The Pilgrim Bandits
We started up around 5 years ago made up of ex Special Forces members and mates playing the odd round of golf. Some of these members were used to being called Pilgrims from their Regiment days, the added name Bandits came when four of the members playing in a competition at the New Forest Golf Club won everything and the home members asked them to leave as there handicaps were false and they were golfing bandits, hence the name “Pilgrim Bandits”.
However, now we are made up from invited guests and challengers that have raised sponsorship and completed one of our challenges. The charities we've helped to date include Julia Perks Foundation, Teenage Cancer Trust, Special Air Service Regiment Association , and Help for Heroes. In 2010 we became recognized by the Charity Commission as a Charity in our own right.
Being a charity will allow us to support many of our amputees and local veterans, plus smaller forces projects. We also hope to be able to fund research and development into Prosthetics for our wounded
We raise our funds through our challenges our aim being is to take members of the public into an unknown environment and Challenge themselves, find out what they are made of ? while still retaining the main quality needed a sense of humour. What ever the Challenge brings for each Challenger the one thing they may each take away with them, is the fact that they will be tested.
The monies raised from these and all our fundraising is then channelled back into taking injured members on adventure and confidence building expeditions, they maybe injured but that is no reason to stop trying to achieve and many injured servicemen once the confidence is regained then go onto achieve far more than they may have achieved before being injured.
The Sahara Challenge our Winter Challenge in Finland and now our UK Centurion Challenge have become as well known as the regiments we served in for being hard but achievable. The main criteria for each is that a given distance has to be covered within a given time.
The Sahara Challenge is 160Km/100 miles completed within 5 days. The winter challenge 60km in 5 days on snow shoes. The Centurion is a distance of 100 or 50 km around Salisbury Plain within 24 hrs, with all challenges we have tried to stay as close to Military ideals as possible and to what our forces experience.
We don't do Sympathy
" But who are ye in rags and rotten shoes, your dirty-bearded and blocking the way
We are the pilgrims master, we shall go Always a little further "