One of the exciting challenges launched to raise money for Railway Children, and forming part of Rail Aid 2021, is the Get on Track challenge, sponsored by Angel Trains. Rail Aid has challenged the rail family to collectively wheel, run or walk the distance between our flagship projects in India, Tanzania and the UK – an epic journey of 26,201km.
We spoke to Andrew Wilkins and Tina Cator from VolkerRail who highlighted the outstanding work they are doing to raise money for Rail Aid 2021. We also found out a little more detail about VolkerRail’s mission to raise money and how they are engaging their teams.
1. Why did you choose to support Rail Aid 2021? Have you been involved with Railway Children before?
Since 2011, along with other members of the VolkerRail team, we have participated in a number of fundraising efforts for Railway Children. For instance, a number of us participated in the London to Paris bike ride organised by Railway Children in 2011 and in 2012, ten of our colleagues undertook the London Triathlon and several teams have taken part in the annual Three Peaks by Rail event. Furthermore, in 2019, some of the team took part in the first sleep-out for Railway Children, and we enjoyed it so much that we took this a step further the following year by sponsoring the 2020 sleep-in.
We chose to support Rail Aid 2021 because every year we’ve attended the Railway Ball, which was always a great night where large sums of money were raised. This year, we decided to channel that money towards supporting Railway Children again but in a slightly different way. We love getting involved with supporting the industry’s charity and wanted to help fill the fundraising gap. Railway Children are an absolute pleasure to work with, and businesses who get involved are always guaranteed to get so much out of supporting them.
2. Tell us a little more about your fundraising efforts.
We had a long hard think about how we could raise as much money as we possibly could for Rail Aid 2021. And we came up with the idea of challenging employees to cover 5,000km as part of the Get on Track challenge. For every kilometre completed, we will donate £1 to Rail Aid 2021, up to £5,000. Those taking part are also encouraged to raise money and donate through our Just Giving page.
3. How much distance has your team covered so far?
Our team has been so enthusiastic about this, and it’s great to take part in an event which is open to anyone and for all fitness levels. To date, we have covered 3,784.5km but this is only the beginning.
4. How do you go about encouraging participation?
As well as a company e-shot, announcing our challenge, we also found word and mouth to be the most helpful in encouraging sign ups because people don’t want to miss out. Our health and wellbeing team is also using this as a way to encourage the team to take a break during their lunch hour by taking a walk around the lake. This makes the challenge not only a fantastic fundraising initiative but also a health one too.
5. What creative ideas has your team come up with as a way to cover this distance?
We’ve had team members try all forms of activity to get our target distance covered. We’d had some walk, run, cycle and even swim! We’re channelling our competitive natures in the best way by ensuring we raise as much money as we can for this incredible cause.
Rob Capener, Director of Marketing & Fundraising at Railway Children: said: “It’s businesses like VolkerRail who we can’t thank enough for taking the initiative to encourage their team to get involved with Rail Aid 2021 and raise critical funds for the young people and families Railway Children support. We’re loving the healthy competition this is creating amongst teams and it’s not only raising money but improving participants’ physical and mental health too.
“If this challenge sounds like it’s up your street, then sign up today! It’s not too late and you could be critical to helping us reach our target distance of 26,201km.”
Get on Track runs until 26 November so if this sounds like the challenge for you, then find out more information and sign up online today: https://railaid.co.uk/fundraise-for-us/get-on-track/.
