Team 2 Birch 1 Banger

Christopher Birch
Of 2 Birch 1 Banger
On the Mongol Rally 2017
HIGHLIGHT ON MAP
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This morning we set off to find a mechanic to fit a sump guard/raise our suspension/fit a new cv boot in Almaty, Kazakhstan. We found a garage about 400m away from our hostel and after some miming, they understood what was required. An hour later a sheet of metal had been bolted to Gladys' undercarriage. We asked what the cost was and they said no charge, they just wanted a couple of selfies. We gave the mechanic a pack of cigarettes and we were on our way to find another garage to look at raising Glayds up a bit. A lad gave us an address to head to, but after about 100m, Gladys stopped working, the engine wouldn't even crank. RB headed back to the garage, CB made some friends who offered coffee, biscuits and most importantly wifi. A cool down in the shade and a fresh fuel filter sorted Gladys out and the people from the office gave us two bars of chocolate as a present. 

We found the second garage and Gladys was straight onto the lift. The lads are confident they will find and fit better/higher suspension but they have a queue of cars so they can only start work on Friday and will be done on Saturday night. Couple of days to burn in Almaty. Time to see some sights!

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Richard

Christopher

So it all started with a text from my brother a few months ago "fancy doing the Mongol Rally next year, get an old Corsa and bosh it to Mongolia. Would be banter"

A few months later and the magnitude of our challenge has just hit home. In July 2017 we will be setting off from the UK and travelling over 8,000 miles to Ulaanbaatar, not in a Corsa as our original plan but something far stupider than that.

"Gladys" is a 1981 Fiat Van that we bought from a guy in Hackney for a few hundred quid. So far so good, until we tell you that it's left hand drive, the gears don't work and we snapped the key off in the lock as soon as we bought it. Apart from that, we are confident that come early September we will be rolling into Mongolia.

Where do you come in? In a word, money. Not for us, this trip is going to be fully funded by us. It would be wrong for us to ask you for money so we can have a jolly. So all the money that will be raised will go to our chosen charities Greenwich and Bexley Hospice who were invaluable to us when our dad was in the final stages of cancer and Cool Earth who are the official charity of next years Mongol Rally.

But we want to thank you for giving your hard earned money so we have thought of a few ways we can say "thank you" Mongol Rally style.
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£10 – postcard from the trip

Bored of the same old postcard from an Auntie who’s on her annual trip to the Costa del Sol? Well how would you feel about getting a postcard from us two idiots in a place like Tajikistan? All you need is to sponsor £10 to charity and if we can figure out how much postage we need to send it back to the UK you will have a little message from the trip.

£25 – Get your name on Gladys

You get to tattoo an old lady! (Only joking, well you can if you want to but that is your call.) £25 gets you your name on our rust bucket of a vehicle, which we have called “Gladys” The idea, is that we get the whole van covered in you amazing people and as we are documenting the trip you will be part of this amazing adventure!

All of the below sponsorship gets you the name on Gladys as well, because we are nice like that*

£50 – Get some merch from Birch

Fancy owning 1000 Mongolian Tug or a rock from the side of theUkraine highway? So £50 gets you something, we don’t know what, and we cannot guarantee that you’ll even want it but it’ll be a little memento of our trip that you can keep for ever.

£100 – Send us a dare

Now this one could get us into hot water. But for £100 we will do a dare of you choosing (as long as it doesn’t get us thrown into a Russian jail) we will record it and post in on social media with a personalised message to you.

£200 – Company Logo

Ever wondered if your company could branch out into the lucrative Mongolian market? One way to find out is to sponsor us and get your logo on our van. We will also mention you in social media posts and videos throughout our trip. We will even wear your merchandise on camera as we deliver your message!

£250 – The virtual ride along**

If you want to do more than just have your name on Gladys. What about coming along with us? Well in cardboard form anyway. If you donate £250 to our charities, we will kart a life size cardboard cut-out of yourself (between £30 - £50) and we will put pictures of us with “you” on social media along the trip. We will even tag you in the pic so you can tell people down the pub that you went on this mad trip, you might get a free drink out of it?

*we need the money
**Limited to the first ten people, otherwise we don’t have space for 50 cardboard cut-out, we can’t drink cardboard when we have broken down in the Kazak desert.
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So there you go that is our little story, if you can help in anyway other than money (anyone know a mechanic?) please pass this on or email us at [email protected]

Greenwich and Bexley Hospice

We are the foremost provider of specialist palliative care to the London boroughs of Bexley and Royal Greenwich. Our services cover an area of 40 square miles with a population of over 500,000, and has areas of wealth and extreme deprivation. Our staff and volunteers care for adults with a wide variety of chronic and terminal conditions. Most of the people we care for also have informal carers, all of whom can also access support to enable them to care for their loved one. Last year, we cared for over 2,500 people and families, and we were supported by many more members of the community through donations, legacies, trusts, and at our many fundraising events. The Hospice does not charge for its services and only about one third of our funding comes from the NHS, which means that we depend on the generosity of, mostly local, individuals, trusts, organisations and businesses to raise more than four million pounds annually so that we can continue to provide care to people when it matters most. We rely on your generosity to continue our work, please help us raise urgently needed funds. Thank you for your support.

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