Meet Connie and Big Ernie the Dog. These two best friends brighten lives, visiting schools and events to bring joy and tail-wags wherever they go.
Meet Connie! AK Customer Services Hero and our newest AK Foundation staff trustee! (You may recognise her from such highly esteemed outdoor publications as the Outpost).
If you know Alpkit or the Alpkit Foundation, or have been to the Big Shakeout Festival, you’ll know that it’s pretty important to us that the whole Alpkit team is involved in everything we’re doing. None of this paying someone else to do it for us and stamping our name all over it rubbish. We know our values, we know our ethos, and why would we leave all the best bits for someone else to do?
It’s important to us that AK staff and customers have a say in where the AK Foundation awards go, so we’re really grateful to the two staff trustees and two customer trustees on our board who give up their time to help us to make these decisions.
Connie joined the AK Foundation board of trustees a few months ago, so we caught up with her and her 4-legged partner in crime, big Ernie, to find out how she was getting on so far (and because we love having a little chinwag every now and then).
Connie doing a good thing in a nice place.
"To start with tell us about yourself"
I’m a Customer Service Hero at Alpkit, answering phones and emails, among other things (we make a lot of tea!). I do a bit of running (very slowly), swimming and cycling and some sailing in the summer over in Wales. I’m normally hanging out with my big dog Ernie and love taking him on nice long walks.
"What was your motivation for becoming an AKF trustee?"
I really like the ethos of the Foundation. We aren’t a huge charity, but we play a big role in helping people to get outside and I feel like we can help out people who might usually be overlooked by bigger organisations.
We also support such a big range of things, from covering transport costs so people can actually get to the countryside, to providing kit to keep them warm and dry.
I think its really important that everyone has access to the outdoors because benefits of having a week away outdoors, or even a day, can be amazing! Often those who would really get the most out of an experience out on the hills can’t or won’t get outside on their own for one reason or another. I feel really grateful that I can do my bit through the Foundation.
"You’ve been a trustee for just over 3 months now, what have you enjoyed the most so far?"
I enjoy reading through all the applications and learning about the adventures people are going on, however big or small! We get lots of feedback from the people we support and lots of pictures too! It’s always nice to see it go from paper to reality!
Nice one Connie! We're looking forward to hearing more about all those projects you've been finding out about!
In the meantime. To find out how your group or project could benefit from an Alpkit Foundation award, head over to our About page!
The Alpkit Foundationsupports projects that enable people to overcome the obstacles preventing them from Going Nice Places and Doing Good Things.