JOHN BAVERSTOCK CHARITY CHALLENGES

fantastic weekend

2009-04-26T14:26:00.000-07:00

Had a great weekend raised over £1000 this weekend thanks to Beth and Sarah and Morrisons Supermarkets so far we have raised £2700 just under 4 weeks to the challenge we should get to about £6500-£7000 by then thanks everyone for your fantastic support next weekend very busy Friday out and about the streets with our buckets Saturday at Rotherham Interchange Saturday evening at Napoleons Casino Hillsborough and Sunday at ASDA Handsworth my lady is going to be well pleased with me but you do what you have to do.

5 weeks to the challenge

2009-04-19T14:25:00.000-07:00

With 5 weeks to go we have currently raised £1700. The hardest thing about any charity event is raising the money we have a Morrisons Weekend coming up next weekend where we will be in Morrisons Catcliffe Friday & Saturday and Morrisons Hillsborough Sunday. A big thankyou to all those people who have supported us up to now.

The Week ahead

2009-03-30T07:39:00.000-07:00

Well this week we will be in the Co-Op in Hillsborough that being Friday MORNING if anyone wants to come down and see James & Me that would be good got our total up to £500 so hopefully by next weekend we should be at £1000. If you go onto Facebook you can sign up to the group we are hoping to get over 1000 members if you wish to leave a comment that is great.
regards

JOHN

1 week on and we have taken our first step

2009-03-29T04:05:00.000-07:00

If we said that twenty steps were needed to get to £10,000 then we have just taken our first step after 7 days collecting we are at £500 a big thank you to those who are supporting our challenge.You can also keep up with the event on facebook and you can sign up to the group also you can also give support by giving us the thumbs up. If you would like to donate to the challenge you can by sending a cheque payable to THE 48 HOUR CHALLENGE and it can be sent to JOHN BAVERSTOCK 133 VAUXHALL ROAD
SHEFFIELD S9 1LE

THANKS TAKE CARE NEXT UPDATE NEXT WEEK

OUR FIRST DAY COLLECTING

2009-03-23T15:23:00.000-07:00

Friday the 20th March was the start of our fundraising campaign. We had some bad news Asda at chapeltown wont let us go and collect in there store ans morrisons at ecclesfield have said the same thing this is a real shame as both stores have supported us in the past but this must be the credit crunch kicking in. James and I have decided to go to Darnall and try our luck there we got off to a good start and all ready people are remembering our previous trek we collect for two hours and manage £120.00 this with £50 from N.D.Saftey and £50 from Cargill have got us £220 so not a bad start. £10,000 seems a long way off had some good news on Monday Asda at Handsworth have allocated us a day being 3rd May and Morrisons at Hillsborough have said we can have a couple of days in there store and catcliffe morrisons have stated the same. Decided to e-mail as many people that supply simpkins hopefully e-mails cost nothing and you never know if twenty companies reply with offers of £50 then that is £1000.I am going to e-mail two companies every day up to the challenge in all 78 companies.This Friday we are going to collect in Firth Park and Fir Vale and Page Hall still havent had anyone to challenge us by going the opposite way to us but it is early days

2 MEN 2 BUCKETS 2 GOALS

2009-03-12T23:32:00.000-07:00

Well we intend to set out again on this wonderful fund raising experience on the 22nd May.The difference this time we are soley hitch hiking all the trip.For those of you who dont know what the challenge is about i will explain.What my mate James Wood and myself John Baverstock have to do is to get from Sheffield to John O Groats then from John O Groats to Lands End then back to Sheffield within 48 hours.We are aiming to raise £10,000 for the charities St Lukes Hospice, The Childrens Hospital.Blue Bell Wood Childrens Hospice,The Retired Greyhound Trust Wortley and 2 junior football teams.We hope our charities appeal to all the public we enlist the 2 football teams who will help bag pack in supermarkets as we aim to troll the streets of Sheffield in 9 weeks trying to raise £10,000. You can follow how we get on by reading the blog I aim to put on as much information and how we are doing in our quest. You can also send messages of support and if you want to donate to our cause drop me an e-mail at jjmatt1@blueyonder.co.uk and I wil e-mail you back with the best way you can do this

48 HOUR CHALLENGE 2009

2009-03-12T14:28:00.000-07:00

Yes we are going again James and I are going to do the origanol challenge SHEFFIELD TO JOHN O GROATS TO LANDS END AND BACK TO SHEFFIELD by HITCH HIKING IN 48 HOURS we are doing the event on 22nd May 2009 aiming to raise £10,000 for Sheffield based charities. A challenge within a challenge we have 10 weeks to raise £10,000 and hopefuuly the good old Sheffield public will get behind us.

