The industry’s fittest and finest are to be put through their paces in the Buccleuch Property Challenge, which this year will benefit The Yard in Edinburgh, an indoor and outdoor adventure play centre for disabled children and young people.
David Peck, Buccleuch Property managing director, said: “We were keen that the charity we supported this year was based in Edinburgh and that it helped children, so The Yard fitted the bill perfectly on both these counts.”
The challenge will field around 60 teams for a six-hour test of mental and physical endurance, including mountain biking, orienteering and rowing.
It is being held on 6 September at the Duke of Buccleuch’s Drumlanrig Castle and Queensberry Estate. Last year the teams raised £17,000 for Maggie’s ?Cancer Caring Centre. See ? www.buccleuchpropertychallenge.com
The LGBT property community has been urged to “stand up and be counted” to help overcome prejudice in the workplace.
The call was made at Independence Day, a meeting at the RICS headquarters on Parliament Square in conjunction with LGBT property industry networking group Freehold.
RICS president elect Louise Brooke-Smith, who hosted the event and will next year become the first woman to lead the organisation, led the call for more discussion on diversity issues.
Oliver Saunders, a partner at Deloitte Real Estate and Freehold member, urged the property sector to tackle diversity head on. “If you are gay in property it’s OK,” he said. “It really should not be an issue. If you stand up to be counted it’s the best way of overcoming prejudice.”
David Mann, Freehold founder and executive partner at Tuffin Ferraby Taylor, said LGBT people faced challenges in the property sector. “Many of us lead double lives,” he said. “My key message is that diversity should be brought to the table.”
These hot shots are no flash in the pan
CBRE director Patrick O’Gorman risked life and limb to compete in two of the toughest endurance races in the world.
One was the Marathon Des Sables, a 150-mile (250km) run across the Sahara Desert over six days in one of the world’s most inhospitable climates.
His undertaking came on the back of the challenge Ride2Recovery2, in which O’Gorman cycled 650km across 12 of the highest passes in the French Alps.
The adventurer emerged unscathed to raise more than £19,000 for two charities, the Krakow Children’s Hospice and ABC Trust.
LGBT group stands up for diversity
Blunderbusses and black powder, flying gnats, tricky targets and an ever-present atmosphere of expectation hung heavy over the 28th Property Gun and Punt Club Annual Shoot.
More than 100 industry hotshots gathered at Holland & Holland’s Northwood shooting ground to blast a few clays and raise more than £1,223 for the LionHeart charity.
A team comprising Digby Flower of Cushman & Wakefield, the Shard’s Baron Phillips, retired CBRE dealmaker Greg Nicholson and Roger Tuck, retired, of RBS, received the PGPC Trophy, while John Rand of Hartnell Taylor Cook secured the Top Gun Chartered Surveyor tankard.
Nostalgia was thick in the air at a gathering of more than 700 old friends, colleagues and sporting legends at a Jones Lang Lasalle alumni event.
In the City’s Walbrook Building, rugby legends Andy Irvine and Eric Peters, plus Olympian Alan Campbell, rubbed shoulders with JLL heavyweights Guy Grainger, Chris Ireland and Andrew Hynard. Significantly, this was the first JLL event of its kind to involve staff from King Sturge, following the 2011 merger. Acquired companies Churston Heard, Rogers Chapman and Upstream were also present.
Hynard said: “The buzz in the room was fantastic and it enabled many of the great and the good of the property industry to get together in a very impressive setting. The biggest challenge of the evening was persuading people to leave at closing time.”
rebecca.kent@estatesgazette.com
