Byte Night’s Mark Edwards takes on the infamous Fan Dance for disadvantaged children in Wales

There are easier ways to raise money for great causes but they don’t interest Mark Edwards, technical director for Capital Networks Solutions (CNS) and Byte Night Wales board member.  Mark has just completed the ‘Fan Dance’ for Action for Children’s Byte Night, the UK’s largest sponsored sleep-out and fundraising campaign, raising over £600 in the process for disadvantaged children in Wales.

The Fan Dance is a gruelling 24km non-navigational race over two sides of Pen Y Fan, the highest mountain in the Brecon Beacons. This infamous route has long been a part of SAS (Special Air Service) and SBS (Special Boat Service) selection and is considered the yardstick of a candidate’s potential to perform well on Test Week and ultimately pass the Special Forces selection programme.

Mark said:  “I wanted to do something crazy and unique to raise money for Byte Night and the Fan Dance was a tremendous challenge.  The Special Forces have been using it for the last 75 years as part of their selection process and it’s one of the few opportunities civilians get to do that.  Ex-Special Forces people organise the event and it was a great opportunity to raise money for Action for Children and raise awareness of Byte Night and all they do for children in Wales.”

Each year, businesses from across the country spend the night sleeping out to raise sponsorship for Action for Children on Byte Night. It raised over £1.1 million in 2016, with more 1,300 people sleeping out across the UK.  The inaugural Byte Night Wales event takes place on Friday 7th October at the Principality Stadium with the aim of raising over £65,000.

Teams from Cardiff companies including Acorn, Admiral, Amber Group, BT, Capital Networks Solutions, Spindogs, KPMG, Cardiff Start and CGI have already signed up.

Mark added:  “The worst part of Fan Dance was discovering the existence of vertical marshes!  We were on one for about 800 metres and that was one step forward, two steps back for a lot of that stretch.  Overall though, it was a great atmosphere and experience as it’s not something you’d normally do, running across mountains with a backpack on getting shouted at by lots of ex-forces people with 300 other nutters.  It was worth it as I raised over £600 with more to come, all for a brilliant cause.  The next challenge will be sleeping out at Byte Night where one night under the stars can make a world of difference to those children who need it most in our communities.”

If you would like to find out more about Byte Night, please visit www.bytenight.org.uk or contact the Byte Night team on bytenight@actionforchildren.org.uk