DAVE LEIGHTON

2007-10-06T04:03:00.000-07:00

Dave Leighton who I have mentioned earlier in the Cricket Force chapter is by far one of the greatest motivators of people I have met. He came to our club way back in 2006 and told us about cricket force.This magic event takes place every year and is growing faster than the price of petrol and that takes some believing. With his highly charged team they have brought about a resounding change to grass roots cricket they inspire others and sew a seed that would make you beleive that anything is possible. This year at Shiregreen I felt that our club let him down but after watching the Natwest Cricket Force DVD. It was great to see so many clubs experienceing what we did in 2006. I would encourage every team to sign up to cricket force as it is a fantastic way of inviting the community into your club you can find out more by tapping in natwest cricket force onto the net. there motto is make a difference and they really do.

LIONEL BECK

2007-10-06T03:53:00.000-07:00

Lionel Beck is a man I met in 1994 who like me have suffered tradgedy and joy in his life. He has helped me through a difficult passage in my life and stangely in a different way I might of eased as well as possibly provoked a simlar experience.He lives with his wife in Thornton le Dale near Pickering in North Yorkshire and has been a keen sponsor of challenges that I have pursued in the last couple of years he has a very interesting blog and is a extreemley interesting and highly regarded person you can find out about Lionel who is in someway an inspiration to me at becks blog or by putting his name into the search button on the net.

CONGRATULATIONS TO PAT FLAHERTY

2007-10-03T10:18:00.000-07:00

On the 27th of September I was invited to the Yorkshire Oscas where Shiregreens own Pat Flaherty won a Oscar in the Building Partnerships category in the last 2 years Pat has got over 3000 kids playing in kwik Cricket festivals throughout South Yorkshire Pat has gone in to schools and done a fantastic job getting kids to play Cricket. Pat has been involved at Shiregreen since 1953 if there was ever anyone more dererving an award than Pat. A great achievement well done Pat. Pat is now in for a National award which is held down at Lords on the 15th October I am sure we wish Pat the best of luck.

CASH FOR KIDS

2007-10-03T10:03:00.000-07:00

In September I saw a advert in the Sheffield Star newspaper inviting people to write in from clubs if you had any talented kids that if you did you could receive a cash reward.So I wrote in with the application form a letter telling them about our great kids and what a great job we do with kids from a deprived area of Sheffield. Talented well we have a boy who plays for Yorkshire, two boys represent the Taverners, our under 11s one there Leauge and reached a cup final our under 13s had a very creditable season as did our under 15s and 17s and we are even playing a few girls games. Well the letter did the trick and we were duly awarded £500. The star came up and did a video of the kids playing cricket and took some photos that appeared in the Star. It is hoped to buy a mobile net with the money we have had a quote for £1000 so it looks as if we will have to do some bag packing once again.

THE NEW SCOREBOX AND SCORE BOARD

2007-10-03T09:49:00.000-07:00

In late June even though we had been flooded we decided to press on with the building of the new scorebox. I had spoken to a builder called Mr Moore this was after I had received quotes for a erect garage which came to £3000 and Mr Moore agreed to buld us a new score box for £3000 this was including materials the job lot £3000. So we went ahead and in just over 10 days our new scorebox was built. In August our new score board arrived. we had to get a shutter fitted to the score box and electric put in the total costs was £1300 + £3000 for the score box. By the 18th August we were up and running and I have to say it looks really good. The new score box as all ready served a purpose as it is the only place the ladies can make a brew as the clubhouse is still out of bounds. It was hoped that through the challenge we would raise enough money tp pay for the new score box. It appears that the club will have to make up a shortfall of about £800.Not bad considering the total costs of the project was £8900.

