A DALE chip shop organised a variety of wacky activities last week raising £1,055.77 for Sports Relief.
Staff at 149 Chip Shop in Galgate, Barnard Castle, donned fancy dress costumes, sat in a vat of batter, completed a six-hour cycling challenge and organised other less strenuous activities to raise money for the televised appeal, which raised £40 million.
Mandy Bird, front of house manager, said: “We’re really thrilled we managed to smash the total.
“All our customers and residents have been brilliant and so generous.
“We wanted to raise money for Sports Relief and we all came up with ideas on what we could do.”
The first activity saw three members of staff, Mrs Bird, shop manager Michael Sutherland and fryer Miles Purchese, don swimming gear and dip into a vat of home-made batter.
Mrs Bird added: “When we first talked about doing this, we were going to use curry, but thought we’d all end up with dayglow tans so decided on batter instead.”
They each spent two hours in the vat, which was placed in front of the shop.
Two days later, nine members of staff donned fancy dress costumes to take part in a six-hour cycling challenge when the vat was replaced with an exercise bike.
Each member pedalled for half an hour at a time.
Customers were also invited to take part with a variety of less-active games including 149’s version of beer pong, a raffle, guess the weight of the cake and how many peas in a jar.
Lots of customers tried their hand – and waist – at hula hooping, but none were able to match the record set by the chip shop’s own Caitlin Shaw.
She managed to keep the plastic hoop rotating for an amazing 28 minutes 11 seconds.
Area manager Michael Mott said he was blown away by the efforts of all the staff and thanked everyone who gave generously.
He added: “We’ve got ten branches and have raised about £2,500-£3,000, but the staff here have blown everyone away.”
