Frozen - Worthing Birdman 2015

At the time of writing we are literally days away from Worthing Birdman 2015 and our chosen theme this year is the Disney film Frozen..

So how do we become the fabulous Elsa, Anna and Olaf? It all began with a trip to the Polyshop  www.thepolyshop.co.uk where we asked if they could make us an 'Olaf' head and to our amazement three weeks later we went to collect a rather amazing 'Olaf'

                                                                             Olaf !
We have also sourced some 'sticks' for his head that have not been added in this picture and will be doing a little more painting.

Our Elsa costume is also coming along very nicely, we bought a basic dress which we have customised and tailored and a rather fetching Elsa wig...

 

                                      The fabric which will be added to the dress to make a cloak

The famous hair of Elsa

Lastly the top was sourced from a dancewear website to complete the dress

 

We will of course update you with out progress and of course news and gossip from the day itself, if you would like to donate to Our Worthing Birdman leap please go to www.justgiving.com/worthit15 or you can text WIFC £5 to 70070 (amount can be edited)  

Ghostbusters - Worthing Birdman 2014

Before we knew it we needed to start planning for Worthing Birdman 2014 but this time one of Damien's friends Paul Southwood uttered the words "I'll do it". Within a few minutes Damien had acquired the indemnity forms and Paul found himself signed up for Worthing Birdman 2014.

Helen and Damien had already decided to do Ghostbusters and Paul was happy to do this and promptly bought the Ghostbusters boiler suits and comedy inflatable proton packs. Helen customised an outfit to make a 'female Ghostbuster' outfit and Alice our Ghost had the comedy white sheet ghost thing going on!

                       

The premier of the outfits was in an article for the local newspaper

 

                Quite possibly the first time we had performed star jumps since being at school

The long and rather uphill walk to the Birdman platform

 

Paul and Damien had already decided they would do the infamous dance routine the from Ghostbusters II and along with a customised Ghostbusters Theme that included "Who ya Gonna Call Worthing?!" they were off.

                                             I think this is what they class as dancing..

Enough Dancing boys, there seems to be a Ghost after Helen

will they help her?

No, The wimps ran away from the Ghost and ended up getting a little wet...

 

So Helen ended up tackling the Ghost but it was worth it in the end as we scooped 2nd Place and prize money of £250 which we added to our donation to Rockinghorse

 

We also raised 103.08 in the donation pots that our fundraising team were out and about with along Worthing Beach, we would like to thank Scott Miller, Victoria Murphy, Kerry Giles and Richard Hayes for your hard work on the day.

 

Further donations were made on our just giving page.

 

This year we raised a total of....£554.08

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Worthing Birdman 2013 and Halloween Shenanigans

So we whizzed into 2013 and much planning was to be done once again, so many ideas buzzed around for our Worthing Birdman entry but we decided that this year we would be SUPERMAN!!
Well Damien was going to be Superman to be precise and he would be doing it in Henry 'underpants under tights' Cavill style.

Luckily with the help of the trusty internet we obtained a pattern of the 'Man of Steel' suit and tracked down a company who could put it onto fabric for us.

 

We also went to the Fabric Shop in Worthing to choose a fabric worthy of being the famous Red Cape of Superman.

Once all of this was obtained we turned to Carrie Ann White a local seamstress who was able to turn our pieces of fabric into a costume fit for a 'Man of Steel' or Damien in this case.

 

We had promotional posters made up by local artist/illustrator John Charman (who we also 'cast' as General Zod!)

And Rockinghorse sent this lovely lot to us to aid our fundraising

Next up we recruited some fundraisers and set up our annual 'just giving' page and we were delighted when the donations started to flood in, Damien was celebrating his 30th Birthday this year and opted that instead of gifts he would like those attending his birthday bash to donate to Rockinghorse via the 'just giving' page instead.

 

A few days before the Worthing Birdman event we went and had a look at the scaffold being erected ready for the big day

 

The actual day arrived and along with our trusty team of fundraisers including local florist Gail Byrne www.fairydustflowers.com  and singer/songwriter Ian Markx

 www.ianmarkx.com we set off for Worthing Beach

 

                   Gail Byrne, Ian Markx and Helen Charman rocking their Rockinghorse tops!

Damien aka Superman finds a couple of Minions!

 

The time for the jump came and Damien, John (General Zod) and Helen (Superman's damsel in distress!) did the long walk up the rather windy Birdman ramp. Unfortunately the cardboard car we had constructed was blown away due to the strength of the wind but we got through our routine and Damien prepared to take flight..when we say flight it was more epic falling....

Zod chases Helen (the car was being restrained!!)

 

Superman takes on General Zod

 

Ready to take flight

 

Is it a Bird(man)? Is it a plane..

