With Christmas now firmly in view, and thoughts of gift giving to the fore, many will also be considering others less fortunate than themselves and wondering how they might help.
It’s in this context that BikeBiz sat down with Si Paton to talk about the Malverns Classic raffle – which delivered gifts for children on another continent.
Si, tell us about the raffle. How did this start?
My wife, Kate, and I have a love of shoestring travel. We want to see places, meet people, not sit in a resort and experience a sanitised version of the countries we travel to. Now Kate is a Special Educational Needs teacher. She’s someone who takes real pride in making a difference.
When we decided to go to Zanzibar, it was Kate who found a charity – Van Kids Zanzibar – supporting schools and school children. Kate decided to spend some time as a volunteer teacher, and we then decided to raise some money to assist the school. The school operates as a charity. We knew we could help. We have an audience. Our Malverns raffle idea starts here.
Talk to us about the school and the work it does.
The school, which operates as a charity, requested basic supplies such as stationery, including pens, paper, and crayons, as well as school uniforms.
I want to highlight here that when you and I hear ‘school’, we have a picture in our minds of what this looks like. In Zanzibar, this was far from our typical idea of how that looks.
I’d describe the school as a single dark room, with bars on the window, where children sat on a mat. I also noted that outside the classroom was an open area with two large, deep troughs, possibly for water storage, covered only by a damaged orange tarp. Despite the poor conditions, the children were all smiling and happy.
And it’s here that the Malverns raffle is making an impact.
When we talked about funding and providing uniforms and equipment, this had a massive impact. We raised £700. And we maxed out our baggage allowance, bringing essentials with us.
With some of the money we raised, we brought supplies, collecting donations from friends and family, resulting in over 24.5 kg of stationery, as well as brand new school uniforms purchased from a charity shop.
We saw one particular child wearing his donated school uniform every day because it made them feel “important” and “like a proper school kid”.
For young girls, as well as clothing, sanitary products have a significant impact on their daily lives. Kate had the experience where a 15-year-old girl directly asked her for sanitary products, which were financially out of her reach.
You and Kate saw an opportunity to make the daily lives as well as school experiences a little better in a meaningful way.
Yes, and we also wanted to share some fun and laughter with the school children. To do this, we organised a trip for 100 children on two coaches to the seaside for games and lunch. A life experience. You know, despite living on an Island, many haven’t been to the coast or been in the sea. Some haven’t learnt to swim. A memorable adventure for sure.
How do you reflect on this, as 2025 draws to an end, and Malverns 2026 becomes the focal point?
We’ve a desire to build on this charitable work, and are considering how best to expand on this. Do we ask attendees to bring a shoebox filled with items like a toothbrush, a comb, and pens? Do we formalise our relationship with the charity? How do we deliver the impact they need?
For Kate and me, the volunteer experience reset us, highlighting the value of time, health, and family over materialistic possessions. We paid for the trip and volunteered to do something nice, hoping it would inspire others. Now we want to figure out how we do more going forward into 2026.
I mentioned we raised £700. £300 from the raffle money was used to fund a year of university for a young art student we met. When we’re considering how we go forward, how we raise funds, and share essential items with the charity and others, it’s the fact that we can, which means we will.
Even what we may consider to be small amounts makes a massive difference. When we’ve seen how something as simple as a school uniform offers a child a wave of positive energy – we want to be able to continue to deliver and have a positive impact.
It might be as simple as the man who asked, by email, for Malverns stickers and made a charitable donation.
We want our community to be engaged and involved.