Sponsor me for climbing three mountains in the space of 24 hours... whilst dressed as a parrot!

Hello and thank you for visiting this site. My name is Rich, and on Saturday 30th July 2011 I will be embarking on the 'Three Peaks Challenge'.

For any of you who don't know what the Three Peaks Challenge is, it will basically involve me attempting to climb three mountains in three different countries in the space of just 24 hours - specifically, Snowden (Wales), Scafell Pike (England) and Ben Nevis (Scotland)!

Joining me for this epic undertaking will be my wife Emma, my brother Al, plus a further six intrepid souls/nutters (delete as applicable!) For me though, the Three Peaks Challenge is actually going to be the Three BEAKS Challenge. Because rather than the usual mountain hiking attire of Gortex and knee socks, I am intending to break a bit of new ground as far as the Three Peaks Challenge is concerned - by becoming the first person ever to complete it while dressed in a furry parrot suit!

The reason why I'm doing this is to raise money for the National Parrot Sanctuary in Lincolnshire - which does great work in providing a happy home for parrots that have been abandoned by their owners.

So how can you sponsor me?

You can sponsor me online if you have a Paypal account - simply log in to your account, click on the 'send money' tab at the top of the page, and then send your sponsorship amount to plinthparrot@yahoo.co.uk

Alternatively, if you don't have a Paypal account, I am more than happy to accept either cheques, online bank transfers, or cold hard cash! If you need to know where to send a cheque or online transfer to, just email me on plinthparrot@yahoo.co.uk, and I will happily give you any information you need to know.

Your support would be much appreciated - and you will also get the glory of seeing your name added to the 'roll of honour' of sponsors on this website that you can see below...

Total raised so far - £15! Big thanks to the following people who have donated generously...

1) Julia Fisher - £15

So why am I doing this to help parrots?

For those of you who are wondering how on earth the idea came about to do the Three Peaks Challenge dressed a parrot to raise money for the National Parrot Sanctuary - well, I'm afraid there's no short snappy explanation..!

It all goes back though to the summer of 2009...Back then, I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to take part in the artist Anthony Gormley's 'One and Other' project... where for 100 days, a different person took to the Fourth Plinth every hour in London's Trafalgar Square.

Having always been a fan of parrots, I decided to acquire a parrot suit to wear during my hour atop the plinth.The idea was that, as a parrot, I would provide a much-needed splash of colour amongst the drab grey of Trafalgar Square's famous pigeons.More importantly though, I felt that spending an hour looking a bit of a berk in the middle of one of the best-known public spaces in the UK might motivate people to want to sponsor me, thus enabling me to raise some money for the National Parrot Sanctuary - a wonderful place in Lincolnshire, which depends on donations to be able to look after over 2,000 exotic birds... many which were abandoned by their previous owners.

Happily, my plinth-based shenanigans were a big success - with people's generous donations enabling me to raise a total of £386 for the sanctuary.

Of course, I was also left with a parrot suit - which was no bad thing. After all, I've now always got something to wear whenever I'm invited to a fancy dress party!But as well as that, I thought it would be nice to use the parrot suit every year to do something different to help raise some money for the National Parrot Sanctuary. Following on then from the plinth in 2009, I donned the parrot suit to run Nottingham's Robin Hood Half Marathon in 2010... while 2011 is now officially the year of the Three Peaks!

If any of you have any suggestions as to what challenge I could get up to in 2012 dressed in the parrot suit, please feel free to drop me a line at plinthparrot@yahoo.co.uk

Oh, and finally, should you wish to find out more about the National Parrot Sanctuary and the great work that they do, you can visit their website by clicking here.