It is close to two years ago that Paul Burgum first met with the Lancaster family in view of assisting to raise funds for the family to aid the development of their son. Cole suffers with four limb cerebral palsy and the initial fundraising was going to be towards improvements to their back garden for a safe play area.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was agreed that that year\u2019s BCT Fun Day would donate profits to help raise funds for this project. However it was soon realised that what the family really required was improvements to the family home. Paul decided that the group would thus raise funds towards an extension to the family home. Paul himself was formerly a self-employed carpenter and joiner and felt confident that he could assist the family both through fundraising and also by giving his own time to any following build.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Around the same time Paul decided to leave his career as a joiner behind and follow his dream of setting up his own Social Enterprise. The informal group behind the Billingham Charity Trophy Fun Day became BCT Events CIC and has since evolved once again to its current and final name of BCT Aspire. Paul decided to help the fundraising along he would undertake a fundraising walk from Portsmouth back to Billingham without either money or real support. This again went towards the project as well as the Great North Air Ambulance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sadly that the year the Fun Day actually made a loss for the first time and the amount of money raised was nowhere near enough to really assist in the extension that was the ideal scenario for the family. At this point Paul decided to pull together all his own contacts and attempt to get the extension built himself alongside his father Michael. It took a while to pull everything together and at some points everybody actually believed that the project was just too big to become a reality,\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually felt like I had let the family down at this point and was genuinely disappointed, some people had faded away and I questioned the size of the project. However I really wanted to get the project completed as it really meant a lot to me personally. I know that talk is cheap and when I say things it really bothers me if I don\u2019t see them through to completion. Sometimes I realise that think of things that would seem unrealistic to many people. However people always seem to come forward and support our various projects.<\/em> \u201c\u00a0<\/p>\n [youtube_sc url=Aj0HeJdiz7A]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The project finally begun in February 2010 and as had been the theme along the build a lot of the offers of support never materialised. However one person came forward who integral to the build and there is not enough praise available for Paul Burr<\/strong> a local bricklayer from Billingham. Paul was out of work and happy to get involved as much as he could with the project. Paul happily joined in with the digging by hand of the foundations alongside a small group of volunteers.\u00a0<\/p>\n At this time Michael Burgum had already begun pulling in close to 40 years\u2019 worth of house building experience to gain materials, labour and support from the project. The construction has had a hard time recently like most of the economy with many companies really struggling. However many long standing contacts of Mick’s were happy to support the project. This begun with Alex Cowan<\/span><\/strong> Groundworks supplying the concrete for the foundations and floor slab.\u00a0<\/p>\n The extension seemed to at times ground to a halt whilst the team attempted to pull together the required materials and labour but slowly but surely the project was progressing. It took a lot of people giving up a lot of time to make the project a reality but it was finally beginning to take shape.\u00a0<\/p>\n All the way through the build every person who came to work on the project was buoyed by the children looking out of the window and the smiling faces that always greeted everyone. This was even when Cole and Kaden were having so many problems with their own health. Whenever anyone was feeling down about the task at hand the mere mention of Cole helped to boost morale.\u00a0<\/p>\n Andy Lancaster was heavily involved in the build at all stages, this was whilst working himself as well as the numerous hospital trips on top of the daily task of having three young children. The family had to put up with a lot of extra strain as the build went on and they are truly an inspiration in their own right.\u00a0<\/p>\n The project has been done with a large amount of support from the local companies and tradesman and we hope that you will think of them when looking for your own construction needs. We must mention special thanks to firstly long term sponsors W.A Browne and their Managing Director Matthew McAdams who has supported BCT from its inception some 7 years ago and helped the organisation in many projects. The support of people like Mat has been of great support and major factor in a lot of our achievements.<\/p>\n We must also thank Taylor Wimpey North Yorkshire for again continuing to support the organisation. Yet again they have been with us since the beginning and this support has been at times invaluable. This has included Paul going back to sub-contract for the company when times have been hard at BCT.\u00a0<\/p>\n Everybody at BCT Aspire wish the Lancaster family every happiness in the future as they truly deserve it. Cole is an inspiration in his own right and brings joy to everyone he touches.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n BCT Aspire would like to thank the following:<\/p>\n For Materials<\/strong><\/p>\n Tarmac – top blocks and plasmo blocks For Individual Labour <\/strong><\/p>\n Foundations : Paul Burgum, Paul Burr, Andy Lancaster It is close to two years ago that Paul Burgum first met with the Lancaster family in view of assisting to raise funds for the family to aid the development … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":605,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bct-aspire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bctaspire.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bctaspire.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bctaspire.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bctaspire.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bctaspire.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/bctaspire.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":635,"href":"https:\/\/bctaspire.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions\/635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bctaspire.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bctaspire.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bctaspire.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bctaspire.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAW Cowan Groundworks \u2013 Concrete
\nScott Bros – transport \/ Waste Removal
\nArchibolds of Stockton (Jewsons) insulation etc
\nHoggarts Transport (Wilton)
\nCemex – motors
\nHathaway& Hoyle – timber
\nAlexander Sinclair North East ltd – Roofers
\nTaylor Wimpey North Yorkshire Ltd \u2013 labor
\nLorne Stewart
\nWH Dunnes – plumbers
\nEnergy Efficient Windows
\nWA Brownes – dry liners
\nDuel Bound Electrical Ltd
\nBCT Events – 500 mile walk by Paul Burgum managing director to raise funds and awareness of the Lancaster family situation.<\/p>\n
\nBrickwork : Paul Burr, assisted by Paul Burgum & Andy Lancaster
\nScaffolding: John Borthwick, Tommy Bell
\nDrainage: Paul Burr, Andy Lancaster
\nFloor & Joists: Paul Burgum
\nRoof : Paul Burgum
\nFascias & Gutterings: Andy Lancaster
\nRoofing : Alexander Sinclair
\nAll Plumbing Work : Justin Harley
\n1st Fix Joinery : Paul Burgum
\nAll Electrical Work: Dualbound
\nDrylining: Paul Brown, Paul Windrigde, Carl ???
\n2nd Fix Joinery: Andy Lancaster<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"