CEO of Taylor Wimpey shares his experience of the COINS 3 Peaks Challenge

For me personally, our involvement in the COINS 3 Peaks Challenge started out as a long held personal desire to complete the 3 Peaks for its own sake, but developed into a much greater experience, through our strong commitment to raising money for African development projects, the intense team building event for those undertaking the challenge and the wider involvement of the whole Taylor Wimpey business.

Our two director teams were varied in experience, age, fitness and objectives for the challenge, but throught our training, which varied from a team climb in Spain to solo adventures in the driving rain of Wales and drifting snow in Scotland, we found our level and a way to work together that helped enormously on the day (and night, and bit of the next day...).  Whilst the objectives of the team varied from recapturing (possibly mythical!) past youth and fitness, to pushing the boundaries of our individual endurance, we all got far more out of it than we expected.

As well as the personal satisfaction, and the feeling that the projects supported by the COINS Foundation were hugely worthwhile, we were able to engage the whole of our business in the experience.  Sponsorship support seemed to leap when it was suggested that the senior team would shave their heads with the TW logo, and a regular blog style email update on training and on the day kept people involved.

Overall it was a great experience for us personally, but also very valuable for our business, I suspect there may be more TW teams next year!!

Pete Redfern, CEO, Taylor Wimpey