SHEFFIELD TO LANDS END TO JOHN O GROATS AND BACK TO SHEFFIELD 2 MEN 48 HOURS AND £40

2007-10-01T09:47:00.000-07:00

On June the 9th we launched this years challenge it was hoped to raise £7000 money to be split between Bluebell Wood Childrens Hospice and Funding & Development at Shiregreen. This year I am doing the event with James Wood a work colleague. We intend to go out every Friday Saturday and the occasional Sunday.We intend to visit every shop, supermarket,hairdresser,casino car boot you name it and we will be there. The first week was not very good as we had just had the floods and every where we went there was flood appeal buckets. We phoned up Asda at chapeltown who said we could stand in there with our buckets,this we did and managed to raise £300 so we were up and runing over the next seven weeks we amassed £6600 a staggering effortThis was proving harder than what we thought the challenge was going to be.That in contrast was comming together well we had already managed to secure trains and taxis to Lands End and up to John O Groats but getting back from JohnO Groats would be the hardest part of the challenge. When the day arrived if the challenge we had been on Radio Sheffield, BBC Look North. The Yorkshire Post,The Sheffield Star and even the John O Groats Journal and Radio Cathiness. The sheffield people had been fantastic in there support for James and me. We had received that many good luck messages we dare not fail this time. We set off from Radio Sheffield at approximatley 13.40pm we were tavelling down to penzance on a virgin train that left at 13.53 we arrived at penzance at 20.55.There we were met by Alan Waters a local taxi buisness who took us to Lands End and back to the train statuon so we could catch the 22.00 train to Taunton. We arrived in Taunton at 02.45am.We then went sightseeing in Taunton and left on the first train out at 05.40 bound for Bristol.We arrived at Bristol at about 06.45 and left Bristol after having free coffees at the station at 07.25 bound for Glasgow.We arrived at Glasgow for 12.40 and headed straight for Macdonalds were we got two free meals and then promptly went to Burger King and got two more free meals we left Glasgow for a train bound for Perth where once again we had free coffees we arrived in Perth at approx 14.15 our train for Inverness was late leaving so we didnt arrive in Inverness till 17.55.There we caught a Bus that took us about 50 miles where we rejoined the train to Wick. We arrived in Wick at 22.00 where we were met by Billy Moore a taxi driver who took us to JohnO Groats and then back to Wick.Where we were met by the Old lady who picked us up last year who was on her way to bingo at inverneswho called after she read about us in the John O Groats Journal and said she would love to see us once again. She gave us a lift to Dunbeath and we arrived at Dunbeath at 23.40. THERE WE STOOD FREEZING TO DEATH for over an hour when all we saw was six cars go by.I thought we were going to die all we had on was our t- shirts and jeans and it was bloody freezing. Just when desperation was setting in this car appeared and stopped.The guy had heard about us on Radio Cathiness and wondererd if we would like a lift to Inverness. Did we ever we were picked up at 00.45 and arrived in Inverness at 01.45 and i was still bloody cold. We were in Inverness for almost an hour and a half when a lorry stopped and gave us a lift to Perth we arrived at Perth at 05.25. Now we had a chance if we could be in Glasgow for 07.30 we could catch a train back to Sheffield for 12.35 all we needed was a lift to Glasgow. The lorry driver sugested it be better if we went to Edinbourgh as the train went from Glasgow to Edingborough and Edingborough was about 25 miles away.So this is what we did we got a lift to Edingborough and arrived at Edingborough at 06.25. The guy dropped us and said the train station is about 3 miles down that road so we stopped a cab pleaded we had no money and would he take us to the train station . Unbeleivable but that is what he did we arrived there at 06.50 it was at least seven miles in the taxi.We headed straight for the station managers office and told him we had tickets donated from Glasgow to Sheffield and could we board the train from Edinborough he said no problem but the train did not leave untill 07.50 so off we went to Macdonalds for Breakfast which once again was free. So far we had not spent a single penny and as long as the train never broke down we would be home for 12.35 a full 1 hour and 5 minutes inside the 48 hours. We arrived back at the train station after breakfast for 07.30 and waited for the train once on the train I shook James hand and said it looks like we are going to do it. James slept most of the way home he was well and trully knackered.I had several free coffees to keep me awake and when we finnally arrived in Sheffield we both had the broadest smiles and we both looked at each other and said never again. We would like to thank Virgin Trains ,First Great Western Trains and First Scott Rail without them we could not of made it also Biily Moore and Alan Waters and Christine one of our old ladies and Radio Cathiness a special thanks goes to Elsa Redpath at Virgin Trains whose help was immense. We finnally raised £6700 and are now looking for a new challenge next year

