THREE ABTAConvention delegates will give a different meaning to the term ‘down under’ when they take part in a death-defying bungee jump for charity.
BathTravel joint managing director Stephen Bath, Forte Hotels director of leisure sales Louise Cowgill and French Life chief executive Warren Sandral are collecting sponsorship to raise money for children in care.
Travel Weekly, keen to give all three a big push, is co-sponsoring the event with ABTA.
Sandral is being quite open about his madness in taking part.
“I have done one bungee jump before, a few years ago.It scared the life out of me so much I said Iwould never do it again,” he said.
“However, I am 52 years old and Ithink every 10 years you have to do something a bit crazy.
“The last time I did it I was with my kids on holiday in Australia. We were driving along the road and we saw people jumping off a crane. It was a spur of the moment thing and my kids wanted to do it.
“You can’t have your kids doing it and their dad chickening out so we all went and queued up along with a load of other people.”
He added:”You don’t realise until you stand up at the top just what you are letting yourself in for.”
Cowgill and Bath, however, seem so traumatised by the thought of doing the jump that they couldn’t bring themselves to talk about it to Backchat. All three are raising money for the Time 2 Care Appeal, organised by the Family Holidays Association.
This will be Bath’s second bungee jump. He and ABTApresident Steven Freudmann both took part in the jump during ABTA’s fact-finding mission to Cairns in May.
Bath loved the experience while Freudmann was not so impressed and vowed never to do it again.
However, FHAfinance and development officer Andy Grout is trying hard to persuade him to have one more go. The Time 2 Care Appeal aims to raise money to send every child in residential care on holiday next year. The bungee jump is just one fund-raising event for the charity taking place at the ABTAConvention later this month.