Our History

Who are we?

We, The Shotton Walkers, are a fundraising walking team who complete epic sponsored walks for charity, we have a team of volunteer fundraisers who plan and organise around the year fundraising events for our chosen community focused charities, our fundraising provides charitable organisations and groups with focused support and funds to help them provide the services they expertly give in order to improve quality of life. 100% of the funds raised by The Shotton Walkers are channelled directly to the chosen charities who count on our support and funding, our generous team of volunteers and business partners come together because we believe that everyone has the right to live life to the full & achieve their hopes and dreams. We’ve raised over £8000 in our recent campaign.

History

The walker’s group was essentially formed from a chat in a pub on a dark winters day in December of 2019 when Crawford Hall decided he was going to complete dry January for charity. As the day wore on and the cider flowed, he came up with the idea of not only doing dry January but also walking from the port of Holyhead, Anglesey all the way back to Hendy’s in Deeside. Within the space of 24 hours Crawford had gained four team members. Gav, Mike, Pete and Steve all volunteered to complete the walk with Crawford and thus “Crawford’s Crew” was formed. At this point the crew including Crawford had little idea what they had let themselves in for.

Training then began and was ramped up through the next three weeks, they even had a new member in Chester the dog. It was two weeks in to training that Dean and James joined the group to plan and organise the route and support network. Whilst the walkers were training, Dean and James set to work on the planning in the background.

2020 Sponsored walk Charity fund raiser in aid of Prostate Cancer and The Not Forgotten Association.
30th Jan 2020 Holyhead to Bangor day 1: 24 miles 7hrs 10min
31st Jan 2020 Bangor to Prestatyn Day 2: 37 miles 13 hrs 10min
1st February 2020 Prestatyn to Shotton day 3 (19.2 miles 6hrs)
Our fundraising campaign of barely a month drew in over 600 active Facebook followers and masses of individual support which stretched as far as New Zealand & Australia, Local businesses supported the campaign including Morrisons store.

The challenge was completed on schedule raising over £8000

What’s next?

During the 2020 lockdown, the plans and ideas started to bounce around WhatsApp and it was agreed that the Shotton Walkers would regroup to start the planning for the 2021 challenge.

Reflecting on the success of the 2020 challenge we realised that if we managed to raise this amount of support with less than six weeks preparation, what we could do if we had months of preparation and planning?

The 2021 mission was agreed, walking from our namesake’s town in Durham back to Shotton on Deeside.
Both locations are known for their industrial past with Shotton Colliery being a historic coal mining town and our Shotton is still a famous site in British Steel history. It was agreed that this will be the challenge for 2021. Although still in the planning phase, the walk will take 6 nights & 7 days from the North East of England across the Yorkshire dales through to Liverpool and back into Shotton North Wales covering approx. 170 miles.

We believe our charities NFA & CALM are incredibly important and we’re proud to be supporting them, we’ve paired the two charities for our campaign as we believe they complement each other, Although raising the funds is our prime objective, we’re as concerned about delivering the message to our donors that our two charities are incredibly important when it comes to improving people’s lives.

Our Charities for 2020 – 2021

CALM, campaign against living miserably.

The Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) is leading a movement against suicide. Every week 125 people in the UK take their own lives. And 75% of all UK suicides are male. helping parents, siblings, partners, friends and colleagues. They spread the message and facilitate, universities, pubs, clubs and prisons across the country – so that people feel empowered to share their experiences and get the help they need before they reach the point of crisis.

CALM provide an incredibly important service which we feel passionately about supporting.

The Not Forgotten Association (NFA)

Delivering high quality and safe recreational and entertainment activities to meet the needs of their beneficiaries, providing a caring and personal service which is fully linked in with other recovery pathways and which is underpinned by an ethos where everyone counts and is valued.

Having seen the positive impact of our support we have once again chosen to proudly support the NFA. We have a dedicated online giving page where 100% of the donations go directly to our charities.

Donate today using the button below.