DECEMBER 2006

2007-09-30T13:23:00.000-07:00

In December we set up a fund raising and development committee.We decided on which scoreboard we wanted but the one we were given at lords was to the value of £2000 after a deliberation we decided the one we would like would costs £4600.So we set about ways to raise the extra required.I had already received a date to go bag packing at morrisons which could raise £300-400 plus we could apply for a grant from the council. So we tried for the grant and were succsessful.We actually got a grant for £2000 so we now had £4000 towards this scoreboard and Morrissons phoned me and asked if we would like an extra day bag packing this generated £700 so we had raised the money to buy this wonderful scoreboard.We could now look forward to ordering it but there were going to be some more problems on the horizion we would have to build a new score box for it to go in. So in the New Year we would look at that and decide the best way forward.

NATWEST CRICKET OSCAS 2006

2007-09-29T10:27:00.000-07:00

On the 2nd October 2006 I and four colleagues were invited down to Lords for the cricket awards. When we arrived Dave Leighton met us and it was great to see him once again.The day will live long in my memmory as one of the best days out I have ever had. The people who had gone from Shiregreen were Mick Claridge, Pete Mason, Brendan Lowe and Pat Flaherty. We had a guided tour of Lords we were plied with champagne,wine great food and to be in a room full of people who had achieved so much for there cricket clubs was a real honour. The awards ceromony started with Jamie Dalryimple and the England Ladies Captain presenting the awards.Dave Leighton was reading out the nominations for each category and the people nominated had achieved remarkable things for there clubs. Dave then reflected back to this years Cricket Force event and mentioned Shiregreen he then Showed the Dvd where yours trully had a starring role evey time I was on shot I was comming out with my usual qoutations and every time I spoke the audience laughed it was great fun and I havent got a future in then after the dvd was finished Dave wanted to read out a few e-mails he had received after Cricket Force. After 2 e-mails he then read out the third. This e-mail was one I had sent him telling him about my challenge and thanking him for Cricket Force and wether or not Lords would help us with a donation towards this score board I was trying to get for the club. Although I had not mentioned it to anyone at the club as I thought it could be a project for the Cricket Force weekend in 2007. What happened next was unbeleiveable Dave invited me on to the stage and then said about Shiregreens cricket force weekend.That they had recognised a sterling effort put in by the people at Shiregreen and for that we were being presented with an electric scoreboard for our efforts. Knock me down with a feather for once I was speachless this was totally out of the blue. We had gone to this grand event and came away with this wonderful acolade this had to be one of the proudest momments of my life. The chaps that had gone with me were wearing the broadest smiles in the building. I couldnt wait to tell Jane my partner. She said she was proud of me but I was proud for the people of Shiregreen and for the kids of Shiregreen whose marvellous efforts had reaped such a fantastic reward.

