Our big challenge the past few months has been to put on the biggest abseil ever we’ve ever done, and with 135 people set to abseil this weekend we’ve done it! Highlights of the weekend coming soon… if you’re ready to abseil, see you there.

Kat

“Royal Sun Alliance celebrated 300 years of trading by falling a collective 30,000 feet for learning disability charity ENABLE Scotland on Saturday 19th June. Staff from RSA were parachuting and abseiling to raise thousands for the Scottish charity over the weekend, in what the insurance business sees as the perfect chance to give something back to the local community.

“RSA across the world is celebrating our 300th birthday, and the focus is on volunteering their time, donating gifts in kind and supporting fundraising events to benefit charities that we have a personal connection with,” Linda Welsh, Operations Manager of RSA in Glasgow, explains.”We have been supporting a variety of fantastic organisations including schools, hospices, animal shelters, victim support and now ENABLE Scotland. It’s a great way to give something back and means we benefit by engaging with the local community”.

The abseilers pictured, who carried out the daring drop on Saturday 19th, are all staff in RSA’s Glasgow company. They were joined too by friends, family and other adrenalin seekers for a day of abseiling from the formidable Titan Crane.”

But I seem to keep being told “Oh, not me. I’m not the kind of person who would do that!” So I started thinking about all of the people who’ve abseiled the Titan in the last year and all of their different stories – 16th birthday celebrations, abseiling was on the list of things to do before reaching the big 40/50/60,  a grandparent who worked on the Titan – and I realised there really isn’t an average abseiler among them. Here’s a little snapshot of some of the Titan conquerers.

Henry Wilson, 23, got persuaded by the neon lights of October’s night rave abseil. Having abseiled before but never from such a height and definitely never in costume, Henry even surprised himself by raising over £230 with his efforts. “The Titan Abseil was amazing. Between the adrenalin rush and the views of Glasgow I hit the ground and wished I could head straight up for another go!”

Patricia MacKay decided to abseil the Titan pretty much on the spot, as she works in Clydebank College and takes part in charity challenges every couple of years. “If it’s for a good cause and you’re able to do it, why not?”

And last year’s Titan success story, Ross Ward, wanted to give something back to the charity that had supported him. With an indomitable will, Ross managed to raise over £1,500 with his abseil, and is coming back for more this May! “I thought at the time – I conquered Titan. I did all this for Enable Scotland which I think are a brilliant organisation. They have done so much for me. They helped me get a job and changed my life for the better.”

Find out more about abseiling by calling 0141 225 1642, or sign up via the website.

Photo by xpress.photo.co.uk

The ground vibrated with the thump of bass. Above us, the imposing figure of the Titan Crane was suddenly lit up with rows of bright green lights underneath the jib. The sound of N-Trance, Darude and Tiesto filled the air as the bus pulled up and a dark shape illuminated with strings of fairy lights and glow wire staggered out. The Titan Night Abseil had begun!

I’d been getting excited about October 3rd’s rave-themed Night Abseil for about two months, so when at 5pm on Saturday the winds still hadn’t stopped their 70mph course across Clydebank, I was gutted. With severe weather warnings across Scotland, we had hoped for the winds to die down as predicted for the evening, but no such luck. A box of glowsticks sat redundantly on the table. We called off the abseil.

Luckily, the good people at Clydebank Rebuilt and our abseil team moved mountains to help us reschedule the evening abseil for the very next day. Around 30 people were able to make the new date and the clear night, brilliant costumes and amazing sound system (you could hear it perfectly clearly even 150ft up!) made it all worth it. We don’t have a grand total yet but there were some great efforts with the fundraising, including Helensburgh man Ross Ward who raised just over £1,400! Prize-winners are listed below.

Our last remaining prize is the Best Photograph competition – we’ll be collecting photos from the abseil by uploading them to the Flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/1190343@N22/pool/ or you can email them to me at kat.borrowdale@enable.org.uk. The winner will be announced on October 23rd – you have until 10am then to get your photos to us! The winner will receive a Gordon Cowan photographic experience worth £450: check out some of his work at http://www.flickr.com/photos/gordoncowan/ Gordon photographs and then paints a person or scene of your choosing to create a unique memory for you to keep. It’s a brilliant prize and we want to see your photos of the event, so please get sharing!

Thanks again to everyone who abseiled and if you didn’t get to due to the change of date, don’t worry as we will be having another night event next year and plenty of chances for you to abseil the Titan.

