It started out in 1981 as a military training exercise used to toughen up the Queen’s Gurkha Signals. Now more than three decades on, a team from Emplas will be among the hundreds of competitors being put through their paces in the gruelling Trailwalker challenge.
Held from the 13-15 July, the charity fundraiser, is based around a challenging 100km course across the South Downs, which must be completed by a team of four, plus a support crew of two, within 30 hours or less.
Making up the Emplas Team are managing director, Ryan Johnson; national sales manager, Jody Vincent; Damian Morphett, senior estimator; and Damian Smith, surveyor, T&K Home Improvements. Their two-man support crew is made up by Kush Patel, deputy managing director and sales director John Leary.
The course record was set in 2004 by the Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistics Regiment which completed the 100km distance in 9 hours 50 minutes. This compares to a course average of 27 hours.
To qualify for entry the Emplas team needs to raise more than £1,000. However, it’s MD Ryan Johnson set a far more ambitious target.
He said: “The window and door industry has an outstanding record of charitable giving and we would ask our colleagues in the industry to dig deep into their pockets again in support for what is a very worthy and important work.
“Our official qualification target is £1,000 but I’m certain that we can go far beyond this and we’ve set ourselves our own target of raising a minimum of £3,000. I’d personally like to thank everyone now in advance for their support.”