SHEFFIELD TO LANDS END TO JOHN O GROATS AND BACK TO SHEFFIELD 2 MEN 48 HOURS AND £40

2007-09-29T10:05:00.000-07:00

In September Dave Buckley and I attempted this unusual challenge we did to raise money for St Lukes Hospice Sheffield Childrens Hospital and Shiregreen Cricket Club in all we raised £3400 between the above. The challenge was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life we managed to complete the challenge in 56 hours without spending a single penny we relied on our thumbs to get us up and down the country and were both totally knackered by the time we finished.We failed due to a driver picking us up at Bristol and why i do not know taking us to Oxford.It took almost 7 hours to get back on track and I knew then we could not do it in the time. The reason why I so much wanted to achieve this challenge was I had seen an electric score board at Frecheville when our under 11s played there and thought we could do with one at Shiregreen I had phoned around and been quoted £5000 to buy one. I thought that if i could take the kids bag packing through winter we might raise enough money to buy one with my challenge money of £1125.00 we were only £3875.00 short. On our challenge we met some great people the most bizzare being two ladies from Wick who drove a total of 106 miles twice a week to play bingo then drove home again they were both in there early sixties and they gave us a lift from Dunbeath to Inverness.The low point was once we got back to Wakefield at about 01.45 am in the morning and only 17 miles from home we did not get a lift for over 2 and a half hours finnaly arriving home at 05.00am we had been awake for 71 hours in total.Yet I know it can be done in 48 hours so I will have another go next year and every year on untill I do it.

CRICKET FORCE WEEKEND 2006

2007-09-29T00:53:00.000-07:00

When the weekend came round I had managed to secure a fence to the value of £10,000 from Betafence UK this was not straight forward as I also needed to get a Fork lift truck as well this was provided by Jungheinrick these were all due to arrive on Sunday on Saturday we had nets to put up walls to paint Showers to install Double glazing to go in and to dig out a path and lay concrete for a new one. The day started around 7.30 am with the digging out of the path we soon realised we needed help so I went down to Brendan Ingles Boxing Gym and enlisted the help of four young boxers.These lads only 15 years old were fantastic they were a tremendous help and in no time had got the path dug out.I had been on Radio Sheffield telling all of Sheffield about our day and there were over 80 people turning up to help with one thing and another. These people would all require feeding so my next mission was to trawl the local chip shops to get sausage and chips donated for all our helpers this to was achieved from some great chippys.We then encounted our first problem we didnt have enough concrete to finish the path so we need sand concrete mix and gravel so Mick Bullass and his tiny granddaughter and myself are going to try and get enough concrete mix to finish the path.On the way Neil phoned me and says I need some 8 BY 2 quater board about 6 pannels I said I weill try to get them. So we went to B&Q in my car not knowing what 8 by 2 was then spoke to the duty manager who said everything we required was out the front of the shop. Whoops another problem this board was 8 foot by 2 foot and there were 6 of them we needed a flat back truck to remove them .I took Mick and his granddaughter back to the cricket club and the set off looking for a flat back truck on Shiregreen Housing Estate.Low and behold at a chip shop I saw the vehicle I needed and this young man queing in the chip shop for his dinner.I asked him if he minded comming to B&Q for our cricket club to pick up these much needed items he said to my astonishment he would come and so we got round that problem. Fantastic the genorosity of people when asked the question. Everthing else went really well that day and a lot was achieved.We left the cricket club at about 6pm to orepare for the next day.
Sunday April 9th

Today started at 7.30 am once again a load of volunteers arrive and guess what our boxers have returned to help they had such a good time yesterday they want to help out again. That is brillant the parents of these young boys and Brendan Ingle should be proud of them there is still so much painting to do ground work to do and the fence is arriving at about 11 am. Dave Leighton turned up with his team and had a shock as these people had brought about a marvellous transformation to the cricket club. He must of thought back to the meeting a week earlier that what was acheived would not be possible.
The fence duly arrived Sir Richard Caborn arrived as did Yorkshire Cricket Team and Sky tv oh yes I nearly forgot so did the snow. Who bloody ordered snow I thought,this did not dampen anyone spirits as what they had acheived was for all to see.The seed had been sewn by Cricket Force and by Dave Leighton and now ShiregreenCricket Club was up there where it belonged.
The pride I feel is nothing but the words echoing around the place is that Ben would of been proud.Ben being Ben Jessop a stalwart of the club who sadly died some 4 years ago this man was a legend and still is at Shiregreen and across South Yorkshire. Sense of achievement no I dont think so, anything is possible anything is achievable if you want it Ben Jessop gave his life to Shiregreen and I would of been Hounered to of met him alas this not possible but his memory at the club will live forever.These people have so much missed this mans influence they had become shadows of them selves but in every tunnel there is light and these people I believe have seen the light. The future at Shiregreen requires a lot of work and dedication it needs new people with new ideas to take the club forward.The future of the game is in the children and the parents to ensure cricket is played throughout the next generation.