The fundraising challenge was announced in July and took place between 16 September and 13 October. Girls’ Brigade groups, members and supporters were asked to contribute to the challenge in whatever way they could during this period, uniting in our fundraising efforts. The challenge was important for the organisation in raising vital funds to ensure our work continues to go from strength to strength, but also in shouting about the incredible impact we have on the lives of our members and volunteers and raising the profile of The Girls’ Brigade.
The proceeds of the fundraising events that groups organised were shared 50/50 between their group and the Girls’ Brigade nationally – with the £30,000 raised for Girls’ Brigade England & Wales helping us further our mission including accelerating the update of our programme materials, benefitting all our members and groups. Some examples of how local Girls’ Brigade community groups are using their share of the funds raised include special trips and events, new materials and resources, and the general running costs of the groups.
The £30,000 raised for Girls’ Brigade England and Wales included £10,000 of match-funding from The Big Give’s Women and Girls match fund 2024. The Big Give offered a maximum of £10,000 in match funding – so for every pound donated, the Big Give would also donate one pound. We’re pleased to share that we received the whole amount.
Over 70 Girls’ Brigade groups took part in the challenge, raising money at bake sales, sponsored events, games evenings and much more. As well as our local groups taking part, our Trustee Board, Network Executive and Staff Team also contributed to the challenge. Individual donors and organisations we have partnered with chose to give donations to the cause too. Our CEO, Judith Davey-Cole, undertook a whopping 14 challenges including shaving her hair off, holding a snake, the ice-bucket challenge and 1 hour non-stop bouncing on a bouncy castle. Chair of our Trustee Board, Jo Greengrass, completed a 25K Thames River walk challenge from Runnymede to Cookham.
Here’s some of what our local groups got up to…
4th Lincoln held a pudding and quiz night for Girls’ Brigade members and their families and friends. They were grateful for their amazing host who was a member of Girls’ Brigade as a child and continued to support them.
1st Bedworth did a different activity each week throughout the month. This consisted of a sponsored walk, sponsored games evening, sponsored silence and ended with a cake sale. During the sponsored silence, the group did some colouring and crafts.
1st Sunderland raised the money at a coffee, cake and craft morning held in connection with their church. The Girls’ Brigade members helped by baking frangipane tarts and decorating cakes at their group meeting and also helped to serve coffee and staff the craft stall on the day.
2nd Barnsley held a quiz night for friends and family. Food was included and a stall was set out, selling donated items and crafts such as keyrings and bracelets that the girls had made over previous weeks.
1st Durham held a coffee evening where each of the age groups prepared a short piece of entertainment for attendees. n:vestigate members sang Our God is a Great Big God, n:gage presented about their current badgework based on the story of Ruth and sang As For Me and My House and n:counta and n:spire talked about the history of Girls’ Brigade. The evening ended with the group singing Who’s the King of the Jungle together.
At 1st Hawkwell, each age group took on a different challenge. n:vestigate decided to do a Bare Foot Challenge and suggested a variety of yucky things that they would be sponsored to walk through. They braved bowls of slime, jelly, baked beans, shaving cream and cotton wool balls! n:gage took on 2 challenges – they learnt the collective nouns for over 50 animals and as a group skipped 10,000 skips! 140 cakes were made by the n:counta group during their evening and the n:spire group were sponsored to undertake an ice-bucket challenge which took place in the church car park. The squeals could be heard for miles! Finally, the leaders put on a quiz night, with different leaders writing the various rounds. 1st Hawkwell raised over £1200 from their event.
Team Leader Sally says ‘We’re delighted to be able to support our fantastic organisation in this way.’
2nd Billericay collected coins from parents and the church family for their challenge. The n:gage girls had fun using the coins to make shapes and pictures before older girls in the group counted and bagged up the change.
1st Redditch held a bingo evening. They invited friends, parents, carers and the church congregation to the event and all had fun playing bingo and winning prizes together.
1st Leyton did a sponsored walk. It had been raining heavily all day but luckily eased off by the time they started. The group did 10 laps of a circuit, covering 2 miles and 7000 steps – a great feat for girls as young as 7 years old!
We know that this is only a small snippet of the exciting things that went on, but thank you to all who took part!
Local community groups who took part in the challenge can download a certificate to display at their group or send to individual members who took part. Girls’ Brigade volunteers can download this here.
We look forward to announcing the winners of our Fundraising Challenge 2024 competition categories at our Spring Conference in March 2025. Groups and individuals who took part can still enter into the following categories by emailing us:
- The most unusual challenge
- The challenge involving the most people
- The funniest challenge
- The best photograph of a challenge
- The best group challenge
- The best individual challenge.
Thank you to everyone who took part in a challenge, donated or sponsored, planned activities, or supported the groups taking part. We look forward to raising more money in 2025!