On Friday 25th May 2018, one hundred cars costing less than £500 each left from Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire heading to Le Touquet in northern France on the Twin Town Challenge 2018. Over the Spring Bank Holiday weekend, the teams completed a number of fun points based challenges to raise money for Charlbury-based charity SpecialEffect.
Jody Fletcher, Managing Director of Chilli Promotional Products, says “We’re delighted to have taken part in this event, which was great fun while raising a huge amount of money for a really fantastic charity”.
The Chilli Promotional Products team, The Gold Members, is inspired by the film Austin Powers and the car looks “groovy baby”!! The team consists of Jody Fletcher of Chilli Promotional Products Ltd, Andy Reynolds of AJR Electrical (Banbury) Ltd, Fiona Reynolds of newly incorporate Far Reach Recruitment in Banbury and Lily Willcocks from Peter Ball & Co.
The Chilli team has raised more than £2,400 so far with sponsorship from local businesses, donations and raffle ticket sales and the total is still rising! If you’d like to help The Gold Members soar past their target of £2,500, please head over to https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/chillipromotionalproductsttc18 to make a donation!
The Twin Town Challenge is organised by Brendon Cross, who is MD of STL Communications and a SpecialEffect Vice President.
Brendon said, “The sight of 100 cars, 400 people in movie-themed fancy dress, not to mention over 50 volunteers, as they head off to France will be quite a sight to behold. We have a fabulous programme of events in and around Le Touquet including a day at Abbeville circuit and a street party with live bands in the middle of Le Touquet.”
All the costs of the event have been covered by sponsorship, which means that every pound paid in entry fees as well as the fundraising by the teams goes straight to the charity.
The Twin Town Challenge has been a real game changer for SpecialEffect. Most importantly, the charity has already benefitted from the £500,000 raised by the Twin Town Challenges in 2014 and 2016 but this support escalated as the contacts made on the Twin Town Challenge brought wider gains, as Dr Mick Donegan, founder and CEO of SpecialEffect, explains,
“The legacy of each Twin Town Challenge always continues to blossom long after the event itself. We are entirely dependent on donations to carry on our work, so events like this are our lifeblood. We cannot thank the organisers and the Twin Town community enough for their passion and generosity.”
Funds from the Twin Town events have been crucial in enabling SpecialEffect to establish a games room for people with disabilities to visit, to buy new vehicles and to take on more specialist staff to meet the rapidly growing demand for their support and services.
The Twin Town Challenge took place from 25-28 May 2018. Find out more at www.twintown.org.uk
