’We all love a challenge’
How one family, across three generations, ran, swam, cycled and even skydived their way to completing the Duke of Edinburgh Diamond Challenge
For the Powells and their extended family, an infectious love of adventure is definitely in their genes. From grandma Alma (72) to granddaughter Sherilyn (21), pushing themselves is just a normal part of family life. But recently this go-getting family took their appetite for challenge to a new level as they completed the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Diamond Challenge as a family. While they’ve never done anything like this together before, the challenge is a fitting tribute to three generations’ worth of family life that’s been dedicated to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award (DofE) scheme. It all started with grandma Alma and her late husband who were involved with the charity from an early age. “I started the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award through my Girls’ Brigade when I was 17 in the early Sixties. I did lots of different activities but I’ll always remember my Silver Award when we did an expedition through Epping Forest and it snowed so hard we struggled to find the path. For my Gold I also helped in a residential home for young
people with disabilities. I found the DofE gave me enormous confidence and after having quite a restricted upbringing, it was a revelation to me to do all of these things.” So when Alma finished her awards and met her husband, who’d also completed the DofE, they become leaders of their local Girls’ and Boys’ brigade where they introduced the youngsters to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme. And as they started a family, they passed this passion for the DofE onto their children. In fact, their daughter Sheena and sonin-law would later become leaders of the Brigade and the DofE themselves when Alma retired. But it was Alma’a grandchildren, Sherilyn and Mitch, who came up with the idea of the family-wide DofE Diamond Challenge, having grown up inspired by their family’s connection. Sherilyn says: “I did my DofE Awards as a teenager and went on to become an ambassador for the organisation and the Diamond Challenge, set up to mark the 60th anniversary of the scheme, in particular. Initially I couldn’t think of an interesting way I could complete the Diamond Challenge but then my brother Mitch suggested a whole family challenge we’d do in relay.” And kicking it all off would be gran, Alma, with a skydive. “To our surprise, Grandma told us that when she was in New Zealand years ago she’d wanted to sky dive but as Grandad didn’t like heights, they’d not bothered,” says Sherilyn. “So we thought asking her to kick-start our day of family challenges with a skydive would be a great opportunity for her.” While Alma’s skydive unfortunately had to be rescheduled for another week because of bad weather, the rest of the family nevertheless dived into their part of the challenge as dad Steven and uncle Stuart began a 60-mile tandem cycle race from the skydive centre in Kent to Hyde Park. As they reached the gates, mum Sheena and her sister Denise then threw themselves into the chilly waters of the Serpentine for a 6km swim. “Swimming in an open water lake in the freezing cold was not an easy challenge for me,” laughs mum, Sheena. “I normally swim 45 minutes in a nice pool so to swim for three hours’ solid was really challenging – in fact when we got out we could hardly walk! But in our family if you say you’re signing up for something, you do it. It definitely helped having my sister with me, knowing my family were doing other challenges and that all our friends had come to support us.” As the ladies got out of the water, it was time for Sherilyn and Mitch to take the home straight by running six miles from Hyde Park to St James’s Palace where all the family met up. “There was a great sense of achievement because we’d never done anything like that as a family before,” says Sherilyn. A fortnight later, Alma completed the last piece of the challenge as she finally hurled herself out of a plane. “I wasn’t nervous at all,” she says, “just very excited. While we were falling, the gentleman I was strapped to even let me control the reins for a bit and we chatted about what we could see. I really enjoyed it.” And there were smiles all round when the family received their DofE Diamond Challenge certificate and brooch pin in recognition of their achievement. But this was also tinged with the slightly bittersweet feeling that Grandad, Alma’s husband, and the man who helped kick-start this family’s passion for the DofE, wasn’t there, having passed away a few months before. “My husband knew about the challenge before he died and he was really behind it,” says Alma. “Although it wasn’t initially intended to be a tribute to him, it was because he’d always been so involved in the DofE Award. We know that if he’d been with us he would have been very proud.” And most rightly so! If you would like to find out more about fundraising for the Dofe and this year’s ‘Dofe Challenge’, which launches this month, please call 0207 630 9092 or visit Dofe.org
‘To swim for three hours was really challenging – when we got out we could hardly walk! But in our family if you say you’re signing up for something, you do it’