 

And in the blink of an eye the jump was done!

 

We decided to keep our fundraising going and immediately began plotting a Halloween event which was held in the Beales Department Store, Worthing.

The staff all dressed up for a costume competition and customer could take part in lucky dips, face painting and other entertainment.

 

 

The combined total from Worthing Birdman and the Halloween fundraiser came too £486.07 which went directly to Rockinghorse.

 

 

 

How we came to support Rockinghorse Children's Charity

In November 2012 at 18 months old, the daughter of two of our team members had to have surgery at the Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital in Brighton. Whilst waiting for her to be taken to the operating theatre her parents noticed that a lot of the toys she was playing with and the equipment used had been provided by the Rockinghorse Children's Charity. We were already aware of the work Rockinghorse did for The Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital as another team member had recieved treatment there as a child (this was in the days when the hospital was at the very old Dyke Road site!).

It was nice to see that Rockinghorse were still going strong and were bigger and better than ever and we decided we wanted to help them continue their fantastic work. By the end of 2012 we were busy plotting our 'act' for Worthing Birdman 2013..

For more information on Rockinghorse Children's Charity you can visit them here: http://www.rockinghorse.org.uk/

For more information on Royal Alexandra Childrens Hospital you can visit them here: http://www.theroyalalex.co.uk/

Our first ever Worthing Birdman in 2012

"I've entered Worthing Birdman" announced Damien one evening, he had previously said he would do it but none of us believed he actually would. "I am doing it for Teenage Cancer Trust" he continued.
We all stopped sniggering at the idea when we realised he was actually being serious and would be doing it for such a good cause.

The idea of leaping dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow was quite an easy one to come up with, what could be more fitting than leaping into the sea dressed as everyone's favourite pirate?

The costume came about quite easily with the help of eBay, a local fancy dress shop, team member Helen's make-up bag and her hair braiding (or wig braiding in this case) skills.

The first tentative step into unleashing our very own Captain Jack Sparrow on the unsuspecting people of Worthing, West Sussex was a collection for Teenage Cancer at HMV in Worthing Town Centre.

They day went well and when we saw people tweeting about 'Capain Jack' being in Worthing we knew that Worthing Birdman was going to be brilliant.




 

The day of Worthing Birdman 2012 arrived and it was a rather hot day so those of us who avoided having to be in costume rather appreciated our white t-shirts worn to show our support!

 

Captain Jack proved rather popular with ladies and most of the time before the actual jump was spent having photos done with said ladies and also for the press that were pretty much everywhere.

 

Once the time for the leap came Damien and Liam (who played the part of Commodore Norrington for us) did the long walk up to the scaffold that stands 40ft above the sea from Worthing Pier.

They had a quick chat with Heart FM'S 'Jack the Lad' and before we knew it, it was time for the fight to begin..

A dramatic 'fight' was staged to the music from 'Pirates of the Caribbean' and ending with Captain Jack fleeing via the end of Worthing Pier...

 

 

We all just watched as Captain Jack aka Damien Hodgson went flying over the edge with a mighty splash and comical loss of wig (helpfully retrieved by a Worthing Lifeboat Team) and before we knew it he was zooming back to shore on the back of a jet-ski.

 

At the awards ceremony later that day Damien received a certificate and £250 prize money for 'Best Crowd Reaction' we donated the £250 to Teenage Cancer Trust and in total we raised £538.07, not bad for our first fundraising mission!

For more information about Teenage Cancer Trust please go to https://www.teenagecancertrust.org/

 For more information about Worthing International Birdman visit http://www.worthingbirdman.co.uk/

Who are we and what do we do?

Hello and welcome to the new Worth It 4 Charity blog!

Some of you may already know us if you follow us on  Twitter or  Facebook.

Worth It 4 Charity is a group of individuals based in Sussex who take on challenges to raise money for charity.

The first charity we supported was Teenage Cancer Trust in 2012 where we raised around £500 by taking part in the Worthing International Birdman event.
Team member Damien Hodgson leapt from Worthing Pier dressed as everyone's favourite pirate Captain Jack Sparrow!

Liam Reid and Damien Hodgson at the Worthing Birdman 2012 Event.

We are currently fundraisers for Rockinghorse Childrens Charity and in 2013 and 2014 we held street collections, a Halloween event at Beales Department store in Worthing  and took part once again in the Worthing Birdman event, in 2013 as Superman and 2014 as Ghostbusters! We have raised nearly £2000 so far for Rockinghorse.

We will be writing blogs for each of these events so look out for those.

We hope to put on some musical events in the future and some of our team members are planning sponsored cycles and walks.

Our team members all volunteer their spare time to take part in the events and we are very proud of them all.

We hope you enjoy our blogs!