UPprentice teams celebrate Clan success

Businesses apply money-making skills and creativity to raise £140,000

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EVEN the notoriously hard-to-please Sir Alan Sugar would surely have been impressed by the ingenuity of the north-east businessmen and women who gathered at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre last night to celebrate their fundraising success.

Awards were presented to the teams who took part in a competition based on Sir Alan’s Apprentice reality TV series, which raised £140,000 for local cancer charity Clan (Cancer Link Aberdeen and North).

Organisers, the Urquhart Partnership and the Acumen Group, gave each of the 15 teams £100 and challenged them to make as much money as possible in six weeks.

Ideas ranged from recipe books and bag packing to a shoe shine and sponsored Superheroes walk to work.

The Clan Sugar award for most money raised went to energy company Wood Group, which collected £40,000. Legal firm Stronachs came out on top of the SME section for its £10,000 fundraising achievement. Fixings provider Grampian Fasteners was awarded most innovative fundraising idea for its Clannonball Run – a gathering of luxury cars which invited participants to bid for the chance to ride in style to Balmoral Castle.

All money made from the UPprentice will go towards Clan’s 123 appeal, which is aiming to raise £3million for a cancer support centre in Aberdeen to help patients and their loved ones from across the north-east, including Orkney and Shetland.

Clan fundraising manager Susan Crighton said it had given a major boost to the appeal, which has now topped £2million. The organisers were so delighted with the success that they hope to repeat the event. Urquhart Partnership managing director Campbell Urquhart said: “Those who participated in the UPprentice have shown an enormous amount of commitment to the challenge and their creativity and business acumen has helped to raise thousands for a very worthwhile cause.”