Charity night hikes show loved landmarks in new light
Howard Lake | 16 May 2012 | News
Thousands to get the chance to fulfil a night-time fantasy.
They might not be fans of Iggle Piggle or Upsy Daisy but for almost one in three Brits the chance to venture into ‘the night garden’ is a huge draw. New research from charity Sue Ryder has found that 28 per cent of British adults would leap at the chance of sneaking around a stately home at the dead of night. To satisfy this curiosity, and to help people see fundraising in a whole new light, Sue Ryder has teamed up with some of the UK’s most iconic landmarks to host a series of sponsored Starlight Hikes – night-time walks with a difference, throughout September.
Through the Starlight Hike events, the charity aims to recruit 10,000 walkers, and raise £1 million to help Sue Ryder continue to provide long-term, compassionate and end-of-life care to people across the UK. The Hikes will take place, during the dead of night at well-known venues such as Glamis Castle, famed for being the childhood home of the Queen Mother, and the setting for Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Other Starlight Hike venues include; Haworth village, home of the Bronte sisters, The Shuttleworth collection, a unique collection of Edwardian flying machines and Sledmere House, a Yorkshire stately home.
According to Sue Ryder’s findings, a third of Brits (34 per cent) would love to snoop around a castle at night time and almost one in two people (46 per cent) who live close to a stately home, yet have not visited it for years would jump at the chance to see it under a new light.
Jason Suckley, director of fundraising and marketing at Sue Ryder, said: “Our findings show that it is all too easy to take things for granted when they are part of your day-to-day life – whether that be your health or the landmark down the road. We know that only 8 per cent of people took part in a fundraising event for a health charity last year, so we have made sure our fundraising activities are new, exciting and give people an opportunity to see some of the UKs best known local landmarks – as well as fundraising – in a whole new light.
“Through the Starlight Hikes we aim to raise £1 million, this would be enough to run 16 bed hospice for six months and enable us to provide 50,000 hours of in-patient care for people with conditions such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, Huntingdon’s disease, motor neurone disease and brain injury. We want to encourage as many people as possible to go to our website and sign up for a chance to see a local landmark in a whole new light, whilst doing something special for charity.”
The Sue Ryder Starlight Hikes will take place in eleven beautiful locations across the UK; Aberdeen, Bedford, Cheltenham, Clitheroe, Dundee, Driffield, Haworth, Ipswich, Leeds, Peterborough and Reading.
For more information about Starlight Hike, or to sign up to a Starlight Hike event, please see
www.starlighthike.org
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.