With the exciting announcement that ESF Events and the Leeds Rhinos Foundation are now offering the Rhinos Challenge Tour Experience at two venues in 2016, we are asking club ambassadors to send in their fundraising stories as we build towards the biggest two junior Rugby League festivals in the United Kingdom next year.
With clubs missing out on the May 2016 festival at the award winning Butlins resort in Skegness due to the high demand for the 150 team places available, ESF events with the support of the Leeds Rhinos Foundation announced a further festival to take place a month later from 17th to the 20th June at Haven Holidays in Blackpool.
Already the largest junior Rugby League Festival in the United Kingdom in 2015, when 75 teams and over 3,000 people attended the festival, the Rhinos Challenge festival sold out double the allocation in equally quick time for the Butlins Skegness event, leading to the announcement that a further festival will be running in 2016 to accommodate even more teams.
In 2015, Sussex Merlins under 11s became the first team from the County of Sussex to attend Rhinos Challenge, travelling over 200 miles to attend the festival, with the team and parents helping pay for the tour through some community fundraising including packing shopping at supermarkets and selling tickets in the Leeds Rhinos Foundation Grand Prize Draw Raffle.
Closer to home, Milford Marlins also raised funds to send four of their junior teams to the Rhinos Challenge event with a bike ride organised by club staff, parents and coaches, cycling from Liverpool to Leeds to help raise money for the tour, another fantastic effort from the Leeds club.
Earlier in 2015, Oulton Raiders took on the challenge of fundraising to help send their under 7s team on tour for next year, with a mammoth Three peaks challenge taken on by eight parents and a grandparent from the club, who successfully navigated the summits of Pen-y-Ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough in the glorious Yorkshire Dales to help raise £1700 towards tour costs, with the hope of sending every parent and child from the team to Lincolnshire in May.
If you have a fundraising story you’d like us to share, send in the details and how to donate and we will share on our Leeds Rhinos Foundation website, Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Still interested in Rhinos Challenge 2016 for your team?
The new Rhinos Challenge festival at Blackpool is still open to Rugby League teams of all abilities in the under 8s to under 12s age group, with teams accommodated at Haven's Cala Gran Holiday Park, on location at one of the UK's most popular seaside resorts boasting the Golden Mile, Blackpool Tower, the Pier and the amazing Pleasure Beach Theme Park.
You can view the details of the new Blackpool festival taking place from the 17th to the 20th June at the following link http://rhinoschallenge.co.uk/_youth-rugby-league-tour-venues/blackpool-lancashire/