Giving Back 2019
Thank You!
This year alone, your custom has helped us donate over £35,000 to charities across the UK! It’s easy to get caught up in all of the commercialisation at this time of year so as everyone gets ready to welcome Santa into their homes we wanted to take some time to focus on just how some of the hard earned money that you choose to spend with us is used to help others…….
The Climbers Shop and The Frank Davies Trust
In the 1990’s The Climbers Shop founder, Frank Davies founded a trust to promote the advancement of health or saving of lives and to aid the prevention or relief of poverty. We are very proud to continue a large annual contribution which is shared out among a variety of charities. Frank’s Wife Cate Davies is a trustee and recently gave us an update of what we have helped achieve this year…….
Our annual donation to Doug Scott’s charity CAN is £12,000 – which goes a fair way in Nepal! Community Action Nepal helps mountain people to help themselves raise their standard of living and strengthen indigenous, community-based culture in one of the poorest countries in the world. This is done by building and maintaining infrastructure and so far CAN has built 3 Porter Rescue Shelters with volunteer Doctors throughout the peak trekking season, 20 health posts to support porters and their families medical needs & 15 schools with Nepali staff teaching the Nepali curriculum. A number of these buildings have been built twice after being destroyed in the devastating 2015 earthquake.
The Climbers Shop also sells Nepali goods and signed prints of Doug’s amazing photos on behalf of CAN raising £1700 this year to date, to fund a charity worker here in the UK so that all monies donated to CAN go direct to Nepal.
Additional monies have been given to emr4dw.org, a charity that provides laptops and technical support to medical facilities in Uganda. It is run by a doctor from Yorkshire, and all the expertise is provided by his medical colleagues, who go out to help and train the locals. It means that the doctors can look back at patient's records, something we all take for granted, and make better diagnoses as a result.
Finally, the trust is paying for a teacher and school dinners at a little school in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, that the El Rio Foundation has re-opened. The El Rio Foundation was founded by Franks son; Ben Davies who is continuing the family philanthropy tradition.
The Climbers Shop and The Brathay Trust
We are extremely proud to be supporting local charity The Brathay Trust in their mission to improve the life chances of children, young people and families by inspiring them to engage positively in their communities.
Brathay’s programmes work with over 7,000 young people every year with a focus on increasing wellbeing, supporting them to feel good and function well at locations both close to home or on residentials at Brathay Hall just outside Ambleside. They have been transforming the lives of those who may be transitioning from care to independence, at risk of exploitation in unhealthy relationships, needing the confidence to find work or facing significant challenges in their lives for over 70 years.
Legendary Lake District fell runner Joss Naylor MBE is Patron of the charity and to celebrate The Climbers Shop 60th Anniversary this year Joss joined us for a very special evening to recount the story of his unbreakable 3 Peaks challenge in 1971 when he was driven by The Climbers Shop founder Frank Davies. The story was expertly teased from Joss by author and fell runner Steve Chilton who had the audience’s collective jaws on the floor!
Joss very generously gave his time for free as part of our Ultra Running Weekend and inaugural Ambleside Trail 60 event where ten small local specialist companies and our suppliers Rab and La Sportiva joined our customers in raising £1680 for the Brathay Young Minds Matter mental health campaign.
Joe Brown Shops and Odyssey
When Nicky touched the pillar of our Capel Curig shop last May she became the first person to ever complete double circuits of all three iconic British Fell Running Rounds: The Bob Graham in England, The Ramsey in Scotland and the Paddy Buckley in Wales.
In hard stats that means in those three challenges alone she ran a total of: 470 miles over 226 peaks, climbing a mind boggling 167,000 feet of ascent.
All after surviving Breast Cancer.
With the help of our friends at Inov-8 and the Siabod Cafe, we knew that we could put together a very special evening in Capel Curig so that our customers could join us in congratulating Nicky on her tremendous achievement. 10 lucky customers joined us on a lovely 4.5 mile run with Nicky before joining a full house at the Siabod Café where Nicky kept us all rapt with descriptions of how she started running, battled with Cancer and fought her way back to health with the steely grit and determination that those of us who have dot watched her challenges have witnessed on our computer screens. The word “inspirational” can be overused these days – but not in this case.
