Turn On The Tap 2010
Sunday 25th April 2010
The Girlguide Campsite in Chigwell Row was the gathering point for a couple of dozen hearty St.Chad's folk for our latest Samaritan's Purse "Turn On The Tap" sponsored walk. Unlike 2 years ago, the weather was fair rather than aquatic; and instead of being around St.Chads Park, the walk was to be around parts of Hainault Forest.
To cater for different levels of ability the organisers had helpfully provided a short (2 miles) or long (4 miles) version of the walk. Ultimately though, the actual route taken by each individual depended more on their map reading ability than their intended choice of route, but maybe the less said about that the better, eh Pauline? :>)
We all set off at various paces from the campsite carpark - 2 or 3 folk of questionable sanity had decided they were going to jog the route - maybe we should have given them a couple of gallons of water to carry!
The distance of the longer route equated to what many women and children in Africa have to walk each day to reach their nearest water supply. They then have to carry this water, which is often dirty and disease ridden the four miles back to their home. Turn on the Tap is a project which is raising money to provide water filters for families in Africa, so that they can have clean and healthy water. £40 buys one water filter for a family and provides clean water for 25 years for them and their neighbouring villagers - good value for money, I'm sure you will agree!
So, back to our walk: Having entered the forest, the idea was to set up a meeting point for walkers to navigate back to after completing the short loop around the lake. However, so engrossed were we all in "fellowship", that we overshot the intended set-up location for the meeting point, and Adam had to carry the folding table back along the way we'd already come for a couple of hundred yards. An ordeal he bore with admirable grace!
With the Meeting Point suitably established, the (by now) somewhat fragmented ribbon of walkers completed the lake loop, after which folk were free to choose whether to continue back to the campsite or divert off around the extended loop for the longer walk. In the end though, some folk ended up taking a completely different route altogether, but hey, it's the thought that counts isn't it? And ultimately a good time was had, and a good deal of money was raised for a very worthy cause.
"Bravo!" to all the walkers, and a massive "Thank you!" to all of our kind-hearted sponsors, and to Pete and Sue Wells for feeding us afterwards!
http://www.turnonthetap.org.uk/
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- Chadwell Heath
- Romford
- Essex
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