On 22nd November, Sir Simon Milton, Head of the Westminster Council, hosted the Westminster Launch of Westminster Challenge in the Mayor’s Parlour.

Members of the Westminster Challenge Arctic charity team at the launch of Westminster Challenge at Westminster City Hall. Photo by Michael Walter/Troika

Letter Reads:

Thank you for your letter of 6th July about the Westminster Challenge.

I am always pleased to hear about the work that is being done with charities and fundraising and am happy to endorse the initiative. We Published A Generous Society in November last year to support the voluntary and community sector by encouraging more people to give to charities through planned and regular tax efficient ways. Your work certainly meets with these aims.

I wish you every success with your Westminster Arctic Challenge in Febuary next year.

text reads:

I am delighted to lend my support to this exciting initiative

We all have a shared responsibility for our shared future. Individuals, families, government, business, and voluntary organisations all have a vital role to play in making our country a better place to live. In acting as a vital link between the world of politics and the voluntary sector, Westminster Challenge will help us fulfil that shared responsibility.

Members of Parliament quickly become aware of the huge variety of voluntary organisations in our constituencies, and of the tireless work of those who are involved in them. Westminster Challenge will encourage an even closer working relationship between the two sectors, by facilitating a better understanding of each other’s work, and by opening up new opportunities for Parliamentarians to be come more directly involved in charitable and fundraising work.

I am sure it will be a great success.

David Cameron

letter reads:

My colleagues and I are delighted to endorse the Westminster Challenge initiative.

Encouraging cooperation between the spheres of politics and charity can only benefit our society. By fostering a mutual understanding of each other and by creating opportunities for Parliamentarians to become more directly involved in charity work and fundraising Westminster Challenge performs a vital role in making our country a better and more caring place in which to live.

I wish you every success.

Sir Menzies Campbell
Leader of the Liberal Democrats

Overview
Westminster Challenge was created in 2006 to engage Members of Parliament in the work of UK charities and to fundraise on their behalf. The organisation will act as a link between the political and charitable worlds, promoting the work of each with the other and the general public.

Aims of Westminster Challenge
There are two principal aims of Westminster Challenge:

1. To engage Members of both Houses of Parliament (and others involved in British political life) in the work of charities and vice versa;
2. To raise significant funds for distribution to a range of British charities.

Supporting the Work of UK Charities
The work of Westminster Challenge will support three main charities for the duration of this Parliament; Crimestoppers, The Children’s Society and Cancer Research UK. Each MP participating on ‘The Westminster Arctic Challenge’ expedition will also nominate a local charity to benefit from their work.

The Westminster Arctic Challenge
In February 2007, a cross-party team of Members of Parliament will travel across the Arctic wilderness through Finland, Sweden and Norway by husky dog sled. The MP team consists of;Emily Thornberry (Lab), Ed Vaizey (Con), Tobias Ellwood (Con), Nick Clegg (LD), Jenny Willott (LD).

It is the aim of Westminster Challenge to arrange an expedition every two years and hope to include, on average, two challenges during each Parliament with a new team of MPs participating in each challenge.

Carbon Neutral
Westminster Challenge is committed to working with the environment. The Arctic Challenge team will witness the devastating effect that global warming is having during this expedition and investigate its impact firsthand. The team will see the damage that has been done to the beautiful but fragile environment of the Arctic as they develop a new understanding and gather vital information to allow them to champion environmental issues on their return.

The need to make the Arctic Challenge carbon neutral has been at the centre of Westminster Challenge’s planning process since preparations for the trip began. Each member of the team is absolutely dedicated to limiting the environmental impact of the expedition and that is why this trip will be carbon neutral.

Charity Registration
The Westminster Challenge is incorporated as a company limited by guarantee in England & Wales, No. 5773062, and is a registered charity, No. 1117773.

Supporters of Westminster Challenge
Westminster Challenge has gained support from across the political divide. The Prime Minister, and the leaders of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties have all pledged their support along with a number other members of both Houses of Parliament.

This site is built on the Textpattern web publishing system, an opensource project.

Textpattern is a free, flexible, elegant, easy-to-use content management system for all kinds of websites, even weblogs.

The template we are using is called Big Pencil by Kyle Jones we made some slight adjustments but we liked its simplicity and ease of use.

We are also using flickr photo sharing to upload, store, show and share our photos. We hope to do some photo-blogging direct from the events to flickr via our mobiles.

We also envisage the MP’s to do some blogging here on this site to let everyone know how they are getting on with their training, what their fears are, what they are looking forwards to and hopefully some live blogging from the ‘Arctic wildnerness’ during the event, when ever the participants are within range of a mobile phone mast!

The site is hosted and run by Mobbu (a mobile and internet data services company).