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Poster Bed Push |
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On one of the Bank Holiday weekends in May 2007, we will push and/or pull a four poster bed 100 miles to raise money for the Charles Renton Unit at Hereford Hospital. At present, patients have to travel from Mid-Wales and Herefordshire to Cheltenham for cancer treatment and relief, but the aim is to raise £1.5 million within the next two years to build the unit. All of our furniture is made from sustainable timber, 90% of which comes from local sources, within about a 25 mile radius. Our aim is to build a panelled four poster in either local Herefordshire ash from the Garnons estate, or in oak, from the Duchy of Cornwall (Prince Charles') estate in Herefordshire, specially for the occasion. It will be a standard British king size bed, with mattresses and drapes. This bed will then be placed into a wheeled frame, with a simple steering system on the front, with four people towing the bed the majority of the way. For the difficult hill climbs we can put extra people at the back of the bed to push it as well. We will be working in teams of four, swapping 'over on the go' so that they can have a break for refreshments, etc. without holding the proceedings. We are aiming to cover at least 25 miles a day, taking four days to complete the trip, from Friday through to the Bank Holiday Monday. When we have completed the journey, we would like the bed to be auctioned off, to raise as much as possible. We would like raise the profile as high as possible. We have several well known people who live locally, who regularly appear on our televisions, and it would be wounderful to see them on the bed as we pull it through the towns. We would be very grateful to hear from local well known stars who would be prepared to sit on the bed as we pull it the short distance through each town. It would be fantastic if we could find a different well known face for each town, and ask the to sign the bed at some point, making the bed both unique and more valuable for its auction at the end. We will also be selling panels on the bed for sponsership. There will be a minimum of nine panels available, possibly more, and winning sponsers will be able to display their logo on the bed. We intend to have radio, and hopefully local television coverage of the event (at least Midlands Today), not to mention local press and pictures of famous faces on the bed with logos in the back ground, so sponsers names will be advertised well. We believe that the fairest way to sell this sponsership, will be to bid for it on line, with the highest profile panels being worth the most. We will also sell sponsered flags placed around the top of the bed, where local businesses can display their logos. These will be at a less expensive, fixed rate making it suitable for the majority of smaller businesses. Our intention is to start with the bed in Mid-Wales, probably Rhayader, as 20% of patients travelling for cancer relief are coming from the Radnorshire and Brecon region. We will then pull the bed through 30/40 miles of beautiful hills and valleys of Welsh countryside before entering North Herefordshire and completing our journey to finish at Hereford hospital where the unit will be built. We will pass through as many towns as possible along the way, with locals passing buckets around, collecting donations.
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