School's intrepid cyclists celebrate heroic fundraising mission for 'amazing' charity

Fundraising cyclists from a school in Woodcote have raised almost £2,400 for a spinal injury charity through an arduous 24-hour challenge.

Nineteen intrepid fundraisers — staff and pupils of FitzAlan House at The Oratory School — battled through day and night to help raise the money.

Year 13 pupil Billy Murray-Clarke, 18, who helped organise the challenge and cycled through the night on several shifts, said it had been a ‘roaring success’.

The feat was in aid of the charity Back Up, which supports people living with spinal injuries and provides services such as wheelchair skills training.

Staff and students of FitzAlan House

Mr Murray-Clarke said the charity had been chosen because of its ‘amazing’ work helping the parent of a close friend during her recovery from injury.

He said: “One of the parents of one of my really good mates in my year had a bad equestrian accident about five years ago.

“As a result, she suffered quite extensive spinal injuries.

“This was really to support the charity which had supported her through that time — through her hardship.”

The first cyclists gathered in the FitzAlan House common room to get the wheels rolling on the 24-hour marathon effort at 8am on Friday, February 13.

Two cycling machines set up in the room did not stop whirring as the challengers ground through the gears in shifts lasting until early the following morning.

In addition to the arduous cycling, there were further logistical headaches working around pupils’ busy schedules during the school day.

Mr Murray-Clarke, who undertook four shifts including ‘not so pleasant’ ones between 12-1am and 2-3am, said there had been ‘a real sense of camaraderie’ throughout the challenge.

He added: “We powered each other through it.

“As the school pupils were leaving at the end of the day, donations were still coming in.

“During the nighttime as well, we had the staff members on site coming in to give us some moral support.”

When the cycling did finish, a total of 702.31 miles had been clocked up.

Donations have continued to roll in and the fundraising total stood at £2,390 at the time of publication.

The target for the fundraiser had been set at £2,000.

For Mr Murray-Clarke, studying for A-Levels in English literature, politics and Spanish, there is still hope that more can be raised to beat the success of a previous Oratory School fundraiser.

“We’re really hoping we could, with the last trickle of donations that are coming in, maybe try and beat that £2,700 from last year,” he said.

He added: “I can’t thank everyone enough.

“I had pictures of raising maybe £500, which obviously would have been great, but the fact that we’ve managed to raise almost two-and-a-half grand already is just amazing.”

He continued: “Some of the donations have come in from people my age and lots from lads within the house who were in the younger years.

“For them to really think about us and to support us has been very eye-opening to me actually, as the house captain, about the sense of sense of brotherhood that we have here.”

The Oratory School is a private day and boarding school for girls and boys aged from 11 to 18.

The fundraiser is available to view online at: tinyurl.com/753m3b7b