Royal Bank to Support Prince's Trust

27/06/2008

Members of the Royal Bank of Scotland Tayside Commercial Centre are taking to their bikes and donning their running shoes to take part in the BlueSky Challenge an adventure race in support of the Princes Trust.

The race, to be held at Drumlanrig Castle on Friday 12th September, consists of 8 hours of action packed adventure, tackling a variety of skills and physical challenges such as mountain biking, kayaking, orienteering, arial runways and ‘secret disciplines’.

As well as the physical challenge the event offers its additional benefit to companies taking part is the opportunity to boost staff morale and team build to improve performance through the application of planning, strategy, communications, and teamwork, and having to complete the course and finish as a team.

The RBS who are firm supporters of the Princes’ Trust and who encourage their staff to become involved in community projects and charity fundraising are entering two teams for the event. Led by David Nicholson, Assistant Relationship Manager, the team members are enthusiastic about the race and are looking forward to the event and the chance to improve their personal fitness.

Competing in mixed teams of four, Team RBS are all willing volunteers and already have a good level of fitness to build on. David Nicholson is a keen runner and cyclist who has competed in numerous long distance running events and is always ready to take on a new challenge. Along side him is Andy Jamieson, a Business Development Manager from Glasgow, who enjoys golf and tennis but is new to adventure racing and Paul Hunt, International Manager, who describes himself as a ’40 year old athlete from Dundee’ Paul is into all sports including football, ice hockey, cricket and golf and like his fellow team members the opportunity to work as a team is one of his main reasons for taking part.

Proving that you don’t just need muscle power to succeed the rest of the team members are all female. Gillian McKay, a trainee Relationship Support Manager from Dundee loves skiing and is a regular at the gym. She claims that she was ‘persuaded’ to join but is determined that she is going to have fun. Sinead Campion, a Business Development Manager from Kilkenny, Ireland, is hoping that her skill at abseiling and rafting will come in useful in the kayaking and traversing sections of the course and has started her running training by taking part recently in the Race for Life.

Keeping fit and socialising are Suzie Urquhart’s hobbies. Suzie an Assistant Pelationship Manager from Brechin is taking part to get fit and for the adventure and is already training for the event with a program of mountain biking and running. Michelle Lyall a Relationship Director has been in banking for 22 years but has never had the opportunity to do anything of this nature before. She is delighted that the RBS is funding its employee’s entrance to the event and encouraging them to take part. She enjoys golf and both watching and participating in all sports and is hoping that her experience will help the team in some of the secret challenges where lateral thinking and cognitive skills will be required. “The physical elements are designed to stretch competitors but we’ll be ready for them to throw in a tricky logical problem or a practical task “said Lyall.

They may be banking on success but team RBS are certainly going to enjoy their day out and fundraising for the Princes’ Trust.

For more information about The BlueSky Challenge please visit www.blueskychallenge.co.uk or contact James England on 07980 212355.