Excellent! - excellentdevelopment.com

Law firm SJ Berwin have chosen Excellent Development as their charity of the year.

On 10th July over 40 staff along with friends and family participated in the firm’s Sporting Challenge to raise money for Excellent Development's work in Kenya.

The challenge was made of up four separate events: a swimathon; a 9km Regent's Park walk; a 10km or 20km Hyde Park run; and an 87km cycle ride from Brighton to London.

If the rigours of exercise on what proved to be the hottest day of the year weren’t enough to test the Berwins' mettle, several team members went a step beyond to add to their challenge: Walkers donned teenage mutant ninja turtle suits; cyclists battled bike issues in daft costumes – the most cumbersome and uncomfortable being a bunny suit and a rubber gorilla costume to complete the 87km cycle; and two brave souls in the firm, Alex Jayne and Tim Sydor, not satisfied with picking just one event undertook a quadrathlon, completing all four events in just one day!

Here's what some of the participants had to say about the day:

“We started out about 10am and arrived at SJ Berwin for 6pm, we had stops along the way and food around mid day at Turners Hill, this was one of the hardest things I have done. The hills are a killer especially the long inclining ones. I had to walk at times and even then the pain in the thighs was immense... some nice views on the ride though.”
Darren Reid, cyclist


"I can't believe we chose the middle of the afternoon on the hottest day of the year for a run! It was really hard work, but we were all so proud to have reached the finishing line and contribute towards raising money for Excellent Development. I'm sure that the backing of our friends and family, and our belief in what a wonderful cause Excellent Development really is, helped us across the line!"
Neil Jepson, runner


“The ride went terrifically, a real bonding session. As a non-athletic man with no riding experience of over 3 miles, I am chuffed to bits I managed to make it all from Brighton to London (OK I made it to Croydon, but it is still London).”
Martin Punt, cyslist


"We had a lovely day walking 9km around Regents Park, enjoying the glorious sunshine, with children in tow we all had a fantastic time. We even saw some zebras and giraffes at London Zoo on the way around! We are hopeful that our walk will raise enough money for Excellent Development to help those less fortunate, who may indeed themselves have to walk as far as we did (if not further) to obtain water for their own use."
Natalie Elliott, walker


The participants so far have managed to raise a whopping £5,800 and the money is still coming in. Thank you and congratulations guys!!