Together we raised £800 for Odyssey, the charity that helped Nicky start along the road to recovery after her Cancer surgery. Odyssey aims to help those affected by Cancer overcome the emotional and physical devastation caused by the illness by allowing them to move beyond a time of introspection and despair to regain a sense of control of the next stage of their lives. Their philosophy is that access to their outdoor activity based courses should not be limited by financial considerations so places are offered at no cost to the participant.
A massive thank you to Inov-8 and the Siabod Café for helping us create such a special and memorable evening.
The Climbers Shop and Fix The Fells
Love them or hate them, laid paths have become a necessary part of maintaining the stunning hills in our busy National Parks across the country. A unique collaboration between a number of partners, including the National Trust and the Lake District National Park; Fix The Fells pools skills and knowledge to effectively repair and maintain 350 upland paths. The erosion caused by millions of pairs of walking boots & running shoes combined with the rigors of the Cumbrian climate leads to loss of vegetation, species and habitats on the fells, as well as damage to the biodiversity of the rivers and lakes below. To combat this, four teams of highly skilled Rangers work with an army of volunteers in every weather imaginable to ensure our ancient network of mountain paths, many of which have been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years can continue to be enjoyed. Working with numerous user groups the teams build sustainable paths using natural materials and traditional methods, team members must be part craftsperson and part artist to achieve the best compromise possible for all users. It’s not a cheap job either – with a metre of stone pitching costing on average £200!
Mindful of the erosion caused by sporting events across the National Park, 5% of entry fees into our Ambleside Trail 60k ultra-run were pledged to help fund the maintenance of footpaths as part of the ethos of making the race a sustainable event. This year was our first ever race and from entry fee donations alone, The Climbers Shop and The Brathay Trust were delighted to present a cheque for £680 to help Fix The Fells continue their invaluable work to protect the mountain we love.
Joe Brown Shops, The Climbers Shop and Mountain Rescue
Over the years we have had a number of staff members across our business who are active members of the local Mountain Rescue teams, one of whom is the amazing Mo Richards CBE, the first female Mountain Rescue Team member in the UK and who is still active with the Langdale team even though she is in her seventies!
There are collection buckets in all four of our shops and this year your spare change has meant that we have been able to raise over £250 for our three busy local teams: Llanberis MRT, Ogwen Valley MRT and Langdale MRT.
All of our fantastic UK Mountain Rescue Teams are self-funding, dedicated teams of 'professional volunteers' coming from all walks of life, united in their love of mountains and their wish to help their fellow mountaineers in trouble.
Fingers crossed you’ll never have to meet them in their professional capacity!
And you’ve helped us to give even more……
Your valued custom has also helped us support the local Christmas lights in Llanberis, Ambleside and Stony Stratford, Milton Keynes, to give countless raffle prizes to local nurseries, Primary Schools, D of E groups, carnivals, The Mountain Heritage Trust and the installation of a vital Defibrillator outside our Joe brown Capel Curig shop on the A5 junction serving Llanberis and Ogwen valleys.
We have provided prizes for local fell races and brutal Ultra’s in Wales & The Lake District as well as supporting a fledgling series of trail races in Milton Keynes from 20 runners to over 200 in just a year!
We wish you could all see the huge smiles of achievement as the runners cross the line.
It just goes to prove that by supporting small, local businesses your hard earned money doesn’t just work for you. And don’t forget that when we pay our business taxes (which we proudly do) all of that money is kept within the economy and (critically) our social welfare system – which we are all going to need some day.
None of the above would be possible without you, our valued customers. We would like to take this opportunity to say a massive THANK YOU! for choosing Joe Browns and The Climbers Shop when you buy outdoor gear to enjoy your adventures. It’s astonishing at how your money can work so hard, not just supporting our staff team and the local businesses we buy from but also literally thousands of strangers across the globe.
THANK YOU!
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and many safe adventures
Joe Browns and The Climbers Shop staff team