tubechallenge.com

Shameless plug time.

Okay, after months of saying "I'm gonna do an attempt this summer..." I've finally settled on a date. I'm going to be trying to do all 274 (No Shoreditch!) stations on June the 16th.

I really wanted to do this for charity, but wasn't sure whether to go for the record or not. In a way, I felt that it was better just to concentrate on one or the other. However, I may not get another chance to do a full attempt in a long time, and also felt that getting a world record would be a great way to publicise my chosen charity.

My chosen charity is Mind, the National Association for Mental Health. I feel that a lot of attention and money goes towards the big charities, like Cancer Research, British Heart Foundation, Oxfam and the Donkey Sanctuary. While these charities are worthy and important recipients, they do take the lion's share of money raised, leaving little for smaller charities that spend less on advertising. Mental illness has played a large part in my life and I think the problems it brings are almost completely overlooked by the media and the majority of people.

I'm hoping to raise £274... and I'm hoping you can help. You can make a donation at http://www.justgiving.com/notrainnogain (witty or what?), or send cash or a cheque. Anything you can give will be greatly appreciated, but don't worry if you can't. I'm not exactly the richest person myself and while I would always try and sponsor any event like this, it may not be possible, so I understand if circumstances prevent you from doing so or you simply don't want to.

Now... I've already heard from a couple of people (who shall remain un-named until they choose to disclose their identities) who would be interested in doing an attempt on that day as well, so I am going to throw this open and encourage anyone who wants to take part to do so. While I'm happy to have someone join me, I'd rather not have a party of eighteen trailing around on the tube, so you'd have to provide your own teams and we'd engage in friendly competition. Whether you want to make it a record attempt (collecting witness statements, train numbers etc) or not is up to you, and whether or not you want to do it for charity is also up to you. Of course, if you can promote my charity campaign, that'd be fantastic.

I've weighed up the pros and cons about inviting one and all to join in, but figured that it could be up to each individual: if you don't think it's a good idea, don't come!

Regarding accomodation - if I've met you previously (Pete, Ric, David, Neil, Hakan), then you're welcome to stay at my place in Chesham the night before and we'll get a taxi up to Amersham at 0500. Otherwise it's in your hands; I hope you can understand my reluctance to allow complete strangers into my house! Likewise with post-challenge accomodation or transport, but I may be able to help - watch this space.

Lastly, if anyone can't take part but wants to help out during the day, bag-carriers, train-holders and food-bringers would be very much appreciated!

If you're interested in any aspect of this event, please post (or PM me if you'd prefer). Cheers!

Well I don't mind coming out after 4.30pm to give you guys a hand.

See my on June 9th (the last train from Shoreditch meet if you want).

Thanks . I don't know if I can make it to that day, but we'll see closer to the time.

Neil, if you want to move this over to the "Your challenge attempts" forum, that would probably make sense.

Done.

So you don't give up halfway through, I pledge 4p a station.

No matter how far I am behind, I won't give up! If I have to miss a station to make it to Upminster that night, then that's different, but I'm hoping it won't come to that! Thanks for your generosity.

Sorry to double-post and bump, but...

Less than a month to go! So far it looks like there's going to be a team of three, anyone else interested in taking part or helping out?

I still need around a hundred quid to get my fund-raising total, come on people! I'll be bringing sponsorship forms with me to Zone 1, so bring some money .

I'm only £60 short of my total now with under a week to go, so here's one last fund-raising attempt. I know this is now my third post in a row, for which I apologise - I won't be pestering you for any more money after this!

A lot of you told me you'd sponsor me at Zone 1 2006, but either you had no money or you said you'd rather do it online. Well, since then, I've had only two donations - Chel (how do you spell that?) and Sam - but I know I gave the website address to at least half a dozen people and even more promised to donate. So, what happened? I didn't make a note of who said they'd donate, as I wanted to rely on trust, but I'm a little disappointed with the result.

Now, I can't force anyone to donate, and I'm not expecting anything of anyone, but it will really be tremendously appreciated if you can manage anything. I'm so close to the target, I'm just desperate for one more flurry of donations to get over the line!

Thanks to those who have already sponsored, and thanks in advance to anyone who sponsors me now.

Ollie

The whole system dropped under determination pressure.

At last.

Congratulations, Adham, Ollie and Ric for getting around the whole system, a feat some of us still haven't managed...

Bet you're kicking yourself now...

Given the suspension to the Central Line and the severe delays that occured on it henceforth, you did well to do a complete challenge! Ironically, given the time that you spent sitting at Hainault, it probably wouldn't have made any difference to your time had you even done Shoreditch on the bus!
Nice to meet a few new people on the day as well.

With the Summer due to get hotter etc, it would appear that Tube Challenging during the forthcoming months would be ill-advised, the system just doesn't work

Adham wrote:Bet you're kicking yourself now...

Keep your trousers on, Captain Exuberant - it's not as though you broke the record...

...although I'd be surprised if you don't in the future with that route...

We were 90 minutes outside of the record, but Ric and I looked through our logs and found almost 120 minutes of time waiting lost on the Central Line.

I think I'm going to put a hold on trying for the record until one of two things:

If I get the job I'm applying and interviewing for, I'll have another go before I start full-time work, or
I'll wait until September.

Just one of those days sadly. We were flying, then the entire Central Line decided to bunk off work and watch the football.....to get round was no mean feat.

only 3 rays of light:
1)We tried a trick at Olympia which worked well.
2)That moment on the H+C where Ollie was talking, leaning back, and the doors opened behind him....we were giggling like little kids
3)A decent total raised for MIND.

Well done Ollie for organising it, and glad you both got round the system for the first time.

As for me, well, there's only so many times that going through tube stations is interesting. I guess my threshold is pretty high, but maybe I'm reaching it. Think I'll take a bit of a break from all this tube-challenging and see how I feel later.