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NHBC HopeBuilder Charity Challenge

A team during their 12-mile hike around Hope Valley

The aptly named Hope Valley in the Peak District in late September was the setting for a weekend of sleeping under the stars and a range of physical and mental challenges for more than 100 house builders who took part in the first ever NHBC HopeBuilder Charity Challenge in support of Habitat for Humanity’s HopeBuilders campaign.

Having originally pledged a year ago to raise £123,500, enough to build 100 Habitat homes in the developing world, NHBC embarked on their fundraising mission with various events throughout the year. With activities ranging from sending a team of 20 staff on a Global Village challenge to help build a home in India to hosting a series of regional Golf Days, the HopeBuilder Charity Challenge was the culminating event in the years fundraising efforts.

The weekend’s challenges, which were organised by Across the Divide, started early on Saturday morning when, after a hearty breakfast, teams set off on a 12-mile hike around the Edale Valley ridge. With various quizzes to complete along the way teams were tested both physically and mentally throughout their walk, taking between five and ten hours to complete the circuit and return to base camp.

One of the make shift shelters teams built and slept in.

Once they were back safely there was no time to stop and relax, teams then took up the challenge of constructing a water-proof shelter which they would be happy to spent the night in. With materials kindly donated by B&Q teams constructed a variety of shelters which commendably they all spent part, if not all, of the night in.

Richard Tamayo, NHBC’s Commercial Director said: “The shelter building challenge had two purposes, to utilise the housebuilders’ talents and to highlight the need to provide families, living in makeshift shelters like these, with decent affordable housing.”

While Banner Homes were declared winners of the shelter building challenge, it was the Irish team of Dunlop Homes and MMM Design which emerged the overall winners of the Saturday’s activities. The challenge was then on for Sunday to see who would emerge as overall winner.

Overall winners Linden Homes South East with NHBC Chief Executive Imtiaz Farookhi

Following a perhaps less comfortable nights sleep in their own shelters, teams woke on Sunday morning to undertake an orienteering challenge around the area covering 26 points in the Hope Valley. Whilst some took a more steady pace as a result of blisters from the previous day, Bellway Homes Wales once again raced ahead of the pack and came home as winners.

Once everyone was safely back at base camp the overall winners were then revealed. For their outstanding performance over the weekend, Linden Homes South East were crowned the first ever HopeBuilder Challenge champions.

Paul Cooper, Managing Director of Linden Homes South East, said: “We really enjoyed the weekend which was both physically and mentally challenging but great fun and extremely well organised.”
“Having to build and sleep in a shelter on the first day reinforced the charitable focus whilst continuing to be fun. The fact that we came out as the overall winners was extremely rewarding.”

Photos by Alan Dixon, Digital Image News/NHBC.