Through flood, sweat and blisters the Avnet and Oracle team have now completed their UK Three Peaks challenge. It was a real team effort and a true test of physical and mental endurance.  Despite the cramped, smelly and wet mini bus, extreme weather conditions and sleep deprivation new friendships were made and lots of giggles were had.  Moral amongst the team was amazing throughout the whole adventure. 

The challenge consisted of 22 miles walked, 10,000 feet climbed on the 3 highest UK mountains, over 1000 miles driven (in a tiny minibus). Sacrifices, injuries and illness were encountered during the challenge but considering the severe conditions amazingly four members of the team triumphed and completed the full 3 peaks up and down in 27 1/4 hours in torrential rain, low visibility and 60mph winds.  

Thank you to everyone who has donated to date and this Just Giving team page is still live until 18th October if wish to donate.

WHERE YOUR DONATIONS WILL GO:

£50 - Pays for an Xray of arthritis joints for research and an expert’s opinion/reading of the Xray.

£75 - Helps fund the blood testing needed to check the safety of new drugs – whilst a patient is on a clinical trial their blood has to be checked for toxicity every 2wks/month, so £75 covers one patient throughout a clinical trial.

£100 - Helps to fund the preparation of DNA from several blood samples to look for genes – there is an extra process involved in extracting DNA from blood samples.

£150 - Pays for a whole body ‘DEXA’  scan for assessing bone and muscle – we can get images of this if we want them.

£250 - Pays the salary costs for a research nurse for recruiting and following a patient in a clinical trial of a new drug.

£500 - Pays for the testing of physical properties of new materials (wear and tear testing) that may be used to make new hip and knee joints

£1,000- Will help safely prepare, during the early stages of drug development, humans for clinical trial testing. The donation will ensure adherence to strict quality standards and the use of the latest materials.

£5,000 - Helps fund computer equipment to test forces in both arthritic and normal joints to  help plan better surgery and  rehabilitation programmes (sophisticated computer  programmes are used to build models for predicting movement, working out optimum angles for new joints etc.)

Arthritis Research UK (formerly Arthritis Research Campaign), founded in 1936, raises funds to promote medical research into the cause, treatment and cure of arthritic conditions; to educate medical students, doctors and allied healthcare professionals about arthritis; and provide information to the general public. Arthritis Research UK is the fourth largest medical research charity in the UK and the only charity in the UK solely dedicated to investigating arthritis in all its forms.  The UK Arthritis Facts At A Glance provides an insight into why this research is so vital.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep and donate now.