How far are you willing to travel to help raise vital funds for the Colchester Hospitals Charity?

Forthcoming fundraising events start at a mere 10,000 feet and go all the way up to 300 miles. But of course there's a catch with the shorter trip...

The Colchester Hospitals Charity always has a range of events going on to help them raise vital funds to improve the lives of patients cared for by the Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust. Whether that’s helping to buy important equipment (such as a digital heart scanner for the Special Care Baby United) or technology to assist with renovation work to improve general comfort (such as better chairs for patients receiving radiotherapy), the charity helps push past the scope of the usual NHS budget to improve the care that can be delivered.

No one wants to spend time in hospital, and this wonderful local charity is committed to help keep those stays shorter, through better equipment, and more comfortable for you and your loved ones.

So, about those two trips. For the longer one, you will need to get on your bike and dig out a phrasebook. The charity is running regular London to Paris cycles throughout 2014. A great challenge for someone wanting to do something a little different, it will see you riding through picturesque English villages before you reach the historic landmarks and First World War battlefields of rural Northern France, culminating in the arrival in one of the world’s most amazing cities.

The shorter distance has a catch, and that is you are travelling in just one direction. Straight down! That's right - it's a 10,000ft freefall skydive for Colchester Hospitals Charity!

You’ll experience the thrill of standing in an open doorway of an aircraft as it cruises at 10,000ft (That’s almost two miles!) with the wind and engine noise filling your senses. As you lean out of the plane, you’ll accelerate into the clouds, reaching more than 120 miles an hour, before the professional you are harnessed to opens the canopy and you drift serenely back to earth, happy in the knowledge that you are raising vital funds for an excellent cause.

So if you want to travel two miles or 300, or if you prefer to move at 120mph or 12, there’s something for you to do to get involved.