CCF March in March
The CCF March in March is a charity event raising money for Combat Stress, a charity dedicated to providing support to veterans and their families.
Writer D Zaborszky (Divs) & Editor W Sutton (Divs) - CCF Army Section
The March in March was my first time participating in a fundraiser walk. This was an event not only new to me, but also to most of my peers. Whilst supporting Combat Stress – a generous charity dedicated to providing support to veterans of the British Armed Forces, our goal was simple; we were to depart from a location near the school, and armed with only a map, a compass and our sub-par familiarity of the terrain, our task was to walk a predetermined route encircling the greater Rickmansworth area . This was all whilst aiming to dominate in a race between us, the Army, and RAF section.
Initially we made a mad dash for it. Speed was our only concern, and it fair to say that we were rapid off the mark. However, this soon returned to bite us in the back, as we’d (mostly through a fault of my own) blown straight past our first turn and had to spend another 10 minutes back-tracking and looking for the (very poorly labeled) staircase down, giving the RAF time to catch up.
After getting back on track, we were more cautious with our map reading – even though we missed another two turns very soon after that. Soon it was very dark and dreadfully wet. We ambled through swamp-like terrain and powered across large fields all whilst constantly worrying about our progress in correlation to the RAF.
After our fair share of navigational errors; taking us from an estimated 16.7km (about 10.38 mi) to around 19.8km (about 12.3 mi), we arrived back at our destination. We were exhausted after an almost four-hour walk, hoping that we were the first ones there. Much to our relief, we were told the RAF had an estimated 45 minutes left of their walk. Having achieved our goal, we returned to the school at 23:45, incredibly pleased with ourselves and very, very tired.
This was a wonderful experience, and I speak for everyone when we extend our gratitude to the Contingent Commander as well as Sgt. Anderson and all the staff who gave up their Friday afternoons to follow a group of confused, desperate to win boys around for about four hours in the cold, dark and night.
To help us fundraise simply follow the link & donate: Combat Stress - Merchant Taylors' School Northwood