Winners:

Top Fundraiser: Ross Ward (raised over £1,400) wins an overnight stay for 2 at the Glasgow Radisson.

Best Rave Outfits: Ashleigh Niven, Charles Diaper and Carol Diaper all won a bottle of wine for their neon creations!

“Seasoned Professional” Award goes to two first timers, Katherine Coll and Kenny Walker. See Kenny’s abseil: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1alMRvRnSU

Take a look at the ENABLE Scotland blog to see some of the crucial work we’re doing. http://www.enable.org.uk/blogs/news_blog/
It’s also a reminder of how far we still have to go in changing attitudes towards learning disability – whether it’s increasing support for people living in and around Glasgow, helping someone to overcome prejudice and underconfidence and find their first job, or piloting new schemes that will give a person receiving disability allowance more control over their budget.

Thanks to everyone who took part in the abseil – you have transformed lives.

The £18,000 raised so far will go a long way towards ensuring that ENABLE Scotland can continue to provide invaluble services, but we still need to raise another £42,000 this year. We rely on the money raised by our supporters and are lucky to have people who are brave and generous enough to push themselves to the limit for our charity - become an ENABLE Titan today and transform someone’s life.

The above are all possible beginnings to today’s blog that had been going through my mind for the last week or so. But luckily, none that apply. For some reason, after all my worries and fear, part of me had become determined to do the 150ft abseil. Nay, exhilerated and eager to do it – a bit of a suprise to me. I ended up leading the group of 5 of us onto the crane, only to find that everyone else had dropped back and I was to be the first abseiler of the day.

The safety rope was attached via an epic and expertly tied knot affixed to my two-part harness and I was then instructed to ‘just climb over the railings and off you go’. I started laughing and then realised they were serious – this was the part where reality became very surreal. I grabbed onto an overhead steel cable and swung out above the inky-black waters of the Clyde and a sheer drop onto concrete, and placing my feet onto the bottom of the railings I was hooked onto my abseil rope.

From this part on, no kidding folks, it was just brilliant and fun. I sat back into my harness, let my legs rise above my head to kick off from the crane itself, and descended at some speed. The view was spectacular – Clydebank is surrounded by very pretty mountains and if you time it right you are in the flight path of the airport! I loved it – even though it was several hours before I stopped having butterflies in my stomach. And there’s lots of photos to prove that I did it as well! Would definitely do it again and I’m sure that the key is not to think about what could go wrong and just enjoy the ride!

I’d love to hear other abseilers’ experiences – please comment here if you abseiled too!

1) The Titan Crane is very high. 150ft isn’t much – just over 45m I think, but when you’re up on the crane it’s a bit isolated and if there’s a breeze you really feel it. Looking down you will see the waters of the Clyde and the concrete of the quayside and it’s only when you realise those tiny things are people that your body realises you are not on the ground like a sensible human.

2) The main thing will be getting over the railing and leaning back into the ropes. That sounds pretty simple… right? Except that I can tell already that I’m going to almost totally freeze up and every movement will be hard. This is because the Titan crane is very high.

3) Once I trust the ropes and the lovely people at Glagow Climbing Centre, it might even be fun. I am trying to convince myself of this. Hanging in mid-air could be like a really big version of a rope swing. Right?

4) The money I raise will be changing someone’s life. It sounds cheesy, but when forcing yourself to fall off something very big against all natural instincts, it can be a good mantra to repeat. Time spent on www.enable.org.uk does make me feel slightly more justified in my craziness.

5) If I do this, I will definitely get bought a few drinks afterwards, I’ll know that I can get past being scared of things and take rewarding risks, and maybe I will stop being nominated in that stupid ‘Compare People’ application on Facebook as the least brave of my friends.

This is the plan anyway. Part II to follow on Monday.

Like all of our brave abseilers, the Enable Abseil Team are getting excited about 1st August, and with good reason. With over 100 people expected to abseil on the day it’s going to be our busiest yet, and we’re praying for beautiful weather. The plan is to have a cameraperson out filming everyone’s abseils so expect to see some video footage up on this page soon.

We’ve got 7 places left for August 1st so if you’re after one of them get yourself signed up by calling 0141 225 1642 or emailing me: kat.borrowdale@enable.org.uk. It would be amazing to get the whole day full up and raise a record-breaking amount of money to improve the lives of people with learning disabilities.

If that’s a little too soon for your liking then why not sign up for September 5th and 6th? Go on, challenge yourself!