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!