and sunscreen, and headed out on their rounds. 

Despite numerous dangerous looking dogs, houses with no visible names or numbers and a near suffocation in a locked, hot car(!), all survived the day in one piece.  Residents were pleased to receive the latest edition in the compact format and they were much easier to deliver through letter-boxes than the older A4 versions.

The money that would have been paid to local delivery agents for the areas will be donated to our collection for the build of a Learner Centre in Reading, which Yell has pledged to raise £75,000 for.

Many thanks to Elaine Trainor, Pat Philo, Jin Gill, Demelza Fryer-Saxby, Kimberley Watts-Fitzsimmons and Jon Salmon for all taking part.

It’s not the winning…

Last night our team of intrepid marketeers took to the high seas (River Thames) to swashbuckle their way to glory - and booty - for a truly noble cause, WaterAid.

As soon as we arrived at the Reading Rowing Club it became apparent that not all rafts are created equal; we’d gone for the home-made, mostly recycled/could actually have been cobbled together when shipwrecked approach…

Our competitiors went for something a tad more professional, the scurvy dogs!

Clearly we should’ve spent more than 4 hours on our design/build!

But we’re not lily-livered landlubbers so we hoisted the Jolly Roger and headed for water, sure that our trusty, battered old Furner would do us proud.

To complete the look, we sported a mix of ‘normal’ oars and some exciting new paddling accessories; two handmade oars crafted by Stephen out of old floor boards, and … a plank. Instead of shivering timbers, we were rowing with them!

Remarkably we weren’t one of the teams that sank(!) and we made it to the finish line in one piece, coming 23rd in a race of 29.

Imagine what we could’ve done with proper equipment!

Thanks to WaterAid, Reading Rowing Club, Thames Water and everyone else who turned up yesterday, either to compete or cheer us all on (less thanks to the kids on the bridge who egged us. Filthy scallywags!) It was fantastic fun, for a great cause - even the rain didn’t spoil it!

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me! Well done team!

But it’s not over yet - we’re still trying to meet our fundraising target so WaterAid get even more money for their projects in Bangladesh. You can be supportin’ our efforts on our JustGiving page.

Cheers, me hearties!

Build, build, build your boat

You may remember a recent post on our efforts to build and race a raft to raise money for WaterAid.

On Monday night the build began in earnest. And the rain. 

   

It may not look very sea-worthy yet but let’s hope by the time the guys are finished tonight we’ll be able to float merrily down the river tomorrow.

Stephen’s even gone DIY on our oars, with these inspired bits of recycling! -

The ‘Wacky Rafters’ Race starts at 6.15pm tomorrow, starting line is on the Thames, by the Reading Rowing Club. Please come cheer us on or give us a donation for WaterAid, if you can.

Check our more photos of the build - and we’ll update with a snap of the finished raft - on our Facebook Page

Thanks!