Wildgoose Chase: the chase is on...

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Next month, Metropolis will be joining members of the industry embarking on the second annual Wildgoose Chase.

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Ben Dombrandt and Mo Shaikh representing PW at last year’s Wildgoose Chase

Source: All photos courtesy of CRASH Charity

As media partner for the event, organised by Taylor Wimpey and homelessness and hospice charity CRASH, Property Week will be entering a four-member team hoping to improve on last year’s respectable fourth-place finish.

More than 30 teams took part last year in the GPS-enabled race, which saw participants complete a series of challenges including performing Gangnam dance routines and wearing suits made of newspapers - watch this event wrap up video to see all the best action from last year.

This year’s event takes place on 27 September and there are still a limited number of places available for teams of four or five people who want to go head to head with Team PW as well as representatives from Taylor Wimpey and Arcadis.

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Some of the antics at last year’s event

Rackham 1913 go to the movies

You won’t regret it, promises Kate Marsh, senior partnership manager at CRASH: ‘‘As a walking-based activity, it provides companies with a great opportunity to team build, network and raise funds for CRASH, without having to break a sweat!”

Proceeds go towards supporting projects for homelessness and hospice charities. If you want to see property folk making fools of themselves, the Wildgoose Chase is definitely worth a gander.

FIND OUT MORE AND HOW TO ENTER A TEAM HERE

Team entry is only £800 per team of five, that’s only £160 per person and include:
Team entry and pre-challenge briefing
Use of a Wildgoose Chase iPad for the duration of the challenge
An invitation to an early evening reception & awards, including light refreshments. A cash bar will also be available

Why you should get involved and leave a legacy in your community

When you consider the pressures for companies to get projects on site, within budget and delivered, it’s easy to think there would be little time for supporting charities with their construction projects.

And yet this industry has created and sustained a jewel of a charity in CRASH and for over 20 years has helped homelessness organisations and more recently hospices with their construction projects.

CRASH can leverage the expertise and materials of this great and generous industry to create places that care for people, leaving a legacy in communities across the UK.

CRASH provides help in three ways, professional expertise, building materials and cash grants, enabling charities to make informed decisions so their small budgets produce the best buildings possible.

One example of what our Patron companies achieved is the new kitchen and staff dining room at Greenwich & Bexley Hospice. The kitchen was out of date and it was a challenge to provide meals for the increased number of patients and staff. Brian, the Chef, is committed to cooking meals that meet the needs of each patient and never forgets that each meal he creates may be the last that someone tastes and wants it to be the best he can cook.

CRASH brought together professional expertise from surveyors, a quantity surveyor and an engineer. Materials were donated from a number of companies and to that we added a small grant. The end result is a new kitchen and staff dining room to be proud of, a legacy for the future that will provide help to so many people year on year. This is just one of many projects we completed in the last 12 months.

Meanwhile in Cambridge, CRASH was bringing together help for the busy day centre Wintercomfort for the homeless. Wintercomfort offers people who are sleeping rough the chance to shower, wash clothes and get a hot meal. Wintercomfort desperately needed help to repair the roof, put in new skylights, lay new flooring that would be safe and bring the old electrical system and supply up to standard. A number of companies came together each one offering their area of expertise and the result is tremendous.

Schemes like these demonstrate what the industry can achieve when they come together with CRASH. This is social responsibility at its best. And that’s what I love about CRASH, it is a small focused and useful charity that works incredibly effectively with a staff of only 5. Thanks to the incredible support CRASH can leverage from the industry last year we helped 47 charities.

Few charities have been founded and supported by a single industry in such a significant and focused way. Charity is about sharing ourselves, demonstrating kindness and compassion in whatever way we can. If you would like to become a Patron of CRASH charity please do get in touch.