After many weeks of excellent meticulous planning by Nicola McIntosh, the wife of the Peaky skipper and Allen Stacey and after re-scheduling the date due to the Peaky Climbers very, very busy training schedule the fund raising day at Waitrose in Wantage was completed today.

A 7.30am meet was agreed in order to set up. JB, Allen, Nicky and Macca were met by Ben and a rather hungover Graham to get all the bikes, charity banners, tables and challenge information in place ready for the 8.00am start.

The plan was to split the 8 hours into two shifts:

1. 8am-midday: JB & Allen out the back and Ben & Graham out the front;

2. Midday-4pm: Macca & Steve Norton & Owen Norton out the back with Nobby and Cricky out the front;

The Waitrose staff were awesome. Rachel and Joe take great plaudits for looking after the entire Peaky Climbers team all day, absolutely superb, thank you so much!

It started bang on schedule, with a few early shoppers ready to dive in as soon as the doors opened. The Peaky’s were ready with the ‘banter’ required to encourage people to dig deep and feel good about donating.

With Graham’s hangover still pounding they decided to cycle with a morning coffee and breakfast roll in hand. This worked wonders for both Ben and Graham and helped encourage onlookers to donate.

Allen, JB and Mandy (JB’s wife) were shaking the buckets and talking people through the mighty challenge the Peaky Climbers face in 28 days time.

The reaction from virtually all those that took an interest and the time to talk was amazing. Incredible comments of support, encouragement and motivation were common place all day. 

These were only surpassed with an equal volume of comments from people saying how insane, mad, crazy and mental we are for taking this challenge on…which made it even sweeter when they dropped their donations into the buckets.

The first 4 hours flew by. Fun, laughter and a we must say, a real credit to the people of the Vale of the White Horse who really did show a great deal of support and interest in what we are doing and most importantly why we are doing it and who we are doing it for.

A quick team change at midday meant the housewives favourites join the fun. Nobby and Cricky were joined by the superstar that is Steve Norton, his wife Rosie and their son Owen, who was 17 yesterday.

Also, Macca’s niece Freya joined Nicky to help collect and supply the guys with drinks and food.

Ben continued to hang around for the next 2 hours, which was great, Allen stayed on to give much needed support and bucket management.

Jane Crick popped down to give her hubby moral support before she dived off down the boozer with the skippers wife for a cheeky half. The kind hearted soles of Wantage continued to place donations all throughout the hot afternoon…cash, coins…all denominations slipped into the buckets, wonderful.

A massive thank you from all the Peaky Climbers to everyone that showed an interest in our challange and most importantly, to all those that donated.

The confirmed count of all the cash in the buckets shows that the entire team (riders, wives, friends) raised an incredible £1,000 today…wow!!!

Tomorrow…Cheddar Gorge…

PEAKY CHARITIES