Send Tom Spencer & Levi Hibbert to the World Rogaining Championships

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Given by 36 generous donors in 27 days

Tom Spencer and Levi Hibbert need financial help to represent NZ at World Rogaine Championships in Alice Springs,Australia,23-24July2016

Taranaki

Hi,our names are Tom Spencer and Levi Hibbert and we will be representing New Zealand at the World Rogaining Championships in Alice Springs, Australia, on 23rd-24thJuly 2016.We are currently students at Otago University(Tom) and Ara Institute of Technology (Levi).We have been passionately involved in orienteering, rogaining and adventure racing (in which rogaining plays a key part) since our early teens, and the World Rogaining Championships are the pinnacle of our dreams. Rogaining is a sport involving long distance cross country navigation, visiting as many checkpoints as possible in the allotted time( 24 hours in this race). It is likely that you have never heard of rogaining as it is not a "mainstream" sport. This makes it difficult for us to get sponsorship or grants, meaning all expenses have to be self funded.We would like to ask for your financial assistance to achieve our goal of winning the Youth Category for New Zealand.Every dollar helps and any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Our goal is to win the youth category and we believe we have the capability to do so.Together we have numerous rogaining titles,we consistently win junior categories and are serious contenders against the men , many of whom have World Championship titles.

Funding would go towards:

Travel-to Alice Springs, Australia, as well as to and from the actual event and preparation events in Australia.

Food-high energy food to sustain us through the race, preparation and numerous training races.

Equipment-necessary gear to allow us to compete effectively in the rough terrain of central Australia.

Our History:

1st TWALK 24hr rogaine 2016(Tom)

Highest Score U23 NZ Rogaine Champs 2016(Levi & Tom)

1st NZ Mountain Bike Orienteering (open men) 2016(Tom)

1st U23 Heights of Winter Rogaine 2015(Levi & Tom)

1st NZSS Rogaine (senior boys) 2014(Tom)

3rd NZSS Rogaine (senior mixed) 2014

(Levi)

1st NZSS Adventure Racing Champs(senior mixed)2013(Levi)

1st NZSS Adventure Racing Champs2010+11(junior boys)and 2012+2014(senior boys)(Tom)

1st NZSS Hillary Challenge2013+14(Tom).

Completed GODZone2016(Levi)

Our Targets:

Win Youth Category World Rogaine Championships 2016

Win North Island Mountain Bike Orienteering Champs 2016

Win Godzone Pursuit 2017

How we try to ensure our sport involves and benefits others:

Clubs, groups and societies-we are part of and compete/train in numerous adventure sports clubs e.g.Dunedin Orienteering Club,Hill City University Tramping Club, Otago University Tramping Club,Taranaki Alpine Club(home),Mountain Biking Otago, Arawa Canoe Club, Christchurch Singletrack Club. We try to give back to our clubs whenever possible.

Community-we hope to use this event as a catalyst to inspire and educate those in our community about the wonders of the outdoors and how it can change lives. We know from personal experience how gaining a love for the outdoors helped us to grow into a place in the world where we feel valued, and love the world back; we would do anything to help other youths and even adults to change their lives and give back to the environment. We would be very prepared to go and talk to schools, community groups and anyone else.

Thank you very much for your consideration.

Thomas Spencer(Tom) & Levi Hibbert

Jonathan Spencer's involvement (page creator)

I'm involved as a parent supporter.

WRC 2016 race day! 26 July 2016

We started off conservatively, opting to take a minute detour to access a river crossing to avoid wet feet We normally wouldn't have worried about, but given that it was the only river on the entire course we thought It prudent. We then went reasonably fast, but not unrealistically so for a few controls, until we were forced to a slow by the 'spinifex' which I would liken to a bush made from thin barbecue skewers, except sharper, and as you can see from the map at http://vra.rogaine.asn.au/wrc2016/docs/Map_withImages_LR.pdf (nb our map doesnt have pictures, they were just given to us to show the type of terrain). There was a lot of green on the map, most of which was spinifex, so we had very sore legs and hands, and plenty of splinters by the end of it! However soon after this my feet became very sore, on account of the huge numbers of rocks everywhere you could look, and It quickly became apparent that it was that, along with my knee which would be the limiting factors on our speed more so than fitness. Luckily levi had us covered with the navigation through what I though was tricky bush in the south of the map, while I battled. We ran out of water for about 4 hours, which was hard to deal with In the heat so we were relieved when we arrived at the "all night cafe" where we filled drink bottles, got some free food and quickly warmed by the fire as we taped up our feet again. We then headed off and managed to get ourselves lost on a similar spur to the one we were looking for. The next few controls went a bit awry as we got more tired. We found ourselves skipping parts of our original plan to move fast back to the hash house (start/finish) so that we would not lose any points for being late. However we ran Into some fellow youths on the way In and raced them back, In case we had the same number of points( as In that case the team with the lowest time wins), however we got there with 50 minutes to spare, so we decided to drop our packs and hoon up to one final 80 point control, muscles complaining on the way up, and with Levi falling over and breaking a rock with his head on the way down. We hurried back at what felt like a sprint to our tired and shattered bodies, but was probably more like a frantic jog, and we just made it back at a time of 23:52; 8 minutes before the end (midday). As you might imagine it was a great relief to sit down and relax after months of preparation and stress, knowing that it was all done, and we could just wait for the results. As it happened, the last 80 point control we dashed up to stepped us up from 70 points behind 2nd place, to 10 points ahead! We were estatic at this news, knowing that we had given it everything. In general there was a strong NZ presence on the podiums over the various age grades which you can access here http://act.rogaine.asn.au/navlight/ARA/WRC2016/html/results.html

We would like to thank you once again, particularly to the George Mason charitable trust, the NZ rogaining associaton through navlite, bivouac outdoor, and every single one of you who gave us any kind of support, we really couldnt have done it without you. Thank you very much for allowing us to have this amazing experience, and a particularly big thank you to The George Mason Charitable Trust, I hope we made you proud.

Cheers,

Tom & Levi

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